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 16 2018

Mister Miracle 7: Discussion

by Michael DeLaney and Drew Baumgartner 

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Michael: A “realistic approach” to comic book superheroes is sometimes successful (often with Batman comics). But most of the time, when you bind the mythic origins of superheroes to real world science and logic, you lose something from the original incarnation. However there’s a difference between a realistic approach and a serious approach to superheroes, like Tom King’s exploration of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World in Mister Miracle 7. This isn’t to say that King’s script is grim and humorless, but that he takes all aspects of Scott Free’s otherworldly life at face value, no matter how “silly” or “outrageous” they might sound in the context of the real world. Continue reading →

Mar 16 2018

Relishing Genre in Vampironica 1

by Drew Baumgartner

Vampironica 1

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a teenage girl battles (slays, if you will) vampires in her suburban hometown. The connections between Vampironica and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are myriad (honestly, if you asked me which takes place in “Sunnydale” and which in “Riverdale,” I’d get it wrong 50% of the time), but clearly intentional. Indeed, writers Meg and Greg Smallwood revel in the Buffy-ness of their opening, introducing Veronica Lodge as a vampire-slaying badass, bringing her own stakes to rescue some typically teen partygoers from some marauding ghouls. But there’s a twist (albeit one that features prominently on the cover and gives this series its name): Veronica is a vampire. Continue reading →

Mar 15 2018

All-New Wolverine 32 finds Catharsis in Revenge

by Drew Baumgartner

All-New Wolverine 32

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

This issue opens with a heartbreaking flashback sequence chronicling the simultaneous loss of innocence for two young girls. One is Amber Griffen, whose father was killed at his first day on the job protecting a presidential candidate. The other is Laura Kinney, who was the assassin sent to kill that candidate (and anyone else within clawing distance). Years later, it’s easy to understand why these women would be enemies, but Tom Taylor and Djibril Morissette-Phan take care to demonstrate that Laura is every bit as victimized by these events as Amber, telling their stories in parallel to drive that point home.

Amber and Laura Continue reading →

Mar 14 2018

Escalation and Coincidence in The Wild Storm 12

by Drew Baumgartner

Wild Storm 12

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Towards the end of this issue, Jackie King dismisses the simultaneity of the attack on Hightower and IO’s own attack on Skywatch as “coincidental.” She’s not wrong, exactly — not only was the Hightower attack not retaliatory, it wasn’t even perpetrated by Skywatch — but she’s not quite right, either. In a series so fixated on cause and effect, there are no coincidences; these attacks may be separate bowling pins, but they were set in motion by the same ball. It’s a hell of an idea for us to get our heads around — especially when one of the most cunning characters makes clear she hasn’t quite internalized it yet — but it’s an attitude that Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt have woven into every panel of this series, creating a kind of fractal that keeps pointing to cause and effect. Continue reading →

Mar 13 2018

Remixing the Familiar in Oblivion Song 1

by Drew Baumgartner

Oblivion Song

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

…there is no new thing under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9

It’s unfortunate that pointing out that something isn’t entirely original is seen as a critique. In this postmodern age of the remix, surely we can all understand that nothing is “entirely original,” or at least isn’t made from entirely original parts. As with cooking, the excitement lies more in how the individual ingredients interact with one another than any one ingredient’s novelty. Such is the case with Robert Kirkman and Lorenzo De Felici’s new Oblivion Song, which smashes together several familiar premises and character motivations, but manages to produce something surprisingly refreshing. Continue reading →

Mar 12 2018

The Burden and Joy of Public Service in Captain America 699

by Drew Baumgartner

Captain America 699

This article will contain SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

For many superheroes, superheroics are a means of righting some cosmic injustice — the death of a loved one a the hands of a criminal, for example. Indeed, that particular motivation is so ubiquitous, it’s easy to forget that many heroes are motivated not out of some personal vendetta, but because they feel morally compelled to help when they can. We tend to think of Spider-Man (death of a loved one at the hands of a criminal notwithstanding) for that kind of power/responsibility stuff, but I’ll suggest that Captain America might embody those ideals even more thoroughly. For Cap, superheroing is a public service, no different from volunteering at a soup kitchen or picking up trash at your local park. He’s able to make the world a better place by being Captain America, so he has to be Captain America. Again, it’s not an attitude that’s entirely unique to Steve Rogers, but as Mark Waid and Chris Samnee crank that aspect up to eleven in Captain America 699, it’s hard to imagine any other character living that ideal so perfectly. Continue reading →

Mar 12 2018

East of West 36: Discussion

By Drew Baumgartner and Taylor Anderson

East of West 36

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.

James A. Baldwin

Drew: The sci-fi trappings of East of West can at times make its alternate history feel particularly exotic, but for better or for worse, much of its history resembles our own. I mean, sure, our own Civil War ended in just over four years, and there was no comet that brought with it an apocalyptic prophecy, but most of the makings of that world lie in the very real history of the antebellum United States. Indeed, the ugliest parts of East of West‘s history are based entirely on the truths of American slavery and Manifest Destiny — the legacies of which we’ve never truly reconciled as a nation. Case in point: the Union’s capitol is built on the literal bones of the Endless Nation, turning a symbol of our own shameful past into a potent image that had heretofore given the Union power over the Nation. It’s only by — again, literally — digging up that history that any progress can be made. Continue reading →

Mar 8 2018

Hawkeye 16: Discussion

by Patrick Ehlers and Drew Baumgartner

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

X marks the spot.

treasure map, traditional

Patrick: How do you know where to look? I’m asking a holistic question here. When you’re walking down the street, what draws your eye? When you’re deciding what to do next with your life, how do you decide what people and what activities are of value to you? Maybe we’re following signs, or bright lights, or that warm feeling of belonging. It’s something. Hawkeye 16 shows both Kate and Eden coming to terms with what they’ve been looking for, all while Kelly Thompson and Leonardo Romero expertly show the reader where to look. Continue reading →

Mar 7 2018

The Promise of Infinite Possibilities in Fu Jitsu 5

by Drew Baumgartner

Fu Jitsu 5

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

There are infinite possibilities occurring simultaneously, every second.

Fu Jitsu

And with that, Jai Nitz and Wesley St. Claire lay out the case for more Fu Jitsu. Sure, they get more specific at the end of the issue, encouraging folks to spread the word about the series to help keep it alive, but the reason to keep it alive is revealed right there in Fu’s opening lines: this is a series built on infinite possibilities. Indeed, Nitz and St. Claire are so confident with that truth that they don’t need to bother explaining how future issues could even be possible. [SPOILERS aplenty after the break]  Continue reading →

Mar 6 2018

An Unsettling Twist Changes the Game in Black Panther 170

By Drew Baumgartner

Black Panther 170

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Black Panther 170 is by all measures a climactic issue. Indeed, with so many of T’Challa’s villains and allies joining the fray, the bulk of the issue has a decidedly “Battle of the Five Armies” feel to it, which artist Leonard Kirk captures in all of its chaotic glory.

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

We may suspect a quieter, more personal denouement down the line — Klaw, Stane, Faustus, and Zenzi are nowhere near this fight — but this feels like the big army battle before things tighten back up to Black Panther tracking down the villains and rescuing his kidnapped friend. We think we know where this is going, but then writer Ta-Nehisi Coates yanks the rug out from under us on a stunning final page turn. [Major spoilers after the break!] Continue reading →