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.

Feb 13 2015

The Amazing Spider-Man 14

amazing spider-man 14

Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing The Amazing Spider-Man 14, originally released February 11th, 2015.

Patrick: Were any of you paying attention to Twitter when they announced that Spider-Man would be appearing in the Disney Marvel movies? It was surreal: like a piece of super-fan-fantasy mutated into a news item and enthusiastically expressed itself in the middle of the night. On my feed, no one more more elated by this news than Amazing Spider-Man writer Dan Slott. He filled twitter with all-caps celebrations — not because he had anything to do with negotiating this deal (nor will he have any role in developing Peter Parker’s role in the MCU), but because he’s a goddamn super-fan. As the impresario and master weaver of Spider-Verse, Slott has had the opportunity to shout his love for all the Spiders from the heavens, and in issue 14, he goes out swinging, symbolically ceding his own control over the Spiders back to the characters themselves. Continue reading →

Feb 12 2015

Darth Vader 1

darth vader 1

Today, Taylor and Drew are discussing Darth Vader 1 originally released February 11th, 2015.

Taylor: When I was in second grade the fire department came to my school to give us a demonstration about what to do in a fire. The coolest part about this, aside from getting out of class, was that they brought a trailer with a fake house that simulated what it would be like to be in a house that was ablaze. During the lecture before we went in, they said we should know never to fear a firefighter in this or any other house. They continued, saying that a lot of kids get scared of fire fighters in full garb because they sound and look like Darth Vader given their oxygen tanks and mask. I distinctly remember this because it made so much sense. Darth Vader was serious business and I could see why kids might be scared of a fire fighter that resembled him. But can you imagine this line working on kids today? With the passage of time (and prequels) the myth of Vader has faded, and so too has his fearsome facade. Issue 1 of Marvel’s Darth Vader has me wondering, will he ever get that fearsomeness back? Continue reading →

Feb 11 2015

Weekly Round-Up: Comics Released 2/4/15

round up

Look, 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, Drew, Michael, Patrick and Ryan discuss Batman Eternal 44, Detective Comics 39, Action Comics 39, C.O.W.L. 8, American Vampire: Second Cycle 6, Green Lantern 39, Grayson 7, Ant-Man 2, Avengers 41, Wytches 4, Spawn 250, The Woods 10, Operation S.I.N. 2, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl 2 and Ms. Marvel 11.

slim-banner4

Spencer: If you asked me what the weakest part of Batman Eternal has been, I would without hesitation answer “the Arkham ghost stuff.” Putting aside my own dislike of supernatural stories (especially in Gotham), there’s also the fact that this plot has simply dragged on too long — and sure, the Nanotech stuff went longer without resolution, but once focus shifted to it the story played out in two or three issues. The Arkham story, meanwhile, has taken up a huge chunk of issues, and every time it seems resolved it pops up again a few issues later and starts all over again. So, I was obviously a bit dismayed when I saw issue 44 again returning to this plotline, but fortunately, the issue has two things going for it. First of all, it seems poised to finally reveal what this plot has actually been about once and for all, but more importantly, it also plays out as a rather tense and satisfying one-off chase between Batman, Milo, and the GCPD. There’s something gritty about ACO’s art that suits the feel of the issue, even if the action can sometimes be rather hard to follow. Continue reading →

Feb 11 2015

Velvet 9

velvet 9

Today, Spencer and Drew are discussing Velvet 9, originally released February 4th, 2015.

Spencer: Who can you trust? This can be a hard question for anyone to answer — how many of us have trusted someone who didn’t end up being worthy of it? — but for a spy, whose entire life revolves around secrets and lies, it’s practically impossible. Velvet Templeton is a spy on the run, further minimizing the list of people she can trust — even those she knows aren’t against her can’t necessarily be trusted to keep secrets from her employers. So far Velvet’s wise choices when it comes to trust have kept her one step ahead of her pursuers, but Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting’s Velvet 9 may find her making her first mistake by trusting Damian Lake even just a little — and in doing so, Velvet may have just found herself an opponent who can finally keep up with her. Continue reading →

Feb 11 2015

Nameless 1

nameless 1

Today, Michael and Drew are discussing Nameless 1, originally released February 4th, 2015.

Michael: Back to the Future, The Wizard of Oz, Wife Swap: popular pieces of film, literature and even reality TV. Besides being engaging pieces of fiction (reality TV burn!) they all have an essential plot element that draws us in as an audience: they are all “fish-out-of-water” stories. Marty McFly isn’t familiar with the culture of the ’50s, Dorothy doesn’t understand the strange land of Oz, and one wife doesn’t know how to live in a drastically different home. Since Nameless is a Grant Morrison story, it is over-the-top bonkers and full of heady ideas. At its core though, it is also a story about a fish out of water. Continue reading →

Feb 9 2015

East of West 17

east of west 17

Today, Drew and Taylor are discussing East of West 17, originally released February 4th, 2015.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

Star Wars

Drew: Myths are almost all told from a third person omniscient perspective in the past tense; not only do we get a glimpse into the separate actions of both the Tortoise and the Hare, we understand that this race already happened. That second part is natural to storytelling in general — everything from personal anecdotes to the high-flyingest science fiction is told as if the events already happened. Curiously, both tense and narrative mode tend to disappear when working in a visual medium — the illusion that these actions are actually playing out in front of us is strong enough to override any confusion about who is telling this story, and when. To give visual storytelling a mythic quality requires making the past tense nature and omniscient narrator explicit, perhaps with a framing device a la The Princess Bride, or perhaps just with that innocuous introduction I included above. East of West 17 finds writer Jonathan Hickman slipping his narrator in, lending the proceedings the mythic qualities they rightly deserve. Continue reading →

Feb 6 2015

Swamp Thing 39

swamp thing 39

Today, Patrick and Drew are discussing Swamp Thing 39, originally released February 4th, 2015.

“My lack of vision was unsurprising, in a way. If you’ve lived within a system long enough, it’s hard to imagine existing without it.”

Lady Weeds / The Machine Queen, Swamp Thing 39

Patrick: Comics, and superhero comics in particular, are a recursive, thematically redundant medium. Archie’s always going to date two ladies, Batman’s always going to miss his parents, Spider-Man is always going to crack wise. But if the X-Men are always going to be an analogue for any group with outsider status, why do we even bother to pick up the new issues? Is there something comfortable in reiterating on the same themes over and over again? Swamp Thing 39 features just about every single Swamp Thing-ism you can name — grotesque body horror, warring elementals, physically repulsive affection, John Constantine — but still seems to slyly suggest that there’s an alternative to all of it. Charles Soule has played the part of Swamp Thing writer so faithfully for so long, but if he’s any bit as anarchic as Lady Weeds — a character of his creation — we might be in store for an unpredictable ending to his final Swamp Thing story. Continue reading →

Feb 6 2015

Hawkeye 21

Alternating Currents: Hawkeye 21, Drew and Spencer

Today, Drew and Spencer are discussing Hawkeye 21, originally released February 4th, 2015.

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it…

Justice Potter Stewart

Drew: I’ve never been a fan of classifications in art. I could go on at length about how sub-subgenres eventually become too specific to have any utility, while broader classifications face the opposite problem of being to general, but my real issue is that our definitions fall apart under scrutiny. We tend to accept the kind of “I know it when I see it” definition of basically every category we have, from gender to genre, but most working definitions have to allow for so many exceptions that they lose all meaning. Take “superhero” for example. We all have a lose idea of who a superhero is, what they do, how they act, but to try and pin down the definition reveals that none of those things are fixed. Are they heroic (courageous, noble, selfless)? Many are, sure, but there are plenty of antiheroes muddying up any moral definition. What about superpowers? Again, lots do, but with so many non-powered superheroes, it’s hardly a criteria. The closest I can come up with is based on our relationship to superheroes — namely, that we expect their actions to lead to their success. In that way, I’d like to posit Clint Barton — particularly as depicted in Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Hawkeye — as an antisuperhero. Continue reading →

Feb 4 2015

Weekly Round-Up: Comics Released 1/28/15

round up Look, 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, Spencer and Drew discuss Secret Avengers 12, New Avengers 29, Spider-Man 2099 8, Nova 26, Harley Quinn 14, The Flash 38, Batman Eternal 43, Catwoman 38, Bitch Planet 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Ghostbusters 4, and Casanova: Acedia 1. slim-banner4 Patrick: M.O.D.O.K has always been the wild card of Ales Kot and Michael Walsh’s Secret Avengers, but issue 12 blow that unpredictability out to absurd levels as every single action he’s undertaken in the last year or so is explained to be that of some kind of rouge agent (or possibly even rouge double-agent). Y’see: M.O.D.O.K. had planned to betray the Secret Avengers and kill them, but he also legit fell in love with Maria Hill, so even while he was sending monsters to kill Coulson and Fury, he also didn’t want to hurt them. It’s an intensely dense bramblepatch of motivations, and it mostly works because the confusion is so damn entertaining. what Continue reading →

Feb 4 2015

Sex Criminals 10

sex criminals 10

Today, Patrick and Ryan are discussing Sex Criminals 10, originally released January 28th, 2015.

Patrick: I think we’re slowly starting to emerge on the other side of the age of the anti-hero: when your Tony Sopranos and Walter Whites and Don Drapers were the coolest guys on TV. If there’s one thing these guys all have in common — other than your suspicion that you couldn’t be friends with them in real life — it’s that they all know what they want. The means and methods by which they achieve their goals can be questionable, but as long as they continue to express an honest desire, the audience never goes away. It’s strong, and somehow morally correct. Even when their worlds are crashing down around them, we have faith in the anti-hero’s unwavering need to get what they want. So where does that leave us with characters that don’t know or can’t articulate what they want? That’s a relatable trait, probably more relatable than any of us would like to admit. Continue reading →