Category Drew Baumgartner

Drew Baumgartner, Co-Editor-In-Chief
drew@retcon-punch.com

Location: Milwaukee

History With Comics: Drew grew up with Superman pajamas. His best days were when he never had to change out of them. He fell in love with Batman the Animated Series when he was 5. He had never read a comic in his life, but started reading Batman trades when he was in high school. He continued to pick up trades and one-offs throughout the 00’s, but never got into the monthly swing. After almost a decade of being an outsider looking in, Drew seized upon DC’s relaunch to start picking up monthlies.

Mar 3 2014

Empire of the Dead 2

Alternating Currents: Empire of the Dead 2, Drew and PatrickToday, Drew and Patrick are discussing Empire of the Dead 2, originally released February 26th, 2014. 

slim-bannerDrew: What is it that makes us human? Is it the capacity for emotion? Reason? Is it the ability to recognize that other people might have perspectives and motivations that are different from our own? These are some of the most fundamental questions of philosophy and psychology– perhaps too big to hope to tackle in a discussion of a horror comic book — but I’d like to suggest that humanity, however we define it, is the detail that separates Zombies and Vampires. Sure, there are the obvious cosmetic differences (illustrated beautifully by Alex Maleev on this month’s cover), but they’re ultimately quite similar: both are undead, both feed on humans, and both have the power to convert their victims into more monsters. The fundamental difference between the two — and what makes each so scary — is the question of their humanity: vampires have all of those qualities I mentioned up front, but zombies don’t at all. Or, at least they usually don’t — Empire of the Dead 2 reveals that its zombies may be more human than it may seem. Continue reading →

Feb 28 2014

The Flash 28

flash 28Today, Scott and Drew are discussing The Flash 28, originally released February 26th, 2014.

Scott: As a kid, I didn’t enjoy ghost stories very much. I did my best to avoid them, but sometimes, late at night at a slumber party or around a campfire, it was impossible. I endured; listening wasn’t the hard part. In the moment, whatever shock or gore the stories contained didn’t affect me much. It was the aftermath, the lingering psychological torment — the fear, however irrational, that maybe the deranged killers they told these stories about might actually exist. In The Flash 28, Barry Allen is confronted with my greatest fear: the murderous monster from his childhood ghost story is real. A ghost story combined with a detective story, this issue is as fun as you can imagine, even though all of the elements don’t mix together quite right.
Continue reading →

Feb 27 2014

100 Bullets: Brother Lono 8

Alternating Currents: 100 Bullets 8, Drew and PatrickToday, Drew and Patrick are discussing 100 Bullets: Brother Lono 8, originally released February 26th, 2014.

We are what he made us to be. To try and be something else…is the greatest sin of all.

Lono

Drew: I didn’t know religion growing up. My parents never took me to church, and somehow, none of my childhood friends ever went, either. It wasn’t until I entered middle school that I made friends with people of any kind of faith — run of the mill midwest Lutheranism, but they might as well have been the pope in my sheltered mind. Being both 13 and an asshole (I know that seems redundant, but I only grew out of one of those), I enjoyed picking fights with them over simple religious tenants. The simplest — why do bad things happen to good people? — was most commonly answered with the wimpy cop-out of “God works in mysterious ways.” That seems like a simple enough “we’ll never know” (and was probably only ever invoked to get me off their backs), but as with most religious answers, that simplicity masks a world infinitely more complex than the question itself. Is everything that ever happens part of God’s “mysterious” workings? If “bad” things can be part of God’s plan, doesn’t that throw the whole notion of morality out the window? These questions lie at the heart of Brother Lono 8, though the answers Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso come up with may not be what anyone suspected. Continue reading →

Feb 26 2014

Weekly Round-Up: Comics Released 2/19/14

round upLook, there are a lot of comics out there. Too many. We can never hope to have in-depth conversations about all of them. But, we sure can round up some of the more noteworthy titles we didn’t get around to from the week. Today, Spencer, Patrick, and Drew discuss New Warriors 1, Avengers World 3, A+X 17, Amazing X-Men 4, Batwoman 28, Batman and Two-Face 28, and Justice League 28. 

slim-banner4Spencer: Due to my fondness for young superheroes, a rapidly growing appreciation for Nova, and a long-standing love of Marcus To’s art, I decided to check out this week’s New Warriors 1 by Christopher Yost and Marcus To. The issue introduces us to all but one of the members portrayed on the cover — Nova, Speedball, Justice, Scarlet Spider, Hummingbird, Sun Girl, and Faira Sar Namora — as each group faces down the forces of the High Evolutionary. While it didn’t necessarily blow me away, this is still a solid issue. Continue reading →

Feb 26 2014

Uncanny X-Men 17

Alternating Currents: Uncanny X-Men 17, Drew and TaylorToday,  Drew and Taylor are discussing Uncanny X-Men 17, originally released February 19th, 2014.

Drew: What would you do if you found yourself lost in the wilderness? It’s the kind of thought experiment that captured my mind as a child. I’m sure the survival skills I cobbled together from movies and second-hand stories from friends wouldn’t have gotten me very far, but I liked to imagine that I would be cool and in control. I still find myself mentally preparing for similarly absurd hypotheticals (where would I go if there was a zombie apocalypse?), but experience has made it clear that decision-making tends to be impaired by the heat of the moment. That is, you may know you’re supposed to turn into the skid, but there’s a pretty big gap between what you know and what you’re actually capable of when in a state of panic. The only way to practice working under pressure is to actually be under pressure, which is exactly what Uncanny X-Men 17 is all about. Continue reading →

Feb 25 2014

Fables 138

Alternating Currents: Fables 138, Drew and PatrickToday, Drew and Patrick are discussing Fables 138, originally released February 19th, 2014.

Drew: I know this cements me as a twenty-something white-boy nerd, but I love it when stories get meta. Fiction is full of characters and situations we can relate to, but few themes are as unifying as the love of storytelling itself. Fables has long been a celebration of the power of storytelling — the way it inspires us, challenges us, and teaches us — but in the wrong hands, that power can be dangerous. After all, what is a lie if not a story? It would be easy to ignore the dark side of fiction, but Fables 138 boldly turns away from Rose Red’s Camelot to detail the deceit Geppetto has hidden behind as he works in secret to rebuild his empire.

Continue reading →

Feb 21 2014

Daredevil 36

daredevil 36Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Daredevil 36, originally released February 19, 2014. 

Patrick: I haven’t been reading Marvel comics all that long — in fact, just as the New 52 got me into reading Batman and the gang, Marvel Now got me into reading Spider-Man and the gang. My constant-comic-discovering-buddy Drew pointed out something profound very early on: Marvel is much more interested in reconciling the superheroes with the secret identities than DC is. Which isn’t to say that there isn’t tension between Clark Kent and Superman or that there aren’t similarities between Barry Allen and The Flash, but Marvel heroes tend to lead two rich, full lives that grind against each other constantly. Such is the case with Matt Murdock — the guy even has a history of aggressively asserting that he’s not Daredevil. The finale to Mark Waid and Chris Samnee’s phenomenal run (for now) sees Matt Murdock and Daredevil united as a single set of priorities, values, loves, vulnerabilities and friends. Continue reading →

Feb 20 2014

Harley Quinn 3

Alternating Currents: Harley Quinn 3, Drew and SpencerToday, Drew and Spencer are discussing Harley Quinn 3, originally released February 19th, 2014.

Drew: When someone accuses a joke of “going too far,” they tend to mean that it is offensive — that it has left the concept of good taste behind in the pursuit of a bigger laugh. But offensiveness isn’t the only metric of taste. Indeed, I would argue that even the most family-friendly humor can take its core concepts “too far,” neglecting to cultivate the expectations that jokes are designed to subvert. Taken too far, scenarios become unrecognizable, characters become unrelatable, and irony curdles into nihilism. It’s the reason I can’t really get into Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! — I’m unable to form a frame of reference for why it’s even supposed to be funny, making the experience little more than a parade of one-note awkwardness. I found myself feeling the same things as I read Harley Quinn 3, as the series continues to stretch its own rules to the breaking point. When absolutely anything is possible, it’s hard to be surprised by a punchline. Continue reading →

Feb 19 2014

Weekly Round-Up: Comics Released 2/12/14

round upLook, there are a lot of comics out there. Too many. We can never hope to have in-depth conversations about all of them. But, we sure can round up some of the more noteworthy titles we didn’t get around to from the week. Today, Patrick, Drew and Shelby discuss Red Sonja: Berzerker, Winter Soldier: Bitter March 1, Nightwing 28, Legenderry: A Steam Punk Adventure 2, and Green Lantern Corps 28. 

slim-banner4Patrick: Written by Nancy Collins and drawn by Fritz Casas, Red Sonja: Berzerker bears very little resemblance to the Gail Simone and Walter Geovanni series to which I subscribed. The story follows the unlikely friendship between Sonja and a polar bear that she rescued from some viking hunters. After years of living and hunting together in the woods, Sonja leaves her friend and returns to “civilized” society, only to discover that every man wants to degrade, fuck and enslave her. There’s an unnerving amount of sexual harassment and female oppression in this issue — Sonja’s always able to defend herself agains her oppressors, but every single interaction is colored by sexual threats, assumptions that she’s a prostitute and/or liberal use of the word “bitch.” And these shitty dudes keep bringing up the “if you don’t want this attention, why are you dressed like that?” argument, which mirrors the victim-blaming pervasive in our current culture. Collins seems so hell-bent on expressing this idea, which is odd as the whole point of the issue is the relationship between Sonja and this bear, which shows up in the final act to help her escape like the 10 billionth gladiatorial arena scenario Sonja’s found herself trapped in. It’s a muddled story, that tries to make too many points, many gracelessly. But hey, Casas draws a damn cute polar bear cub, so maybe it’s worth it for that. Continue reading →

Feb 18 2014

Manifest Destiny 4

Alternating Currents: Manifest Destiny 4, Drew and Taylor

Today, Drew and Taylor are discussing Manifest Destiny 4, originally released February 12th, 2014.

I’m busier than you.

College, Traditional

Drew: I don’t know if it is true everywhere, but when I was in college, scheduling a meeting or asking someone to help with something was basically made impossible by everyone’s knee-jerk insistence that they were SO busy. I absolutely understand the importance of saying “no” when you really are busy, but the implication that someone was unwilling to make time for whatever group project that everyone else was making time for always drove me nuts. It was known around campus as the “I’m busier than you” game, which found its practitioners preemptively complaining about how busy they were in hopes of avoiding being asked to do anything. The best response I ever saw to these kinds of complaints was a friend insisting that he had just run a marathon with knives embedded in both thighs — something so over-the-top to (hopefully) give everyone a little perspective on how silly it is to complain about term papers or whatever. Of course, nothing we could come up with was quite as extreme as single-handedly fighting off a band of monsters WHILE PREGNANT, which is to say, Sacagawea (or at least the version of her that appears in Manifest Destiny 4) would have easily won the “I’m busier than you” game. Continue reading →