Category Patrick Ehlers

Patrick Ehlers, Co-Editor-In-Chief
patrick@retcon-punch.com

Location: Los Angeles

History With Comics: Patrick came late to the comics game. After enjoying adaptations of Batman, Superman and the Justice League, he was finally tricked into picking up a set of graphic novels after seeing Robert Rodriguez’ Sin City. Naturally, this lead to further exploration of Frank Miller’s work, specifically with Batman. But it was not until an unexplainable desire to read Blackest Night that Patrick began purchasing the trades of Geoff Johns’ run Green Lantern. With a convenient new entry point and a handful of friends to follow him into the madness, Patrick began reading monthlies with the New 52’s Justice League #1.

New 52 Favorites: The Flash, Swamp Thing, Batwoman

Other Favorite Comics: Usagi Yojimbo, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Saga

Feb 13 2015

Harley Quinn Valentine’s Day Special 1

harley quinn valentine

Today, Spencer and Patrick are discussing Harley Quinn Valentine’s Special 1, originally released February 11th, 2015.

Spencer: Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti had a rough road ahead of them when tasked with refashioning Harley Quinn into the star of her own comic book. A villain protagonist must walk a fine line, being sympathetic enough to earn the audience’s affection while still villainous enough to avoid losing the spark that drew readers to them in the first place. Conner and Palmiotti’s approach to Harley Quinn has often involved pitting their villain protagonist against people even worse than she is, having her stand up for animal rights, and giving her a sort-of family in the form of her tenants; judging from sales numbers, it’s been a successful tactic, but has Harley become a better person in the process? Despite being a holiday special, that’s the question at the heart of Harley Quinn Valentine’s Special 1, and it’s a surprisingly rich question to ask, even if the answer is a bit unclear, and the question often muddied and buried within the oversized issue’s many tangents and asides. Continue reading →

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 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 10 2015

Saga 25

saga 25

Today, Ryan and Patrick are discussing Saga 25, originally released February 4th, 2015.

Ryan: Pop culture loves rebels. We hang posters of them in our dorm rooms, whether they have a cause or not. We wear red graphic t-shirts emblazoned with their likeness, not very concerned about some of the more morally ambiguous acts this person committed. Luke Skywalker played figurehead for the Rebel Alliance and may be the most popular and beloved rebel of all time, despite the fact that the blood of 322,951 Death Star personnel (not to mention the oil of 400 thousand plus droids) stains his non-synthetic hand. Saga 25 adds another variable into the mix with the introduction of a third side to the outstanding war between Landfall and Wreath, while also providing another complication to the Dengo child-heist. 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 5 2015

Star Wars 2

star wars 2

Today, Taylor and Patrick are discussing Star Wars 2, originally released February 4th, 2015.

Taylor: When do you officially become too old to play with action figures? I’ve often wondered this because I suspect I played with my action figures longer than most. Was it too long? I have fond memories of having adventures with my Star Wars toys well into sixth grade. However, when I made the transition to middle school in 7th grade (that’s Kansas for you) I felt I had reached the age where it wasn’t socially acceptable to play with them anymore. This was a sad time for me.What made it painful then, as it does now, is that it signaled a loss of creativity for me. No longer would I be able to create my own Star Wars adventures. I’d have to take them as they were handed to me in video games and books. Marvel’s Star Wars, while still feeding me a Star Wars story, and captures the wild imagination of someone creating their own adventures, and that’s damn fun. 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 3 2015

Gotham Academy 4

gotham acadamy 4

Today, Spencer and Suzanne are discussing Gotham Academy 4, originally released January 28th, 2015.

Spencer: Every property handles the supernatural a little differently. Some reject supernatural elements entirely while others use them as their primary concept; shows like Scooby Doo or Doctor Who regularly tease the supernatural before inevitably revealing them to be hoaxes or extraterrestrial in nature, while at DC Comics the supernatural is a well-known, accepted part of the universe, but one that rarely takes center stage. This is particularly true in Gotham City, so I always kinda assumed that the supernatural elements in Becky Cloonan, Brenden Fletcher and Karl Kerschl’s Gotham Academy would turn out to be hoaxes; two different reveals in issue four prove me right, but what I appreciate about these reveals is how they both help to expand and develop the world of Gotham Academy in drastically different, but equally effective ways. Continue reading →

Feb 2 2015

All-New X-Men 35

Alternating Currents: All-New X-Men 35, Ryan and Patrick

Today, Ryan and Patrick are discussing All-New X-Men 35, originally released January 21st, 2015.

Ryan: The “how” of All-New X-Men 35 may come off as complicated, but is fairly straightforward compared to some of the dimension and timeline hopping we have seen recently. With the grown-up, 616-proper X-men all converging on the last will and testament of one Charles Xavier, the temporally and dimensionally-displaced All-New (plus X-23) find themselves in the Ultimate Universe thanks to the powers of a new mutant named Carmen. These X-men find the heroes on Earth-1610 still recovering from the devastation of Gah Lak Tus’s attack during Cataclysm, and a general populace wherein mutants are not only marginalized, but actively outlawed. See? Simple. Continue reading →

Jan 30 2015

Effigy 1

effigy 1

Today, Patrick and Spencer are discussing Effigy 1, originally released January 28th, 2015.

Patrick: How many different police procedurals are on TV right now? Like a billion. (Don’t check my facts on that.) They’re all basically the same, and you can usually determine whodunnit by the order the characters are introduced (or by who’s the most prestigious guest star), so what’s the difference between them really? Perhaps intuitively, it’s the detectives themselves that make or break a detective show. The light sci-fi premise of The X-Files might have sold the series, but it’s the personalities of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully that give the series staying power. Tim Seely’s new series, Effigy, works extra hard to give us a clear and unique vision of our detective, so by the time the mystery finally hits, we’re already invested.  Continue reading →