Know Your Plagues
I’ve talked in the past about how difficult it must be for a doctor in a world of super-heroes. How can you tell if a patient has a classic migraine headache or are a victim of a psychic attack? Or maybe their mutant powers are starting to emerge?
Comic books are also filled with strange and deadly diseases which doctors would need to be able to recognize. Here is a simple quiz which I’ve limited to only comic book diseases with the word “Plague” in their names. How many can you identify — and maybe more importantly — how many can you successfully cure?
1. Fever Plague
2. Green Plague
3. Jackson Plague
4. Purple Plague
5. Seeing Plague
6. Yellow Plague
Symptoms:
A. The primary symptom of this very contagious disease is sudden blindness.
B. Victims of this disease experience the rapid onset of a fever, followed by an increasing malaise and weakness. Coma and death inevitably follow. Strangely, this disease only affects adults and is not dangerous to children.
C. This non-contagious disease turns the skin of its victims green.
D. Victims of this very contagious disease fall into a sudden sleep from which they cannot be awakened. A short time later they die. The victim’s skin is covered with dark splotches.
E. People infected with this disease become very weak and tired as their skin takes on a yellow cast. They frequently exhibit a sudden psychotic rage shortly before finally succumbing to the disease.
F. The skin and muscles of people exposed to this rapidly spreading and fatal disease completely liquefy, yet the skeleton remains animated.
Treatments:
a. Herbs acquired from a Latin American witch doctor.
b. Sonic vibrations.
c. Light from a red sun.
d. Transfusion of Kryptonian blood.
e. Injectable serum antidote.
f. Allow the disease to run its course. It is harmless and no treatment is necessary.
g. Unknown (the treatment is never mentioned in the comic).
h. Powder made from bark of a tropical tree.
1-B-d (This is the disease which killed Ma and Pa Kent, pre-reboot.)
2-C-f (From the files of the Golden Age hero: the Enchanted Dagger.)
3-F-b (An alien sonic virus from Irredeemable.)
4-D-e (An early Superman story from Action Comics #19.)
5-A-g (From a throwaway line in JSA #61.)
6-E-a (Another early Superman story from Superman #11.)
Further information (for you masochists in the audience): The Fever Plague, the Green Plague, the Purple Plague, the Seeing Plague, and the Yellow Plague.
October 26th, 2010 at 12:11 am
Whoa. I would be in trouble.
For a different, but similarly fun, exercise: would you rather work a shift in the ER in Metropolis, or Gotham? Why?
For me it comes down to having S.T.A.R. Labs nearby, versus having to check to see if Batman happened to drop by with any anti-Smilex compound recently.
October 26th, 2010 at 10:05 am
Well, according to various sources (wikipedia, DC gaming manuals), Metropolis has at least 3 STAR Lab locations. (Shush, I’m a big dork who was working on a DC remix universe.)
October 28th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
I think you can Avoid Getting Sick from plague too. Rat poison and flea collars.
October 30th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
[...] Know Your Plagues [...]
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