Polite Dissent

The idealistic young intern Dr. James Kildare was the star of a series of successful movies in the late 1930s and early ’40s. In the 1960s, Dr. Kildare returned as a television drama starring a young Richard Chamberlain. In 1962, Dr. Kildare starred in his first comic book: Four Color Comics #1337 published by Dell.

Eddie Eastman, a well-known gambler, is in trouble. A bookie owes him $10,000 and instead of paying, has decided to kill him. Eastman decides the best way to hide is to check himself into the hospital.

Eastman comes to the hospital and is admitted for sharp chest pains. His physical exam is normal so Dr. Kildare runs some standard heart tests, which unsurprisingly come back normal as well. The next morning, Kildare wants to discharge Eastman, but the gambler has other ideas — he wants to stay in the hospital until the coast is clear. First he tries to bribe Kildare, but Kildare refuses to be bought. Instead, Eastman resorts to threats and suggests that he’ll have Dr. Gillespie, the hospital Chief of Staff, killed if Kildare doesn’t keep him in the hospital.

Reluctantly, Kildare agrees, but orders an entire battery of tests — many of them painful — to “justify” the stay in the hospital. Except for a slightly elevated blood sugar, the tests are normal. Kildare then tries to appeal to the gambler’s conscience by telling him that his bed is needed for a sicker patient. To prove his point, he takes the gambler on rounds with him to show him how crowded the rest of the hospital is.

Kildare is called away to an emergency surgery on a young girl caught in a car accident. Hearing this, the gambler’s conscience gets the best of him and he checks out of the hospital. In a shocking turn of events (well, not really that shocking), Eastman is gunned down as he walks out of the hospital. Luckily Dr. Kildare is nearby and rushes him into surgery and saves his life. The police catch the gunman and arrest the bookie. A grateful Eastman gives the hospital a check for ten thousand dollars. Dr. Kildare, instead of being rewarded, is reprimanded by Dr. Gillespie because Gillespie thought he was looking down on Eastman because of his occupation. How’s that for gratitude? Save your boss’s life and earn a reprimand. Such is the life of an intern.

The art is pretty bad. The supporting characters are caricatures and have been taken straight out of central casting. The main characters don’t look at all like themselves and the coloring is off as well. Kildare looks likes he’s at least 65 years old and has hair of that unique-to-comics blue/black color; Dr. Gillespie looks like W. C. Fields. Despite these flaws, the comic proved successful enough to earn Dr. Kildare his own series that ran for nine issues from 1962 to 1965.