Iron Man #7: A Medical Review
Iron Man #7 “Execute Program, Part 1”
Daniel and Charles Knauf, writers
Patrick Zircher, penciler
In the heat of battle, Iron Man blasts the Dynamo with his repulsor rays right in the chest and the Dynamo falls to the ground, his heart stopped. Iron Man flies down next to him and sends several jolts of electricity through the Dynamo suit, restarting his heart. After the battle, we discover that this stopping/restarting the heart is precisely what Tony Stark planned on happening.
I’m of two minds about the medicine here, and both of them think it’s wrong. First, a shot to the chest would not stop the heart as abruptly as it was shown in the comic. Second, even if it did stop the heart, Iron Man’s shocking the Dynamo to restart it was a bad idea.
- It is a known fact that a strong blunt trauma blow to the chest can cause a fatal arrhythmia (bad heart rhythm). However, in these situations the heart doesn’t stop abruptly — as happens to Crimson Dynamo — but instead develops a dangerous rhythm such as ventricular fibrillation that then deteriorates into asystole (the absence of a heart beat). The heart would not have stopped beating as completely and as quickly as shown1.
- When the heart has stopped beating entirely, despite what you see on television, the chances of successfully restarting it are dismal. The recommended treatments include CPR, epinephrine, atropine, and transcutaneous pacing. You’ll notice that defibrillation (shocking the patient) is nowhere on the list2. It is not a recommended treatment for asystole because studies have shown that it leads to even worse than expected outcomes (in other words, it leads to more dead patients).
I’ll admit that stopping an opponent’s heart is a novel, if fairly unethical, approach to battling super villains. But I would recommend that Tony Stark do a little more research into the physiology of the human heart before attempting it again3.
1Unless, of course, Stark has developed some new Ultra-Repulsor-Heart-Stopper beams.
2Unless, of course, Stark has developed some new Ultra-Heart-Restarter-Shock gloves.
3Unless, of course, Stark has developed some new Ultra-”We-Never-Lose”-Manslaughter attorneys.
June 15th, 2006 at 10:56 am
Your comments are fascecious, even for a Superhero Universe, but given that Iron Man’s schtick for the longest time was “Batteries running low… Heart stopping!!!”, if I were Stark I would definitely develop Ultra-Heart-Restarter-Shock gloves. (And then license them to Duracell to be sold to airports and schools.)
And of course, once you have those, you might as well develop Ultra-Repulsor-Heart-Stopper beams just so you have a reason to use them.
(As for Ultra-”We-Never-Lose”-Manslaughter attorneys, we are talking about a man whose family business is armament, who is politically savvy enough to become Secretary of Defense, and who – according to She-Hulk – pushed through a law in NYC where Superheroes can carry any weapon they choose contrary to existing law, simply because he didn’t want a waiting period for his new armor. I think that the first thing he developed was UWNLMA. And then left them on retainer with the Avengers, particularly the Hulk.)
June 21st, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Great post. I like the way you analyze the medical procedures in comics. I guess if you saw
MI:3 you must’ve laughed out loud (I know I did).
Cheers!
November 16th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Is it really unethical, if you can’t beat the villain any other way than stopping his heart, to do it rather than let him slaughter lots of innocents? I know that mainstream (DC and Marvel) comics like to pretend that you can always get around this question (with Punisher being a major exception), but still.
Of course if Iron Man had other options, then sure, it would be unethical.
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