Polite Dissent

More than once, I’ve pointed out when a penciler takes a little artistic license and draws extraneous IV lines, tubes, and wires in hospital scenes.

This cover, however, takes to a new ridiculous extreme. Exactly how many tubes and wires does John Lynch need?

cover from Team 7 #2, art by Aron Wiesenfeld

There are days when a gorilla practicing medicine makes as much sense as anything else.

With the 2009 Tour de France starting this weekend, I thought it would be the perfect time for this bike themed public service ad from 1960. There’s not much too it: a few take home points and then a quick quiz. Can you pass? (I missed one, but I blame the art — I thought the kid on the bike was intentionally trying to run over the pedestrians).

As usual, this PSA was written by Jack Schiff. Pencils and inks were by Bernard Baily. This PSA was found in DC comics of September 1960, including Adventure Comics #276. And for the record, the winner of the 1960 Tour de France was Gastone Nencini, the “Lion of Mugello.”

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Uncanny X-Men #512
Matt Fraction, writer
Yanick Paquette, penciler

Beast and his team of scientists have traveled back in time to the San Francisco of 1906 looking for Nicola and Catherine Bradley. They find Catherine just in time to rescue her from an attack by goons from the Hellfire Club — immediately afterward, Catherine Bradley suffers some significant vaginal bleeding. The doctor who examines her diagnoses her with placenta previa and places her on bedrest.

Placenta previa occurs when the placenta, instead of its normal location along the side or top of the uterus, implants along the bottom of the uterus, covering up the opening to the birth canal. It is a fairly common cause of vaginal bleeding during later pregnancy, but is very, very rare in the first trimester (the first three months of pregnancy).

More common causes of first trimester bleeding include implantation bleeding, miscarriage or threatened miscarriage, or an ectopic pregnancy. Trauma can play a role as well, as can non-uterine causes of vaginal bleeding.

There is nothing a physician or mother can do to cure placenta previa. Minimizing the recurrence of bleeding from the previa is wise, so that is why bed rest is recommended. Luckily, most placenta previa resolve by themselves — as the uterus grows during pregnancy, it pulls the placenta up higher. For a placenta previa discovered during the second trimester, there is a 90% chance it will resolve by the delivery date.

Currently, a cesarean (c-section) is the preferred method in the United States for delivering the baby when there is placenta previa. If c-section is not an option — for instance, in certain more remote parts of the world, or at the turn of the 20th century — the baby can be delivered vaginally, but it is a bloody mess. While there is a risk the mother may die due to placenta previa, it is the baby who faces the greatest risk of death. Currently in the United States, the maternal mortality rate from placenta previa is 0.03% (I don’t have the data, but I suspect the risk was several orders of magnitude larger in 1906).

(And whatever happened to that Cambodian psychic, X’ing X’iang? As of the last issue of the final Team 7 mini-series, she was imprisoned within the Internal Operations building. Is she still there?)

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed team 7 chuck dixon

from Adventure Comics #191 (August 1953)

Just look how far we’ve come with regards to polio in the past 56 years.

Today’s example of bad comic book CPR comes from Superman/Supergirl: Maelstrom #3. In this scene, Superman and Supergirl are on a “family bonding” camping trip to a planet under a red sun. While there, Superman breaks his arm and then falls into a river and nearly drowns before Supergirl rescues him.

Superman/Supergirl: Maelstrom #3 by Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Phil Noto

Another example of the straddle-the-chest style of CPR seen in comics — definitely not the recommended position in real life.

You’ll notice that Supergirl is giving rescue breaths. As I mentioned yesterday, rescue breathing is no longer recommended for most CPR situations, but this is a near drowning scenario — one of the instances when rescue breathing is still recommended.
But how can she give rescue breaths as shown when she’s sitting on his chest?
And to really nit-pick, she needs to tilt his head back to open the airway better. And keep her arms straight when giving compressions.

On the other hand, we know that Superman has some bizarre internal anatomy, so maybe this is Kryptonian style CPR…

After last week’s brief discussion of CPR¹, I felt it would be a good time to look at CPR as practiced in a variety of comic books. First up, DV8 #3 (1996), by Warren Ellis² and Michael Lopez.

Evo and Frostbite stumble across the body of a young woman who has suffered a drug overdose. They proceed to CPR.

Evo is shown using a sit-on-top-of-the-patient style, as opposed to the correct off-to-the-side style. I don’t know why he’s chosen this stance, but it’s going to make it more difficult to move the patient and I suspect it will restrict some of the blood flow to the legs. It would also be a bad idea during a code blue because those femoral veins and arteries he’s blocking are good places get vascular access (plus it’s mighty hard to balance like that on a hospital gurney).

I have absolutely no idea what Frostbite is doing with the patient’s arms, unless he’s trying to use an older and for-good-reason forgotten resuscitation techniques. Whatever he’s doing seems to make her sleeves appear and disappear though.

Even though rescue breathing is no longer recommended for standard CPR, it was when this book was published, so it’s unusual that Evo and Frostbite are ignoring it — especially since they remarked earlier that she is suffering from respiratory arrest.

Successful resuscitation? Yes (though they then leave the scene, leaving the patient alone to suffer the other potentially fatal effects of her drug overdose. After all, the drug is still in her system.)

NOTES:
1. What I’ve read suggests CPR as we know it was developed in the late ’50s and early ’60s, but not taught to the public until the early ’70s. I’d like to think the Avengers would be ahead of the curve and trained in CPR by Iron Man #18. In 2008, it was switched to a chest compression only style.

2. Yes, Ellis is British, and they may have CPR taught slightly differently there, but DV8 takes place in the US, so I’m going to hold him accountable for the standard American Heart Association CPR.

With today being the first day of summer, I thought it would be a good time for a summer-themed public service ad. Here we have Binky, one of DC comic’s humorous teen characters from the ’50s, showing us how to have a good summer week. Actually, Binky barely shows up — his friend Pete is the star, and Pete shows us how not to spend a summer week.

And what’s with Pete’s blond friend? Why was he always hanging out with such a sad sack? And why was he always wearing red?

This PSA was written by Jack Schiff. Pencils and inks were by Win Mortimer, though Bob Oksner, Binky’s usual artist, contributed the image on the title. This PSA was found in DC comics of August 1953 including Action Comics #183 (I’m sure you remember it, it’s the one where Luthor comes up with a scheme to kill Superman), the source of this ad. It was a popular enough PSA that it was reprinted and can also be found in DC comics from October 1956.

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Tags: comics psa binky summer jack schiff win mortimer

Ultimate Wolverine Vs Hulk #6
Damon Lindelof, writer
Leinil Francis Yu, artist

Wolverine doesn’t seem to have a very good grasp of anatomy. It is anatomically impossible for Wolverine to injure She-Hulk the way he’s suggesting.

I’ve included a couple of anotated images to demonstrate. Wolverine has one claw in her spleen (left side of her abdomen), a second claw in her left kidney (far left part of her abdomen), and threatens to put the claw in between them in her liver — which is found on the right side of her abdomen.

As for the rest of Wolverine’s threat: he’s right, injuries to the spleen bleed, and they bleed a lot — after all, the spleen is basically just a blood-filled sponge. On the other hand, a puncture wound to the kidney will cause some damage, but as long as the renal blood vessels and the ureter aren’t damaged, it’ll continue to function (plus, as he points out, she’s got a second one). Similarly, a puncture wound of the liver would bleed, but not as much as the spleen. More importantly, Wolverine seems to be forgetting that She-Hulk has a healing factor — just a few issues before she jumped out of a supersonic jet without a parachute and survived. She’ll survive two or three claws.

For a place that was also supposed to be a school, the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters doesn’t seem to have done a very good job of actually teaching — or at least teaching chemistry — for Magma to think that purely physical processes like erosion and grinding could break molecular bonds.

Though to be fair, Magma also spent some time at Emma Frost’s Massachusetts Academy, so maybe they did an equally poor job of teaching there as well.

And that look apparently of consists fake facial hair…

ad from Iron Man #16 (August 1969)

Tags: comics ad beard moustache iron man

Or you could just use CPR.

It’s the first thing you should try to get a “stilled heart” to beat again (and this is at least a decade before AEDs were available).

So, CPR. Right now.

Seriously, if you’re going to whisk Tony Stark away to the Avengers Mansion to play guinea pig for the Ultra-Rejuvenator , at least give him CPR in the meantime to keep the blood circulating — especially to the brain.

‘Remember how I mentioned that there were two New Teen Titans anti-drug PSA comics from the ’80s? It turns out I was wrong: there were three.

Jesse, trying to emulate his older brother Dave, has started to use drugs. After he shares some angel dust-laced marijuana with his friends, he heads off to an anti-drug rally his parents are making him attend. The Teen Titans (minus Robin, who is once again replaced by generic hero “The Protector”) are speaking at the rally — no, not Speedy, he’s probably back at Titan’s Tower getting high.

When the Teen Titans tell the audience that drugs are bad, and his parents chime in to support the Titans, Jesse throws a tantrum and runs out of the meeting in a huff. Beast Boy tails him, just to make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble and — wouldn’t you know it — there’s a tall cliff in the middle of town that Jesse almost tumbles over. Beast Boy turns into a rhinoceros and stops him from falling off the edge. At just that moment, the drugs Jesse’s been taking cause severe stomach pains, and Jesse falls off the cliff despite the presence of a green pachyderm. Luckily, Raven’s soul-self swoops by and saves him, but not before her empathic powers absorb the hallucinatory effects of the drugs and Raven begins to Freak Out. The other Titans are able to subdue her and they cart her off to the hospital. Seeing the effects of the drugs on Raven, Jesse swears never to use drugs again.

The Teen Titans now turn their attention to Jesse’s supplier: his older brother Dave. They track him down to an old abandoned shack at the end of town (where despite begging his supplier for a hit the page before, he’s now handing out drugs to half a dozen kids – for free). A brief skirmish ensues and Dave escapes , but that was really the plan all along. The Titans now follow him to his supplier. A bigger skirmish follows and the Teen Titans are able to capture the entire drug dealing gang. Furthermore, both Jesse and Dave have sworn off drugs for good.

Like the previous Teen Titan anti-drug comics, this one starts with a letter from Nancy Reagan. Several pages of confidence building and decision making exercises are included at the end of the comic. Unlike previous comics, this one is sponsored by IBM, so I’m not clear why Robin was replaced by the Protector, as I understood that was due to Nabisco/Keebler rivalries. The story is by Marv Wolfman and Joey Cavalieri with capable pencils by Adrian Gonzales.

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I’m pretty sure the various Team 7 mini-series have more psychic nosebleeds per issue than any other series I’ve encountered.

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed grifter team 7 chuck dixon

Never trust a naked woman with a syringe.

Especially if they’re from Indianapolis.

ad from Action Comics #171 (October 1952)

Polio was once considered a common enough disease that warnings were printed inside comic books. In recent years, thanks to vaccination, polio has been a thing of the past in the United States. Unfortunately, thanks to the ill-informed and ill-used anti-vaccine movement, childhood diseases once thought vanquished are reemerging into the population. How long until we see ads like this again?

In this Public Service Ad from 1952, Superman gives a bicyclist and a couple of motorists a stern talking to. Yep — that’s about it. Not exactly the most exciting PSA ever. No wonder it was never repeated like some of the better ads.

So remember, Superman says “Check and Double Check” — and if you don’t, he’ll fly in and give you a lecture. I mean it. No kidding. So let that be a lesson to you. So help me, I’ll turn this car around right now!

This PSA was written, as always, by Jack Schiff. Art chores were handled by the talented Win Mortimer. This PSA was found in DC Comics from August 1952 including Adventure Comics #179 (you know, the issue where Superboy has a wacky adventure), the source of this ad.

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1. He’s been in the hospital for nearly a week, his injuries consisting of an enucleated (and ultimately removed) left eye and a coma, and he’s still receiving blood? Any combat related blood loss should have been restored days ago, and the fact that he still requires blood transfusions means something else must be going on the cause the blood loss.

2. There are air bubbles in the blood bag. This is a closed system — it’s not like the water cooler at the office — so there is no air to escape cause the bubbles.

3. The IV seems to be situated in his left biceps — painful, not very efficient — as opposed the the more common placement in the crook of the elbow.

A nice example of an incorrectly worn head mirror from Run #2, by Sturges and Williams.

Though as Dr. Milo admits, he’s more of a chemist than a physician, so maybe that’s why he doesn’t know how to position a head mirror (and actually seems to be wearing a small satellite dish).

In addition to watching the television show Fringe, I also read the Fringe comic published by WildStorm. The comic takes place years before the show, and features two stories per issue — one a continuing story featuring scientists Walter Bishop and William Bell, and a second stand alone story. This post is about the continuing “Bishop and Bell” storyline, the third chapter in particular.

When we meet William Bell in the first issue of Fringe, it is 1970 and he is a twenty year old college student at Harvard. He meets up with Dr. Walter Bishop and becomes his lab assistant.

The next issue takes place at some undetermined point later. Dr Bishop and William Bell are still working in a lab at Harvard. There is reference to experiments the duo performed “last year.” William Bell is also referred to as “Dr. Bell” which suggests he has had time to complete not only his undergraduate degree, but also his doctorate. Depending on how much credit you want to give him for being a genius, that would make it 4 to 8 years later, so the story takes place sometime between 1974 and 1978.

Why is this important? Because the timing seemed off to me — and it turns out I was right:

Neurontin is the brand name of Gabapentin, a drug originally developed to prevent seizures. Gabapentin wasn’t discovered until 1973 and was an experimental drug for years after that, so it’s unlikely that the doctors would be able to get there hands on any. Even if their mysterious “Soap Company” benefactors somehow managed to obtain a supply of the medication, it wasn’t known as Neurontin until 1983.

I’ll also point out that injecting serotonin into the body is not a good idea. It doesn’t cross over from the blood to the brain well (which one assumes is where they want it), and it acts as a potent vasoconstrictor (causes the blood vessels to clamp closed) in the bloodstream. High levels of serotonin in the blood have been linked with fatal lung and heart conditions.

Injecting LSD into the body — probably not the best idea either, but for different reasons (mainly due it being a potent hallucinogen). Speaking of LSD, it’s the chemical structure the worker holding the clipboard is looking at in the second story in issue #3.

Due to some unavoidable work and family obligations, my medical annotations of Vertical’s collections of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack were delayed, but now they should be back on track. Here are the annotations for the first seven stories from Black Jack, Volume 2. My medical annotations of Black Jack, Volume 1 (part one, part two) are still available.

For those of you unfamiliar with the character, Black Jack is a famous — or infamous — maverick surgeon. He is unlicensed, a fact which gets him into trouble frequently, but he is always able to avoid sanction due to his unsurpassed surgical skills.

The writer of Black Jack, Osamu Tezuka, attended medical school, but chose to become a mangaka rather than a practicing physician. Because of his training, his stories are quite accurate. Most of the medical discrepancies are due either to the advance of medicine in the three decades since the stories were written or to differences between Eastern and the Western medicine. Black Jack, like all of Tezuka’s manga, is phenomenal, so if you have any interest in manga or medicine, you should take the time to track down and read them if you haven’t already.

In my annotations below, I’ve added the year the story was first published. Consider this a strong Spoiler Warning as well. Click “Read More” to read the rest of the post.

Mike mentioned the Popeye and Environmental Careers comic a few days ago, but it’s not the only career PSA comic featuring the spinach loving sailor. In fact, King Features published fifteen different “Career Educational Comics” in the early ’70s. Sadly, the only one I own is Popeye and Public Service Careers, so that’s going to be this week’s public service comic.

Popeye and Public Service Careers features Popeye and Olive Oyl (both strangely eloquent, if not downright loquacious) telling readers about different careers available for them. The comic is clearly written for the high school student planning for their future. The educational requirements, from high school diploma to an advanced degree, are spelled out explicitly for each career, as are the benefits including vacation, pay, insurance, and retirement. As you would expect from a comic from 1972, there is more than a little implicit sexism in the comic (for example, no female firefighters or college professors, and no male nurses or elementary school teachers).

It’s a hefty comic, 32 pages, that goes into detail on an impressive variety of “public service careers.” It’s a long list of occupations (and I’d argue that calling a few of them “public service” is really stretching the term): police officers, firemen, sanitation workers, civil service workers, public health nurses, sanitarians (environmental engineers, food inspectors, etc), public utility workers, elementary school teachers, secondary school teacher, college professors, librarians, postal workers, lawyers (no, really — lawyers are “public service”), clergymen, city managers, and members of the military.

For episode 24, Theta Sigma and EmilyH (the second one) had the high score with 9 points.

The episodes with the highest scores were 22, 16, and 17.
The lowest scores were episodes 2, 3, and 9.

Full scores are available here.

In the early ’90s, Marvel Comics (and writer Mark Gruenwald in particular) decided that having one of their flagship characters, Captain America, gain his powers through drugs (in this case, the Super Soldier Serum) was a bad idea — after all, it was the tail end of the “Just Say No” era and drugs (all drugs) were bad. So Gruenwald concocted the Streets of Poison storyline which ended with Captain America undergoing an exchange transfusion, flushing the Super Soldier Serum from his body.

Only an unpowered Captain America wasn’t that interesting a character, so less than a year later Captain America was returned to his Super Soldier Empowered status quo. In the otherwise forgettable Captain America #384 (Captain America fights a giant ice worm in the Arctic), it is revealed that Cap’s Super Soldier Serum has regenerated and he has regained his super-powers. It takes a full page of talking heads to explain to Cap (and readers) what has happened, but this panel — which is nearly Claremontian in its amount of dialogue — sums it all up:

So somehow, over time, the Super Soldier Serum had become a “self-replicating virus.” This means two things: First, Captain America gets his powers back. Second, his powers are no longer due to drugs, but a “virus” and therefore he is no longer a “drug user” (remember, drugs are bad) and should not be censured as such. Just to hammer home the point, a few panels later, Cap says:

I guess there isn’t a lot of comparison between my situation vis-a-vis body altering substances and those who abuse conventional drugs.

(And yes, I realize the idea that a drug could become a virus is ludicrous, and the term “self replicating virus” is a contradiction, but it was how hard Gruenwald worked to dance around the “Captain America is on drugs” conceit that really caught my attention.)

Cut off a limb and two more shall take its place! But injure the heart…and they’re not quite sure what to do.

It looks like the poor Hydra agent is literally trying to massage the victim’s chest — and the victim sure seems to be enjoying it.
And the “two minutes to brain damage”? That’s about three minutes off. Five minutes of oxygen deprivation seems to be the minimum required to cause permanent brain damage.

Our Army at War #237 (Oct 1971)

An inspired cover, but I still must point out that blood plasma is yellow, not red.

(I know that I’ve complained — many, many times — about the incorrect use of plasma in contemporary emergency resuscitation scenes, but its use is proper in this scene as it was the main blood component used for emergencies in World War II.)

from The Amazing Spider-Man Giant Activity Pad

For your weekend entertainment…which two of these Doctor Octopuses (or should that be Doctor Octopi?) are the same?

As mentioned in the comments the other day, here is the final showdown between Captain America and Baron Blood — one of the best scenes on the Stern/Byrnes run on Captain America (this particular gem is from Captain America #254).

scene from Oracle: The Cure #3 (By Kevin Vanhook, Julian Lopez, abd Fernando Pasarin)

Here’s an easy one. I’m sure the error was intentional, but it doesn’t make it any less glaring.

In this scene, Oracle (Barbara Gordon) and some of her hacker buddies are discussing how to track down the villainous Calculator.

Previous picture quizzes

Wanting to see if I could scrounge up some more information on Kenneth Crichton’s “degenerative anemia,” I decided to go back to the sources.

Kenneth makes his first appearance in Captain America #253 and #254 (1981) in — appropriately enough — a Baron Blood storyline. The story also introduces the new (and current) Union Jack. He is drawn as a fairly robust young man, not much different than his friend Joey Chapman who goes on to become Union Jack. The art is by John Byrne who can actually draw skinny and less-muscled people well (Reed Richards and Nightcrawler come to mind), so I have to think the art choice is deliberate.

No mention is made of any anemia, disease, or weakness — Ken even tries to smack Baron Blood with a good-sized floor lamp — though at the end of the comic, he does make a comment that Joey was always the “stronger” of the two of them.

As far as I can tell, Kenneth next appears 17 years later in the first Union Jack mini-series (1998). Since we last saw him, his elderly mother has regained her youth thanks to a transfusion of the Human Torch’s blood. This fact does not sit well with Ken — he feels she is getting all the breaks while he has to suffer.

Ken’s anemia is large part of this storyline. He is drawn looking very thin, almost emaciated, and has a very pale color. The art is by John Cassady, who even at this early point in his career could draw well, so again I’m assuming the depiction is intentional.

In this mini-series, Ken is definitely weaker than average. He’s also a genuinely unpleasant person, a whiner, and a light-weight when it comes to alcohol — but most of this can be explained by his anemia, or his difficulty in coming to terms with his condition. His anemia is shown to be severe — he has to be evaluated at the hospital regularly — and at one point, his local doctor has to give him a transfusion at home to get him up and about.

No explanation of his “debilitating anemia” is given, and there is no suggestion at all that it ties in to his mother’s legacy. It seems New Invaders #5 (discussed yesterday) was the first mention of that idea.

All three storylines are available in collected edition. Captain America: War & Remembrance gets a strong recommendation (great Stern and Byrnes Captain America stories), Union Jack gets a moderate recommendation (fair story by Raab, good early art by Cassady), and The New Invaders is not really recommended unless you’re a sadist, an Invaders completist, or have money to burn.

Even before her revelation that she herself is a vampire, Spitfire’s history has been rife with vampiric shenanigans. Her origin revolves around a vampire bite and subsequent transfusion with android blood. Her son became a vampire and fathered a child on Baroness Blood before she killed him and the rest of her vampire followers by exposing them to sunlight¹.

That all brings us to New Invaders #5, where Spitfire has been captured by Baroness Blood. The Baroness explains that she needs Spitfire’s blood to keep her son — Spitfire’s grandson — alive. She goes on the explain that while the vampire bite/android blood gave Spitfire her powers, it caused an inherited degenerative blood disorder in her son², a disorder that was then passed on to his son³. The only way to keep the Baroness’s child alive is to regularly feed it Spitfire’s blood. Thus the Baroness has captured Spitfire and has her tied to a gurney (and continually transfused with blood⁴) so she can provide sustenance for junior whenever he wants it⁵.

The Baroness’s other plan is to feed her vampire lackeys⁶ some of her blood so that they will gain immunity to sunlight. Though unlike her, their immunity will only last for a few days. Still, that’s enough for them to wreak havoc across England. The Baroness also feeds her vampires some of Spitfire’s blood, though the reason for this is never explained – well, other than allowing the good guys a deus ex machina ending⁷.

Notes:
1. Not only did the Baroness clearly skip the leadership lectures of vampire school, but she never read the Evil Overlord list. (This all takes place in the first Union Jack mini-series.)

2. Apparently the vampire bite and/or android blood caused a deleterious mutation in Spitfire’s germ line cells, which is interesting because by that time in her life, her eggs had already formed. So either the blood disease was not related to the vampire/android blood, or they somehow mutated already formed cells.

3. It looks to be an autosomal dominant mutation, which means that a single copy of the mutated gene is enough to cause the disease (so it’s not a disease where the normal gene is simply not working — because that generally means both copies of the gene must be abnormal to see a negative effect — but instead one where the mutated version of the protein is actively causing the disease). This still doesn’t explain how Spitfire’s blood would keep the disease in remission. Maybe her mutated blood cells counteract the abnormal ones in the baby?

4. I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: why is an English vampire based in England using blood from the American Red Cross?

5. For a three to sixth month old baby, Johnny sure has a mouthful of teeth. I’m guessing vampire babies teeth a lot earlier than human babies.

6.The Baroness’s new lackeys that is, since she killed all of her previous ones. This is why you should always do some research on a prospective employer before signing on the dotted line.

7. The Human Torch (the android one) realizes that since the vampires drank Spitfire’s blood, they also have his blood in their system, thus he uses his powers to ignite his blood in the vampires, causing them all to burst into flame. Sound familiar? He just did the same thing to Ultron’s LMDs in the Avengers/Invaders series.

Lex Luthor’s brilliant plant is to use his special maser ray to erase Batman’s mind and then transfer Superman’s mind into Batman’s mindless body. Now that Superman’s mind is no longer housed in an invulnerable Kryptonian body, Lex will physically pummel him until he dies.

I hope it comes as no surprise when I reveal [Spoiler Warning!] that through a cunning plan of their own, Superman and Batman are able to avoid the fiendish trap and defeat Luthor. In hindsight, they really didn’t have to put as much effort into it as they did — Luthor’s plan was flawed at a very basic level.

Luthor seems to believe that light (and similar forms of electromagnetic radiation) are transmitted through the pupil, across the eye, and then down the optic nerve into the brain itself. This is a very common misconception. In reality, the light never reaches the brain because it never passes beyond the eye.

Quick Summary of how the Eye Works:

Light enters the eye through the pupil and falls upon the retina, a special layer of cells at the very back of the eye. The cells of the retina “translate” the light into nerve impulses, and these impulses are what travel down the optic nerve to the visual centers of the brain.

Take home message: Light stays in the eyes; nerves go to the brain

Sorry Lex, your plan is defeated by basic anatomy and physiology. Better luck next time.

storyline reprinted in the book The Strange Deaths of Batman. You really need to pick up this book, if nothing else for the color reprint of The Brave and the Bold #115, the infamous story where the Atom literally jumps into the head of a brain-dead Batman and steers him around, solving crimes and taking out bad guys.

scene from Young X-Men #11 (Guggenheim, Sandoval)

Does Henry have anything to worry about? Can he be kicked out of the American Medical Association for breaking doctor/patient confidentiality?

Yes, and no.

1. You can be expelled from the AMA for breaking its ethical rules, and these rules include patient confidentiality.
2. On the other hand, Henry can’t be kicked out of the AMA because he can’t be a member: he’s not a physician. Sure, he practices medicine for the X-Men, and he has at least one Ph.D., but he has never earned a medical degree, and thus he cannot be a part of the AMA.

While I’m talking about the AMA, there seems to be a misunderstanding among writers (both comic book and television) about what exactly the American Medical Association does.

It is a physician and public health advocacy organization whose mission is to “promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health.” It has a charitable wing and it has a powerful political wing. The AMA publishes a number of medical journals, the best known is the eponymous JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association).

scene from Dr. Mid-Nite #1 (Wagner, Snyder)

The AMA does not issue medical licenses or revoke them; that is the duty of the medical boards of each individual state. From the AMA website: “the AMA is not in a position to take action against a physician’s license to practice medicine.”

Despite what most people seem to believe, membership in the American Medical Association is not mandatory — in fact, less than a third of physicians are members of the AMA (15-30% depending on whose data you accept).

A straight forward public service ad this week, reminding us all to eat a good breakfast every day. I really can’t argue with this: breakfast is an extremely important meal.

I do wonder if Danny skipped lunch too, or I’d think he’d have energy for basketball practice since it generally takes place after school.

I’d also not impressed by Miss Jones’ teaching skills — maybe she skipped breakfast too.

This PSA was written by Jack Schiff, with art by Win Mortimer. This PSA was found in various March 1954 editions of DC comics, including Adventure Comics #198, where this ad was obtained.

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from The Amazing Spider-Man Giant Activity Pad

Another week, another set of goblins…

Which two of these Green Goblins are the same?
No hints and no super-sized version this week because this one is ridiculously easy.

Action Comics #871 “New Krypton, part 2: Beyond Doomsday”
Geoff Johns, writer
Pete Woods, penciler

Geoff Johns is usually one of the better writers at incorporating science — or at least decent pseudo-science — into his stories. But in this scene from a recent Action Comics I have to call his bluff:

Superman: You know of Doomsday, Zor?

Zor-El: We know of him.

He was scientifically created on ancient Krypton through the the violent and vile process of Forced-Evolution.

A child was sent into the wild, killed and then cloned from the remains and the process was repeated…

…until that child had evolved to withstand the harsh environment and bloodthirsty creatures of our primordial world.

Here are three good reasons that this “forced-evolution” is utter nonsense and could not have worked:

1. Evolution requires change, particularly change at the genetic level. In the process Zor is describing, there is no change. Cloned individuals have identical genetic codes. Since each generation is a clone of the previous generation, their genetics are identical and the scientists are essentially sending the same kid out again and again and again. This is not evolution; it’s stagnation.

2. Zor seems to imply that the child abandoned in wilderness develops some new skills or abilities to help him survive and this is what leads to evolution. The child may certainly have acquired what he needed to survive the wilds (but not, apparently, survive the scientists), but it’s all a moot point: acquired abilities cannot be inherited.

3. Finally, species evolve, not individuals.

If the Kryptonian’s grasp of geology is as good as their understanding of biology, it’s no wonder nobody but Jor-El noticed the planet was going to explode.

Another in the series of “stay in school” public service ads, one of the most common themes seen in the DC PSA campaign of the late ‘40s, ‘50s, and early ‘60s. Unlike later PSAs, where Buzzy is counseling other characters to stay in school, in this case it is Buzzy himself who wants to drop out.

This is probably because the ad is an early PSA, and the first featuring Buzzy that I am aware of.

This PSA was written by Jack Schiff. I’ve seen the art attributed to both Bob Oksner and Graham Place. It looks more like Place’s art to me, particularly when you look at the hands, but this is well before my time and I’m no expert. This PSA was found in DC Comics from October 1949 such as Action Comics #137, where I found this ad.

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Tags: comics psa buzzy school jack schiff graham place

Mighty Avengers #24 “Chasing Ghosts”
Dan Slott, writer
Rafa Sandoval, penciler

In last week’s Mighty Avengers #24, Norman Osborn unearths one of the bones of the dead hero Goliath and brings it back to his headquarters for evaluation:

The clavicle, or collarbone, is an s-shaped flat bone that is found in the front part of the shoulder.

Whatever bone Osborn found looks like a long bone, such as the femur (thigh bone) or humerus (upper arm bone). Unlike the clavicle, it is round, instead of flat; straight, instead of s-shaped; and has knobby ends. If anything, it most resembles those perfectly symmetrical bones that cartoon dogs always carry around. Whatever bone he stole, it is definitely not a clavicle.

Norman Osborn:
Psychopathic megalomaniac
Qualified anatomist

Dennis the Menace Takes a Poke at Poison was published in 1961 by the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (which split in 1979 to form the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services). In a mere sixteen pages, Dennis and the rest of the Mitchell family cover a variety of poison-related topics, including — but not limited to — children’s medicine, pet medicine, spoiled lunchmeat, toxic wild berries, bug bombs, and weed killers.

Dennis learns not to give human medications to dogs, not to take medication without his parent’s approval, not to eat wild fruits and berries, and to be careful when using insecticides and herbicides.
Mr. Wilson learns that Dennis is a threat to society and danger to his very life (though I suspect he already knew that).
Sadly, Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell don’t seem to learn much and continue with their pattern of irresponsible parenting.
Ruff learns nothing, because, frankly, he’s a dog.

Dennis the Menace Takes a Poke at Poison’s greatest hits:

A revised version of the comic was published in 1981, but I only have a copy of the original.

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Tags: comics psa dennis the menace poison mr wilson ruff

from The Amazing Spider-Man Giant Activity Pad

We’re done with goblins*, so this week the focus is on anther member of Spider-Man’s rogues gallery: find the Electro that doesn’t match the others. This one’s easy, so no hints from me.

If you want another Electro challenge, try this.

*until next week, anyway

Caleb Ketchum is a three-time loser. He started out as a college chemistry professor, but quit because he wasn’t making enough money. Instead, he sets up shop as an exterminator, using his chemistry knowledge to invent a special termite-killing spray. When this didn’t bring in the money either, he advertises his skills to the local mob bosses through an ad in the paper. They take him up on his offer and use his super-termite spray as a to kill guards and unfortunate passers-by during robberies.

Things go well at first, and Ketchum is making more money than he ever dreamed. Who knew crooks made more than college professors or exterminators? He’s running low on Cacobane though, the rare chemical that forms the basis for his super-termite/death spray.

Unfortunately for Ketchum, pharmacist Bob Benton — alias The Black Terror — has discovered the Cacobane connection. The chemical was detected at the crime scenes (apparently it’s not so rare that police don’t test for it), and Bob realized that Cacobane was also in the termite spray he bought from Ketchum. He puts two and two together and realizes that Ketchum is participating in the robberies.

When a local hoodlum comes in to buy some more Cacobane, the Black Terror follows him to the crooks hideout.

Unfortunately, the Black Terror and his sidekick Tim are caught by surprise and knocked out. They are locked in a cage with giant mutated termites while the crooks escape. (Did I fail to mention that Ketchum also used his knowledge of chemistry to mutate and breed giant termites?) As deathtraps go, the glass-cage-with-giant-termites is pretty lame and the Terror (and Tim) quickly escape and catch the crooks including Ketchum, the failed chemistry professor/exterminator/criminal. Bob Benton — super-hero and super-pharmacist — saves the day again.

The best part of the story? This surreal panel featuring poisonous gas, giant termites, and money.

Azrael: Death’s Dark Knight #2 “Give and Take”
Fabian Nicieza, writer
Frazer Irving, artist

Michael Lane, the new Azrael, should strongly consider getting his mother into a better nursing home. A quick look at her medication sheet will show why:

Tramadol 50MG. Tramadol (Ultram) is a pain killer. 50MG is a reasonable dose.
Four times a day dosing is appropriate as well.

Simvastatin 80MG. Simvastatin is the generic name for Zocor, which is a type of cholesterol-lowering drug known as a statin. 80MG is the maximum dose. Simvastatin is a one time per day drug. Four times a day is way too often and would be extremely hard on the liver.

Lipitor 40MG. Lipitor (Atorvastatin) is another statin drug, similar to Simvastatin. She’s already on one statin — and overdosed on that one — so there’s no need for a second. 40MG is a moderately high dose of Lipitor, and just like simvastatin, four times a day dosing is three times too many. Her liver is going to be fried.

WRSI Riversound Café CD. Not a medication, but a compilation CD from radio station WRSI featuring quite a bit of good music. This strange Amazon listing is the best information on the album I can find.

Phentermine 37.5MG. In the United States, Phentermine is a Schedule IV Controlled Substance. It is an amphetamine prescribed for weight loss and appetite suppression (it was half of the infamous weight loss drug Fen-phen). It’s not a good medication at all for an elderly woman, where the usual problem is giving them an appetite, not suppressing one.

With Earth Day in just a few days, this is the perfect time for a nature-themed Public Service Ad. That this ad contains cad-supreme Wolfie is just a bonus. (Plus it features bats. Lots and lots of bats.)

This PSA was written by Jack Schiff, with art by the guy who always draws Buzzy PSAs, artist Win Mortimer. This PSA was found in Adventure Comics #158, but can be found in other DC comics from November 1950.

Another Earth Day PSA

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Tags: comics psa buzzy wolfie nature jack schiff win mortimer

Since I’ve been taking a brief look back at Hawk and Dove recently, I thought it would be an appropriate time to look in on their arch-foe Kestrel. Last time he was seen was in Secret Six #7, along with a whole mob of other B- and C-list (and D-list, who’re we kidding?) villains trying to capture the Secret Six and reclaim the “Get Out of Hell Free” card.

First we see him leaping (in a very Liefeld-esque style) at the van containing the majority of the Six.

Then it quickly becomes clear that his plan didn’t work out so well…

from The Amazing Spider-Man Giant Activity Pad

Again, this one’s may be a little tricky because of the black-and-white-on-newsprint didn’t scan all that well. Because I’m a nice guy, click here to see an enlarged higher-quality image of the four Goblins in question.

Action Comics #679 is a fairly slight story as Superman goes. There’s a little bit of super-hero/super-villain fisticuffs, but most of the issue is spent catching up with the diverse cast of Superman supporting characters, from Lois to Lana to Lex II to Mae. The super-hero aspect of the comic is a direct sequel to Hawk & Dove #13 and features the villain Shellshock, who has the power to make things explode just by speaking their name.

Like I said, the story all started in Hawk & Dove #13. Ruth Spencer is the aunt of supporting cast member Kyle, and the black sheep of his family. She was a protestor during the Viet Nam war and she and her friends were responsible for blowing up a munitions factory. A handful of people died in the explosion, including one of Ruth’s co-conspirators and best friends, and she has been on the run ever since. While she paid a surprise visit to her nephew in Washington D.C., a strange costumed villainess named Shellshock — who bore an uncanny resemblance to Ruth’s dead friend — appeared and attacked. At the end of the evening, Shellshock disappeared and Ruth went back on the run.

Four years later, Superman is visiting Washington DC when he encounters Shellshock. They battle in the skies over the city for a while before she pulls her usual escape trick: speaking her own name and exploding. As coincidence would have it, Shellshock isn’t the only one visiting Washington that day: Ruth Spencer is there as well and notices the battle overhead. Later, while grabbing a newspaper from in front of a toy store, a doll in the window of the store comes to life and morphs into Shellshock. Ruth tries to talk to her, but Shellshock just flies off toward the center of the town, causing explosions as she goes. Superman comes flying in when hears the commotion and once again he and Shellshock battle. It all comes to a head in front of the Viet Nam memorial when Superman, Ruth, and Shellshock all come face to face. The truth is finally revealed: Shellshock is not Ruth’s dead friend, but instead a manifestation of Ruth’s own previously unknown psychic powers fueled by her guilt over the people who died in the factory explosion. Finally understanding the truth about Shellshock, Ruth realizes that she can’t run anymore and turns herself in.

For Hawk & Dove fans, there’s a scene with the comic’s SCU supporting cast including Lt. Wolfson, mechanics Mike and Ike, and sharpshooter Lt Trinh. They fill Superman in on some of the back story including the mysterious murdered of their boss, Captain Arsala, and his missing girlfriend Dawn (if these events are unfamiliar to you, I must regretfully point you in the direction of Armageddon 2001 #2). Superman muses to himself a little about Hawk and Monarch before flying off.

Unlike the Kesel written Hawk & Dove, this appearance of Shellshock is written by Roger Stern, and his version of the character is a little different. In her initial appearance, Shellshock was a woman a few words and only spoke when she wanted things to explode. One got the idea that she chose her words carefully because anything she said would cause an explosion, making conversation difficult. Stern’s version is more loquacious, and is able to talk at length without causing explosions. She plots behind the scenes and even soliloquizes at a few points in the story. I prefer the original version, but Stern’s version has some undeniable poignancy, especially with the revelation that Ruth had a brother who died in the Viet Nam War.

All Previous Hawk and Dove Reviews

Junior Doctor: The patient is still unresponsive. Vitals are weak, but stable. Parents’ whereabouts unknown…

Attending: Increase the zolpidem by 50 milliliters twice a day.
Junior Doctor: Yes Doctor.

First off, Zolpidem is better known as the sleep aid Ambien.

That brings up an obvious question: why would the doctors give a sleeping pill to a patient who’s already unresponsive?

There’s actually a logical reason for that: evidence has been accumulating that zolpidem improves the state of people in comas, and may actually wake some patients from their comas. It only seems to work for certain types of coma, plus most of this evidence is anecdotal — and it’s always wise to take that kind of evidence with a grain of salt — but the idea is certainly intriguing.

Good job by Vanhook for including this appropriate yet fairly obscure medical research in the story.

Finally, a few words about the art:
There’s a very good attention to detail. IVs are in the right place (though the right IV doesn’t seem to be attached to anything), pulse oximeter is on the finger, and she’s wearing a hospital bracelet. There may be a few too many monitors, but she’s in the ICU, so who can tell?

However, a common error does surface here: patients on ventilators (breathing machines) who are drawn wearing oxygen masks. The bottom line: masks don’t work for patients on ventilators because there’s too much resistance for the air to get to the lungs. Patients on ventilators need to be intubated (a breathing tube down the throat) — or for long term patients, have the ventilator hooked up to a tracheostomy.

VERB was a campaign that the CDC ran from 2002 to 2006 to encourage kids age 9-13 to become more physically active. As part of this campaign, they ran a number of comic book public service ads — most of which were less than impressive.

Overall, VERB was a good campaign with a laudable goal. It had many different components, and the ads in the comics were only one tiny part of the program. That being said, I wish their comic book PSAs had been better (and I also wish the official CDC website on VERB would stop using the word “tween.” It’s an annoying enough word as it is — it doesn’t need government sanction).

Previous years have featured the Justice League Peeps, the Peeps Avengers, the Legion of Super-Peeps, and last year, the Uncanny X-Peeps.

At what point does “hard boiled” become “sell out”?

There were two interlocking stories on tonight’s episode of Fringe. One of which contained a serial killer, and one of which contained Fringe science (if by “fringe” you mean “in no way connected to the actual laws of science”).

The Plot:A demolition crew is ready to implode an old building when one of them gets a strange feeling and runs back inside. He and his co-workers find a hidden basement that appears to have been sealed off for years, and in it, huddled in the corner, they find a naked, pale, bald ten year-old child.

Meanwhile, the serial killer known as “The Artist” has reappeared after a three year absence and sent a taunting note to the FBI.

Olivia and her team interview the strange child (hereafter called “Lex Jr”) in the hospital. He is having some shortness of breath and the doctor wants to put him on supplemental oxygen. Walter stops her and lets her know that Lex Jr is from a low oxygen environment and needs less oxygen, not more. Sure enough, Walter’s right and Lex Jr starts to breathe better. He seems to form an emotional bond with Olivia. He grabs her pen and writes a name upside down — and it turns out to be the name of the serial killer’s latest victim.

Olivia visits Lex Jr again, hoping for more clues about the killer. This time, he writes an address down for her. She goes to the address, but can’t find anything. It isn’t Lex’s fault though, it was Olivia’s: the murderer’s van was parked at that address and she missed it. While in the hospital, she meets a social worker who remarks that Lex Jr will likely be leaving the hospital soon.

Walter thinks he can provide a way for Lex Jr to talk. Olivia brings him to the lab where Walter hooks him up to the neural stimulator (remember that from episode five?). About this time, the social worker appears in the lab, only he’s not a social worker — he’s a CIA agent and wants the boy. He agrees to give Olivia and team one day to find the killer before he returns for Lex. With Lex’s help, and an assist by Peter, Olivia manages to track down and capture, if not kill outright, the Aritist. In the end, Olivia finds she can’t hand Lex over to the CIA and has the friendly doctor from the hospital set him up in a good foster home instead.

1. When is More Less?
The “Lex lived in a low-oxygen environment” concept bugged me. For one thing, if the hidden basement was that oxygen poor, the demolition crew would not have been able to breathe down there.
And later, when Walter tells the doctor to put Lex on 5% oxygen, what was the other 95%? Hospitals don’t keep tanks of less than 100% oxygen sitting around. If a little oxygen is needed, the flow setting is low. If more is needed, a higher flow (and fancier masks) are used. Remember, room air has 21% oxygen and if the team wants to go less than that, they’d need an air-tight room and would somehow have to remove the oxygen from it. You can’t just use a near-empty oxygen tank because all you’ll get from that are a few minutes of extra oxygen and then back to room air.

2. If a Bone Shatters, and No One is Around ti Hear It, Does It Still Hurt?
If he lived his entire life in the dark, he would not just be low in Vitamin D, he’d have rickets, a bone disease caused by long term Vitamin D deficiency.

3. Oxygen or Cautery
The machine they made a show of turning on before placing Lex on his “low oxygen” nasal canula had nothing at all to do with oxygen or air flow. It was the control panel for a electrocautery machine — which uses an electrical current to cut through tissue and/or cauterize wounds. It is a common piece of surgical equipment. You’ll notice the buttons were labeled monopolar, bipolar, and coagulate.

4. The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades
For someone with an extreme sensitivity to light, he was sure kept in a brightly lit room. How about some sunglasses at least.

5. Call the Amazing Randi
Let me get this straight: Lex can not only read the mind of the serial killer — oh sorry “empathize” with him — but he can miraculously express it in English, a language he cannot speak and isn’t even sure which way is up when he writes it (but he fixes that one fast). I could almost accept it if he drew a vague picture of what the killer was seeing, but for him to give a specific name or address when it’s likely the killer wasn’t even aware of them…

6. When Being Cheap Costs
The meat packing company sold used bloody drop cloths? And they didn’t find this strange? And The Artist didn’t have the common sense to spend a few bucks extra to buy clean ones?

7. Code
Ars Technica has a couple of nice articles (especially the second one) on “The Fringe Code.”

Ostensibly, this is a public service ad touting the benefits of volunteering, but clearly there are several deeper messages that are even more important:

Don’t spread gossip about your friend’s boyfriend.
Don’t listen to your gossiping friends.
Don’t accuse your boyfriend of cheating without proof.
Don’t date a guy who wears a tie with his sweater.
Don’t date someone with less personality than a computer.

As usual, Jack Schiff wrote this PSA, with pencils by famed Superman artist Curt Swan. This ad can be found in May 1957 issues of DC Comics.
Swan didn’t do the art for many PSAs, the only other one I’ve found so far was a Superman PSA from 1960, “Lend a Friendly Hand.”

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Tags: comics psa date jack schiff curt swan

from The Amazing Spider-Man Giant Activity Pad

There have been so many goblins of one sort or another in Spider-Man’s rogues gallery — The Green Goblin(s), Hobgoblin, Menace, etc — it gets hard to tell them apart sometimes. But not today! Which two Hobgoblins are identical?

Global Frequency #3 by Warren Ellis and Steve Dillon

No nosebleed this week, but a psychic eyebleed instead. In Global Frequency #3, Lana Kennedy (#884), is brought in to contain an alien meme that has already infected several blocks in New York City. In an effort to save the city, Lana attempts to write her own meme to counteract the alien one, but starts to become affected herself, hence the bleeding eyes.

All previous Psychic Nosebleed (and Eye- and Earbleed) Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed eyebleed global frequency warren ellis meme

General anesthesia is, by and large, an extremely safe procedure that has made modern surgical treatment possible. As with any medical procedure, there are potential risks associated with general anesthesia including allergy, aspiration, and the thankfully rare malignant hyperthermia.

However, there is also another lesser known complication of anesthesia that is routinely overlooked by the medical community: Past-Life Pirate Possession Syndrome.

It all starts with an experimental anesthetic agent:

And goes downhill from there:

There is a cure, but it is difficult, expensive, and requires both a transfusion of megacyclic energy and the assistance of the Spirit of Vengeance. Frankly, preventing the condition in the first place is the easier approach.

So the next time you’re scheduled for surgery, make sure to ask your doctor if they’ve taken the proper precautions against Past-Life Pirate Possession Syndrome.

from The Amazing Spider-Man Giant Activity Pad

This one’s way too easy, so no hints or giant-sized versions.

scene from Trinity #37 by Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza; art by Scott McDaniel

D-level villains (and that’s being generous) Punch and Jewelee are used as the focus of Morgaine’s machine to find a new Fool for her villain’s Tarot. The machine identifies the Joker as the perfect Fool — which really isn’t a surprise — but unfortunately neither Punch nor Jewelee survive the process.

SIDE NOTE: Best Punch and Jewelee appearance: Hawk and Dove #18 and #19. Also best Dan Quayle appearance, though WildC.A.T.S. #2 and #3 are close behind.

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed punch jewelee joker fool

The Yellow Plague has a great deal in common with Doc Savage’s Red Death, but it has an even more convoluted story.

The Chirrobas are a remote tribe in Latin America and their territory is the only place where the mysterious Yellow Plague occurs. The tribe’s witch doctor controls the disease, and is able to infect people as he sees fit. He also controls the only treatment.

Strangely, this disease suddenly appeared in Metropolis. Luckily, one of the interns at Metropolis Hospital happens to be a member of the Chirroba tribe and is able to recognize the disease. Before he succumbs to the plague himself, he passes on information about it and his tribe to Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent.

Clark and Lois hop on the next plane to South America. Their airship crashes, but they are able to make their way to the Chirroba tribe, where they find the chief has died mysteriously and the witch doctor has taken over. He’s had help though; Lois and Clark discover that a Metropolis gangster is backing the witch doctor’s coup. Slowly, the story comes out: the gangster and witch doctor deliberately introduced the Yellow Plague into Metropolis and plan on extorting millions of dollars to provide the cure.

As luck would have it, Superman appears in South America at the same time as Lois and Clark and is able to capture the witch doctor and gangster. He restores the dead chief’s son to the throne and in gratitude, the new chief provides him with the cure to the Yellow Plague.

From Doc Savage #9 comes “The Red Death,” another classic comic book plague.

What makes it such a great example of a “comic book” disease? How about:

• It has an awe inspiring name.
• There’s a color in the name (we’ve already met the Green Plague and the Purple Plague. Plus who could forget the Crimson Virus, Red Rain, or Kryptonian Scarlet Jungle Fever).
• It is almost instantly fatal.
• It also leaves easily identifiable marks on the skin.
• The disease is found only among certain indigenous tribes of Native Americans in Central America.
• Yet somehow, these primitive tribes are advanced enough to know how to envenom their weapons with the disease — despite having never developed germ theory.

Thanks to Doc Savage, there is also a vaccine against the Red Death, which allows Doc’s team to pull the classic fake out with nothing more than a tube of lipstick:

Though now that I think about it, it seems that the good Doctor chose not to share his vaccine with the affected tribes. Not quite what I’d call heroic behavior…

While I’ve published more public service ads starring Buzzy, DC’s other teen leading man Binky appeared in his share too. This one is about compromising to make things happy at home.

Seems to me that Mom and Pop screwed up, and are using fancy footwork to cover up their mistakes and suggest it’s the kids’ fault. Way to go Mom and Pop! (Once I would have meant that sarcastically, but now as a parent myself I simply stand in awe of their skillful maneuvering).

Binky’s younger brother Allergy has had the wool pulled over his eyes if he thinks his family constitutes a democracy. Another point to Mom and Pop.

This PSA was written by Jack Schiff and had art by Bob Oksner, Binky’s regular artist. I came across it in Action Comics #144, but it can be found in other DC comics from May 1950. It was also reprinted as the January 1954 PSA.

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Tags: comics psa binky home jack schiff bob oksner

from The Amazing Spider-Man Giant Activity Pad

Again, this one’s a little tricky because of the black-and-white-on-newsprint didn’t scan all that well. Because I’m a nice guy, click here to see an enlarged higher-quality image of the four spinsters in question.

*Sadly, I’ve already used the Skrull and clone jokes.

And for the record, just in case there was any doubt, the original book Starship Troopers is by far the best version of the story, so take a couple of hours and read it if you never have (or read if again if you’ve already read it). It’s one of the few Heinlein novels I actually like, though his short stories are usually very good — especially the time travel ones (All You Zombies and By His Bootstraps in particular)

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed starship troopers what, no casper van dien?

Have a little fun today, courtesy of Batman Sells Out to Claritin™:

Scene from Action Comics #190. As an added bonus, we get a doctor with a head mirror, though in this case it looks to be worn correctly.

I’m enjoying my last day of vacation, so I thought I’d dig out this classic DC public service ad I first posted a few years ago: “How Not to Enjoy a Vacation.”

There’s really not much I can ad to the dog’s narration, so just pay attention to what he’s saying.

This ad was first published in October 1957, then was republished in August 1963. The script — as always — is byJack Schiff, with Ruben Moreira on the art this time.

This panel is a nearly perfect example of how not to use a head mirror:

1. It’s in the wrong position: way too far off to the side.

2. It’s facing the wrong way: the shiny mirrored surface should be facing inward until flipped down over the eye.

3. Doc Savage is scrubbed in and sterile, so he can’t reach up and flip down the mirror without becoming contaminated.

4. For a head mirror to work, there must be light coming from behind (or above and behind) the patient. In this case, the light source is above Doc, so there’s no light to reflect in the mirror.

(It’s not all bad: the mirror is positioned on the headband correctly so that it could be flipped down. And no, Doc isn’t wearing any eye protection, but this is long before OSHA, and no eye protection was a common practice back then.)

Identify these first lines to famous (and possibly infamous) comics:
Hint: All are from first issues (or maybe a zero issue or two), or the beginning of a well-known storyline.

1. Coffee tastes like your dog took a leak in it.

2. Good evening Slumburg! You’re tuned in to the WSLM Listener Line and we’re tuned in to you!

3. It is because of the accursed Thor that I am exiled to this barren isle, ordered to remain here by Odin, king of the gods.

4. In the beginning there was only one, a single black infinitude…so cold and dark for so very long…that even the burning light was imperceptible. But the light grew, and the infinitude shuddered…and the darkness finally…screamed as much in pain as in relief. And in that instant a multiverse was born.

5. roaringraringracing haring home on the homestretch now and the wind in my ears as the sound of the crowd 200 on the speedo…210…215…220…and oh the sky runningspilling blue smoke everything moves so slow and I should have seen it the oil slick i should have saved it

6. Good evening London. It’s nine o’clock and this is the Voice of Fate broadcasting on 275 and 285 in the medium wave…it is the fifth of the eleventh, nineteen-ninety-seven.

7. Mad Hettie? We got it for you.

8. Good morning ladies and gentlemen. My name is Guy Gardner and I’m a Green Lantern. Correction, I’m the Green Lantern. None of the other jerks can hold a candle to me.

9. You are looking a the entrance to Fogwell’s Gym on New York’s lower west side! It is here that our story begins…a story different from any you have ever read before!

10. There is a city. A glorious and singular place. Old and yet pristine. Ornate and yet streamlined. A metropolis of now and then and never was.

11. For the love of Dallan, my Prince! The Acroyear Air Patrol dog our heels.

12. It’s raining in Washington tonight. Plump warm summer rain that covers the sidewalk with leopard spots. Downtown, elderly ladies carry there houseplants out to set them on the fire escapes, as if they were infirm relatives or boy kings.

13. The comet appeared out of nowhere, catching Earth’s early-warning systems off-guard. If it was a comet! Ground based radar tracked it down, losing it finally in the lower altitudes over West Virginia! A seismograph registered its impact in the Allegheny Mountains. Tomorrow somebody from the university will investigate — if there is a tomorrow. By then it may already be too late!

14. Man. I am Metron. Have no fear. Here is knowledge.

15. Sales of the book are around 300,000. Good, not great. Good enough to get this editorship — still low enough to need it. The “Crimewatch” section. Christ, what a title. Why is everything “watch” around here?

16. I don’t belong. Not here. Not now. I have to get back there. The bet was rigged, he made me believe. Now there’s darkness in my soul. I want to die…again.

I’m out of town this weekend, so I’ll post the answers — if there are any unanswered ones remaining — on Monday.

This is a look at the most recent Amazing Spider-Man Annual. It’s labeled #1, as well as #35, so take your pick on the numbering. This post will contain spoilers about the final fate of Jackpot, so don’t read any farther if you haven’t read the comics yet and want to keep it a surprise.

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1/#35 “A Tale of Two Jackpots”
Marc Guggenheim, writer
Mike McKone, pencils

After Spider-Man discovers Jackpot’s true identity, he also breaks into her apartment and searches it (which is not really the best way to prove you’re not a criminal, Spidey). He discovers an entire drawerful of drugs, and realizes that Jackpot doesn’t have any real super-powers, just medically enhanced ability (but then, the same holds true for Captain America).

Later in the story, she dies of a sudden myocardial infarction (heart attack) while helping Spider-Man defeat the D-level villain Blindside. Reed Richards (the noted pathologist that he is) performs the autopsy and tells Spider-Man that Jackpot’s heart attack was caused by all the drugs she was taking compounded by the neurotoxin Blindside injected into her.

That’s pretty impressive work by Dr. Richards — he is the original über-doctor after all — being able to pinpoint the specific drug that caused the problem…since nearly every drug she was taking is known to cause cardiovascular problems:

Human Growth Hormone - Studies have shown that it causes high blood pressure, a contributing factor in cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks. It can also cause diabetes, another contributing factor.

Anabolic Steroids - These frequently cause high blood pressure. In addition, they are known to cause increased cardiovascular disease, especially heart attacks.

COX-2 Inhibitors - A subclass of Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDS, the same class that includes such common drugs as Ibuprofen and Naproxen). They were quite popular until a study showed that they led to an increased risk of heart attacks. Because of this, Vioxx and Bextra were pulled off the market, and Celebrex is not used as much as it once was.

Amphetamines - A study released last year showed a higher than normal rate of heart attacks in amphetamine users, even when other risk factors are accounted for.

Mutant Growth Hormone - Sadly, no good controlled studies of this fictitious drug have ever been published, so my resources are limited here. I would suspect it’s use would lead to an increased rate of heart attacks due to the increased demands on the heart for the blood needed to supply the (temporary) mutant powers. Imagine having Colossus’s metal skin without the muscles to support it.

Paracetamol - It’s interesting that Spider-Man finds paracetamol, which is the European name for what we in the United States call acetaminophen — i.e. Tylenol. It’s an over the counter pain killer, and is not associated with a risk of heart attacks, but why would she have the European version in her possession instead of acetaminophen (usually, I can blame this mistake on a British writer, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here).

Another Buzzy public service ad, and another “Stay in School” lesson. It’s a common topic in old DC PSAs, though admittedly an important one. This one is better than most; I appreciate the “Don’t Quit When You’re Discouraged” message — I know I’ve fallen prey to that more than once.

This PSA was written by Jack Schiff with art by prolific Buzzy PSA artist Win Mortimer. This PSA was found in Action Comics #167, but can be found in other DC comics from October 1954.

More PSAs

Tags: comics psa buzzy school jack schiff win mortimer

My wife and I sat down to watch the new Wonder Woman animated movie this weekend and both thoroughly enjoyed it. The plot is straightforward: it’s a re-telling of Wonder Woman’s origin and her first trip to the “Man’s world” after being raised entirely on Themyscira. Along with returning Steve Trevor to America, she also must battle the machinations of Ares, God of War.

The voice acting is good, though it took me about an act to get used to Alfred Molina as Ares — I kept hearing him as Tevye (if only he had broken into a rousing rendition of Tradition). The main flaw to me was that Steve Trevor was a rather lightweight character with frat-boy morals, and it was hard to see him being at all attractive to Diana. (And where did an isolated Bronze-Age society come up with an invisible jet?)

Now I’m not saying it’s genre-redefining film by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a solidly enjoyable super-hero movie with a hint of a female empowerment theme. My wife (Wonder Woman knowledge level 1/10) seemed to enjoy it as much as I (Wonder Woman knowledge level 7/10) did — she even specifically mentioned how much she liked it, which is an unusual thing for her to say about an animated film. Our nineteen-month-old son was even able to sit still and watch it for twenty minutes in a row — the first time he’s done this for a show that wasn’t the Backyardigans. There were some intense battle scenes in the beginning and end of the movie that I wouldn’t let him watch, so bear that in mind when watching it with kids.

1. Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker [Uncut Version]
2. Justice League: The New Frontier
3. Wonder Woman
4. Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman
5. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

The villainous Virtual Bob (yep, that’s his name) is trying to use a virtual reality program to drive Marc Slayton (Backlash) insane. Instead, Slayton turns the tables on him and uses the program to take control of Virtual Bob’s mind.

Seriously — Virtual Bob? Did he really think that was a good name? It’s an MMOPRG gesture, not a name. Frankly, There aren’t really that many awe-inspiring comic book characters who go by “Bob.” There’s Sideways Bob from DV8…and…and….hmmm. Well, there’s Bob the lizard from Grimjack. At least he’s cool.

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed backlash taboo virtual bob

Bruce Banner is lured to Europe by Victoria Frankenstein, the great grand-daughter of the infamous Victor Frankenstein. She has brought Banner to Europe to help her revive her great grandfather’s creature, who has been steadily decaying over the years. Using his superlative knowledge of medicine and anatomy (which is all the more impressive because he is a physicist), Banner helps her repair the creature. One stormy night, the full extent of her plans becomes clear when she sedates Banner and hooks him up to a machine to transfuse his gamma-irradiated blood into the creature. It is his blood, along with about a gazillion volts of lightning, that will revive the Frankenstein monster.

Her plan is a success. Not only is the monster reborn, but now he is gamma-irradiated as well. As for how the story ends, you’ll have to read the comic for yourself…

Scene from the first story in The Monster-Sized Hulk Special, by Jeff Parker and Gabriel Hardman. It’s a good, fun story — but in terms of classic monster transfusions, I still think the one where Batman transfuses a vampire is the best.

Other Comic Book Transfusions

Fantastic Four #561 “The Galactus Engine”
Mark Millar, writer
Brian Hitch, penciler

In battle, Sue Richards disables the future Wolverine by turning his optical nerves invisible, thus rendering him blind…then the Thing clobbers him.

Nice plan, but there’s no way it’s going to work.

As the name suggests, the optic nerve transmits nerve impulses from the back of the eye to the brain. It does not transmit light or images of any sort. Thus turning it invisible would have absolutely no effect on vision. It would be like turning the wiring in a lamp invisible but leaving the bulb alone — the light’s still going to work.

This is the second time I’ve seen this error in a comic book; it must be a more common misconception than I realized.

Other thoughts:
Sue can see when she’s invisible, and her optic nerve is invisible with her, so maybe she should have realized there was a flaw in her plan earlier.
Wolverine, he of the “I can smell force fields” a page earlier, is disabled by losing his vision? He defeated Sebastian Shaw by purposefully fighting him in the dark in another comic published the same month.

Medical errors — and lateness issues — aside, I am thoroughly enjoying the Millar/Hitch run on the Fantastic Four. I think it just hits all my Fantastic Four buttons perfectly.

This public service ad from 1952 offers a great example of how much the language has changed in subtle ways over the past 50 years. In this ad, the term welfare wagon is used in a positive light, meaning “helping others within the community.” Nowadays, the term is still in use, with several connotations, none of them particularly positive.

In the book Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America, the author proposes that this PSA has “Superman himself endorse a program of national social welfare.” I think that’s reading a bit much into the ad. To me, while Superman seems to be advocating some form of community welfare, it is a combination system of both private and government programs (he refers to “taxes” suggesting a governmental approach; but the hospital is having a fund drive, which suggests non-governmental funding), and one more locally based than national is scope. Overall, I think Superman is just proposing that “neighbors help neighbors”, whatever the system.

This PSA was written by Jack Schiff with art by Win Mortimer. This ad could be found in DC comics from Jun 1952 including Batman #71, Superboy #20, and Action Comics #187, the source of this scan.

More PSAs

Tags: comics psa superman welfare jack schiff win mortimer

It’s not seen in this panel, but Dakken had a similar psychic bleeding problem, so at least Xavier gives as good as he gets.

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed wolverine charles xavier

This scene raises a good question: how do you close the wounds of a man with invulnerable skin?

As I see it, there are several options:

Scene from Superman/Wonder Woman: Whom Gods Destroy, a mostly forgotten Elseworlds series from 1997 by Chris Claremont and Dusty Abell

Now, it’s not made clear in the comic if the MGH itself was exposed to gamma radiation, or if it was the mutant it was extracted from that was exposed to gamma radiation, but I favor the latter scenario because it would be a lot more fun. As if having a mutant super-power wasn’t enough, now you’d have gamma powers too. Imagine a Hulked-out Angel, Nightcrawler, or Beast…or Emma Frost.

I like the idea of stacking super-powers, and I’m surprised it hasn’t been addressed more often than the occasional Elseworlds*. (Of course, it does have its potential downside, like this)

*Some hero or other always seems to have a Green Lantern ring in addition to their own powers in those.

Flash did a version of stacking powers when he used Johnny Quick’s speed mantra in addition to his own speed powers in the Terminal Velocity storyline (my favorite Flash story ever).

I’m going to the hockey game tonight, so I thought I’d look for a good hockey-themed comic book cover to post, but there really aren’t that many. There are couple of Wayne Gretzky issues of sports personality comics from the 1990s, and then there’s Spider-Man PSA comic “Skating on Thin Ice” that I’ve written about before, but that’s about it. This cover from Strange Sports Stories #5 is the best of the bunch by far. If a Skeletor-wannabe for goalie isn’t enough, how about playing hockey on an ice floe going over a waterfall? Now I really want to read this story.

From Action Comics #175 (December 1952) comes this Superman public service ad about UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund), one of the more common subjects of PSAs not only in DC comics, but those of other publishers as well.

Thanks to this ad, I think I’ve developed a new phobia: Superman flying down and exposing all of my little white lies. I can see it now, walking down the street with the Polite-Wife, and thinking I’ve just dodged a conversational landmine when suddenly Superman swoops in with a, “That’s not quite true Scott, in reality, you didn’t even notice that your wife got a new haircut.” Gee thanks, Superman. Can I just charge the flowers and dinner to you?

This public service ad ran in a variety of December 1952 DC comics. The script was written by DC’s PSA-king Jack Schiff with art by frequent collaborator Win Mortimer.

As the Sunlight Rising storyline begins, Doc Savage decides to use his science (Science!) skills to resurrect his dead wife. Here, two of his companions discuss the plans.

Unfortunately for Doc, he’s basing his resurrection plans on an untruth. It’s a myth that the hair and fingernails grow after you die. While they may appear to grow, what is really happening that the skin next to them is dehydrating and shrinking, giving the illusion of growth.

Doc proceeds with his planned resurrection, but his equipment is stolen by the villains who use it to resurrect his more-or-less archenemy, John Sunlight.

Recently, I’ve been reading through DC’s Doc Savage comic book series from the late ’80s. It features the titular hero brought forward into modern times and having his usual world-spanning adventures. As to be expected from a character who got his start in the pulp magazines of the ’30s and ’40s, the stories are chock full of improbable — if not downright impossible — science (or should that be Science!). Since I’m a fan of the old pulps, I’m willing to accept these in the spirit of the times.

Sometimes, though, I run across a scene where the science is just a little too mad…

So…the “magnetic ray” exerts a force on the iron in the blood (I can buy that), but this somehow causes the pulse to race, the blood pressure to skyrocket, and then the heart to explode. I’d be interested to know how the hemoglobin in the red blood cells has that powerful an affect on the heart, since normally it exerts exactly zero influence on it. I can’t even conceive of a mechanism how this would work. A racing heart could certainly raise the blood pressure, but other severe problems would occur (severe sudden heart failure, a fatal arrhythmia, a stroke, or a heart attack) long before the heart exploded. This is another example of trying to explain things too much — they should have just left it at “magnetic ray.”

Of course, I do appreciate the fact that I get to add another entry to my “Things Which Cause Nose Bleeds in Comic Books” list.

With the 2009 NASCAR season just starting¹, I thought it was about time to finally get around to looking at the NASCAR Heroes Free Comic Day issue² from last year.

The story takes place shortly after the third issue of the comic³, but the scene shifts from the race track to a movie set. It’s the best issue of the series yet, probably because the racetrack is left behind⁴ — but with a slightly different ending, it could have been even better.

The director of the Zoom Speedster movie is in trouble. He has gone through three different lead actors because the set is haunted by a headless ghost — and not just any ghost, but the ghost of a racecar driver. In desperation, the director calls Jimmy Dash and asks him to play the role of Zoom Speedster. Dash agrees and when he asks why the previous stars quit, the director and his staff claim to have no idea.

The first day on the set goes well even though Dash encounters the ghost. His friends are scared, but Dash tells them that he doesn’t believe in ghosts. The next day, the ghost kidnaps the lead actress and in order to rescue her, Dash has to race him. It’s an eye pleasing — if unrealistic race — including vertical loops, flaming rings, alligators, and games of chicken at over 150 miles per hour⁵. In the end, Dash wins and the ghost mysteriously disappears. It’s not a happy ending though, as Dash is fired from the movie for wrecking the set.

The story is set up an awful lot like an episode of Scooby Doo, and there are many of the familiar characters and situations: a confident skeptical hero, cowardly friends, a mysterious ghost, and authority figures who know more than they’re letting on. There’s an important part of Scooby Doo that the writers of this story forgot though: the reveal at the end. That was always the best part of Scooby Doo.

As far as I can tell, this was the last issue of the comic distributed through standard comic retail channels. There have been two more issues released by Starbridge Media Group — and available at their site — but they don’t appear to have had distribution through Diamond⁶. Issue #4 appears to be this same comic with a slightly different cover, and issue #5 purports to start a new story arc⁷.

Previous NASCAR posts: Review of NASCAR Heroes #1 Review of NASCAR Heroes #2 Review of NASCAR Heroes #3 A History of Comics and NASCAR

With the upcoming film, Warner Brothers has been busy preparing an avalanche of Watchmen merchandise. Among the t-shirts, action figures, mugs, video games, mad-libs, thongs, and pogs, these little beauties almost slipped by unnoticed. Which is a shame, because nothing says “I Love You” better than a Watchmen Valentine.

The second good episode of Fringe in a row. Maybe my Doomsday Clock threat is working

The Plot:The episode starts with Mr. Jones, the enigmatic villain who escaped from a German prison several episodes ago through the use of Dr. Bishop’s teleport machine. He was shoved in a decompression chamber the minute he arrived, and now he finally emerges 2 weeks later. Everything should be fine, but he notices a distinct tremor of his hands.

Meanwhile, a newspaper vendor in the city dies in a particularly gruesome way. In a matter of seconds, his skin grows over his eyes, nose, and mouth and he suffocates to death. On first hearing about the case, Bishop suspects ceramides were involved. Agent Dunham, on her part, suspects that Mr. Jones is behind the death and is determined to find him.

One of the junior FBI agents determines that Jones’ late lawyer had access to a warehouse in Texas that, after years of lying dormant, had its power switched back on the same day Jones escaped from prison. Broyles is just about to order a raid on the warehouse when Mr. Jones turns himself in to the FBI at the Boston office. He refuses to speak to anyone but Agent Dunham.

For once making sense, new head honcho Harris refuses to let Dunham talk to Jones, telling her that doing so would be giving in to a terrorist’s demands. Instead he sends Dunham on the raid on the Texas warehouse. The raid turns up evidence that Jones had been there, and when one of the FBI agents (coincidentally, the same one who located the warehouse in the first place) dies of the same weird condition, the team knows Jones is responsible for the strange disease.

Dunham and Peter Bishop track down the manifesto of the ZTF, the group Jones is associated with. It tells of a coming war between two realities with only one surviving. By now, Dr. Bishop has discovered that the strange disease is caused by toxin absorbed through the skin that causes hyperactivity of the “protein responsible for scar tissue.”

Back in Boston, Jones refuses to talk to Harris, but does give him a list of supplies he requires. Dunham returns from Texas and meets with Jones. She hands him the supplies he requested and he promptly uses them to make an anti-surveillance device so no one can overhear their conversation. He admits that he is responsible for the two deaths, but tells her he wants to prevent any more. Before giving her anymore information, he tells her that she must take the key he brought with him and take it to an abandoned amusement part. Once there, she finds what appears to be a box of old children’s games. A note tells her that she must pass the “first test” — mentally turn off all the lights in a box — with her mind alone before Jones will tell her anything else.

Dunham tries the test, fails, and is convinced it is nothing but a game Jones is playing. She confronts him again, and he tells her it is not a game, but reality. He then tells her that she is special because she received treatment with the drug Cortexiphan. It turns out that this is a drug designed by Massive Dynamics — by Dr. Bell himself in fact — which is supposed to “remove limitations” from the mind. During their conversation, Jones collapses, suffering from after effects of teleportation; effects which are hinted at, but never explained. He is rushed to Bishop’s lab where Dr. Bishop manages to resuscitate him. Dunham has Peter Bishop rewire the light board so it looks like she passed the test. Jones relents and tells her the location of a bomb containing the compound that causes the disease. The FBI rushes there to find that the bomb is wired with an array of lights, just like the “test” Dunham was given. The only way to defuse the bomb is turn out all the lights without touching the device. Olivia decides she has to try and manages to mentally turn off all the lights with just seconds to spare.

Afterward, when she goes to talk with Jones, she discovers he has escaped the hospital where he was transferred by punching an enormous hole in the wall. The words “You Pass” are scrawled on the wall. Meanwhile, Walter has been reading the ZTF manifesto and discovers that its typewritten pages exactly match the print produced by his old typewriter.

1. Would a Fat-Free Diet Help?
Ceramides are lipid molecules common in cell membranes. As Walter says, they play a role in cell differentiation. On the other hand, he’s mostly wrong when he also mentions cell growth. Ceramides don’t seem to play a role in overactive cell growth — just the opposite actually — they appear to inhibit cell growth. (And being a lipid – a fatty molecule — it has nothing to do with the scar tissue protein implicated later).

2. Not Quite Far Enough
Performing her emergency tracheotomy, Agent Dunham successfully cut through the skin, but neglected to actually cut into the trachea — the key part of the procedure. She just slid the tube into the loose tissue in front of the trachea — though it ended up being a moot point.

3. Rescue Me
Unexplained bradycardia. An EKG is a good call.
They confused cardiac arrest (the heart stopping) and heart attack (lack of blood flow to the heart causing damage). Nitroglycerin is good for a heart attack, but won’t do any good for a cardiac arrest.
50cc is not enough saline to resuscitate anyone; it’s only about 1 ½ shot glasses of salt water. A normal resuscitation required liters of fluid. Though to be fair, Walter orders the saline and never states why; it is Peter who tells us it is for resuscitation, and he might not know what he’s talking about.

4. Lying or Stupid?
Mr Jones didn’t tell Olivia “where or when” the bomb was going to go off? He may have neglected the where, but he certainly told us the when — 16 hours.

5. Elementary, My Dear Watson
Some interesting choices for the movies and book mentioned in this episode. I’m suspicious they may be clues, or at least hints.
The Land of Laughs. I actually have the book in my library (but not the edition shown). A very good book. Among other themes, it deals with reality versus fantasy. Since they explicitly singled out the book by name, I suspect it’s important. I’ll have to reread it.
Charade. Good movie. Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn. Deals with people who aren’t what they seem. Good guys are bad guys and bad guys are good guys.
Rear Window, the only Jimmy Stewart/Grace Kelly movie. A classic Hitchcock suspense thriller.

There were hokey aspects (Dunham’s psychic powers, alternate realities) and questionable medicine, but there was enough cleverness in this week’s plot to allow me to overlook them. I particularly liked the manifesto and the twist that the bomb had to be deactivated just like the test she only beat by cheating. I’m moving back the clock another minute, and the Doomsday Clock now stands at 11:55. (Of course, now we have to wait until April for new episodes, and I will have forgotten all the clues and the show will have lost all its building momentum.)

Detective Comics #693 “Systemic Shock”
Chuck Dixon, writer
Staz Johnson, penciler
Published January 1996

I hope everyone looked at the Arkham Asylum Employment Application, because this scene follows immediately from that image and gives you good reason not to trust Poison Ivy’s cooking (like that isn’t common sense).

Psychiatrist #1: And you grew these greens on the grounds?
Poison Ivy: And strictly organic, doctor.
Psychiatrist #1: I love fresh radishes.
Psychiatrist #2: Um…they’re tangier than I’m used to.
Psychiatrist #1: Mmf…Chmmf…They’ve got a real bite to them. Almost like–
Psychiatrist #2: FFT! [choking sound]
Psychiatrist #1: WFFT! [choking sound]

Jack in the Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) is a common forest plant in the western half of the United States. It is well known for its unique flower that looks like a preacher standing in a pulpit (hence its name).

Native Americans used Jack in the Pulpit as a food source, but they were careful only to consume the plant once it was dried or cooked. The raw plant is extremely irritating to the mucous membranes of the mouth and throat. It contains calcium oxalate crystals — which are extremely irritating to the tissues of the mouth causing swelling and a burning pain. Mild mouth or throat irritation is the most common, but there have allegedly been cases where consumption of the raw plant has led to a severe swelling of the throat, causing the victim to asphyxiate (which is what seems to be happening here. Poison Ivy seems to have found an uncommonly potent variety). If swallowed, the plant can also be extremely irritating to the stomach, causing nausea, vomiting, and severe abdominal pain; it is said to have caused deaths in this manner as well. According to my most reliable medical botany text, human deaths from Jack in the Pulpit are just rumored; there have been no confirmed deaths from eating the plant.

There are a couple problems with Poison Ivy’s plan (besides her lucking into finding an extremely toxic variety of the plant): While eating raw Jack in the Pulpit causes irritation of the mouth, gums, and throat, the irritation is on the inside of the mouth. The cheeks won’t swell up like a puffer-fish. Pushing a narrow straw through the lips won’t help anyway because –
1) It’s the throat swelling that’s cutting off the airway, not the lips.
2) The straw is too narrow for good air exchange (which seems to be a common comic book theme).

Before Superman perfected his “keep the heart beating with heat vision” technique, it appears he experimented with other resuscitation methods including this one, which he used to restart Professor Hamilton’s heart in Action Comics #667.

This technique seems to involve rubbing the chest very fast and…um…OK, I actually have no idea what Superman’s trying to accomplish here. But it sure seems to work — maybe it will show up in the next revision of ACLS.

Actually, I think that Superman’s powers would work against him in a resuscitation situation:
1. Super strength: It’s be too easy for him to apply a little too much pressure and crush the ribcage.
2. Super speed: He’d have the tendency to compress the heart too fast. CPR requires steady measured beats. With his speed, he’d essentially be mimicking ventricular tachycardia, if not downright ventricular fibrillation.

So if you’re down for the count and a super-hero shows up, you better pray it’s Batman and not Superman — I bet he’s got a Bat-AED in that belt of his.

When we took the cats to the vet last weekend for their annual vaccinations, this poster for National Pet Wellness Month caught my eye. But then again, it contains two of my interests combine it one: it’s a cat wearing a head mirror dammit (and wearing it incorrectly at that). So of course, I decided it required a blog post.

Comic book writers have a tendency to try to tie everything together in a neat little package. Depending on your point of view, this can be a good or exasperating (I tend towards the former). I find it particularly interesting when writers take this approach when dealing with comic book medicine. A good example is what I like to call the “Venom Family Tree.” In it, we see 60+ years of comic book continuity linked by the drug Venom.

NOTES:
1. Miraclo is the pill that gives Hourman his power and was first mentioned in Adventure Comics #48 (March 1940). In JSA All-Stars #5 (Nov 2003), Hourman II revealed that he had made a new non-addictive version of Miraclo that worked via a skin patch. In JSA Classified #17-18 (November 2006), it was revealed that Venom was based on Miraclo.

2. Venom is an addictive super-steroid that was first mentioned in Legends of the Dark Knight #16 (March 1991). Side note: it wasn’t called Venom at that time — that was the name of the storyline. It is best known for giving the super-villain Bane his power. There have been at least a second- and third-generation of Venom, each more powerful and more addictive than the last.

3. Decahydrabolin, better known as Steroid A39, is the drug that gave the current Dr. Mid-Nite his powers. In Doctor Mid-Nite #1 (1999), he mentions that it is a derivative of Venom.

4. Slappers are a transdermal version of Venom that appeared in Batman Beyond, so are undoubtedly non-canon.

5. Nandrolone is a real-world anabolic steroid. In Nightwing #114 (January 2006) it was mentioned as a precursor of Venom.

I’m pretty sure I’m missing a few more Venom derivatives, but I’ll fill them in as I run across them again. Some day, when I have way too much time on my hands and I’m feeling masochistic, I’ll take on the Super Soldier Serum family tree.

As part of her rehabilitation, Poison Ivy offers to cook you a meal. Do you:

Answers and results available below.

Read more…

Ultimate Fantastic Four #59
Joe Pokaski, writer
Tyler Kirkham, penciler

When I read the solicitation for this issue of the Ultimate Fantastic Four, I had high hopes. A Fantastic Voyage style adventure into Sue Storm’s brain? Sounds great! Unfortunately, the book didn’t live up to my expectations. Now don’t get me wrong: it’s not a bad comic — unlike many recent comics it actually advances the plot and has good characterization — but all the same it’s a frustrating comic because it could have been so much now. Plus there’s a handful of questionable medicine.

Sue Storm has been unconscious since using her powers to save New York City from a tsunami wave in Ultimatum #1. Not only did this give her a psychic nosebleed, but it also knocked her into a coma. Not a normal coma, but one that can only be corrected by zapping a specific area of the hindbrain known as the “Omega Synapse” (cue dramatic music) with a laser. Of course, this must done from inside her body. Since Reed Richards is nowhere to be found, Ben Grimm recruits disgraced scientist Dr. Arthur Molekevic (aka the Mole Man) to help him. Together they jerry-rig a space shuttle with a laser and a Pym-particle-based shrinking device, then hop in and begin their voyage.

Grimm and Molekevic start by flying in the mouth and down the trachea, because Molekevic assures Grimm that it is way it’s always done. It’s a little hard to tell it’s the trachea by the art, because it lacks the ring-structure normally seen in the trachea . Frankly, it looks more like the esophagus. Luckily, sensing my confusion, the artist has drawn lots of air lines, so we know it’s the trachea (or else Sue’s inhaling a lot of tiny worms). Plus there’s a caption.

Next, another caption identifies the shuttle as being in the carotid artery, but the dialogue indicates they’re heading toward the heart. If both are true, then that’s a very bass-ackwards way to get to the heart if the ultimate destination is the brain. Another comment a few pages later indicates that they are just then heading out for the carotid, so I think it’s safe to say the caption is wrong (it should probably read pulmonary vein).

Since the shuttle’s in Sue’s circulatory system now, at some point they must have crossed from her airways into her blood vessels, but how or where is never explained (or even mentioned). This is probably just the doctor/sci-fi geek in me talking, but I would have really liked to know how they did it. Personally, I’m assuming they crossed over in the lungs, because that’s the most logical location.

Molekevic: The brain is the destination, but we have to go through the heart to get there. It’s Grand Central Station. The good news is we can get pretty much anywhere from here. The bad is that the tissue us extremely sensitive and will reject anything foreign or artifical in — well, a heartbeat.

That must be shocking news for the thousands of people with artificial heart valves, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of people with pacemakers.

While in the heart, the shuttle is attacked by hundreds of tiny insectoid robots. The Thing heads outside to fight them off.

General Ross: What’s happening Dr. Storm?
Dr. Storm: She’s gone into cardiac arrest.
Ross: And where are Grimm and Molekevic?
Storm: From the look of it, they’re putting the attack in heart attack.

That is either a confused scientist or a very bad joke. Cardiac arrest and heart attack do not mean the same thing. A cardiac arrest indicates that the heart has stopped (i.e. “arrested”). It can be caused by a heart attack, but it can also be caused by other things such as an arrhythmia (bad heart rhythm), direct trauma, or blood loss. On the other hand, a heart attack occurs when one of the tiny coronary arteries (the arteries which supply blood to the heart muscle itself) is blocked. Some of the heart muscle dies, causing a heart attack (myocardial infarction in medical terminology). Large heart attacks can be immediately fatal, but smaller ones can occur undetected.

The shuttle heads out of the heart and towards the carotid arteries and the medulla oblongata. Somewhere along the way they cross into the cerebrospinal fluid (the liquid surrounding the brain) — and once again I’d like to know how; the blood-brain barrier is tough to pass. The carotid is also not a very good route to get to the hindbrain, but maybe the goal was just to get into the cerebrospinal fluid and then float down to the medulla. The Omega Synapse (cue music!) is located and fried with the laser. Unfortunately, the robot insects have followed them and the battle continues. During the fight, the shrinking machine is injured and Grimm and Molekevic have to quickly leave Sue’s body before they return to normal size within her.

Sue survives, as do Ben Grimm and Arthur Molekevic. For better or worse, Dr. Storm and General Ross also survive.

Detective Comics #619 “Rite of Passage, Part Two: Beyond Belief”
Alan Grant, writer
Norm Breyfogle, penciler
Published August 1990

Tim Drake’s parent’s have been kidnapped and a mysterious tape sent to the Gotham Police demanding a ransom. Batman notices a faint odor on the tape and uses it to help track down the criminals.

Batman is at least partially correct. Jimsonweed (aka Thornapple, Devil’s Trumpet, Ditch Weed; scientific name Datura stramonium) is thought to have originated in Central America (though some experts suspect India) and spread from there. Now it is a ubiquitous plant found worldwide, not just Central America. In fact, the name Jimsonweed is thought to be a corruption of Jamestown Weed, another name of the plant, and proof it was found in Virginia from the early days of American history. Here’s a map of the plant’s distribution in the U.S. alone.

More proof that the drug is known worldwide: it shows up several times in the manga Apothecarius Argentum.

Over the years, medications made from Jimsonweed have had a number of uses. Most well known, as Batman notes, was its use in treating asthma. The 1899 Merck Manual mentions stramonium (a medical name for Jimsonweed) when discussing the treatment of asthma:

Unfortunately, the line between a safe dose and a toxic dose was very thin when dealing with Datura and there have been quite a few deaths attributed to its use. For this reason, the FDA declared it “unfit for human consumption” and it is no longer used medicinally in the United States — but I suspect it is still used in a number of third world countries. Jimsonweed is also used by some people as a recreational hallucinogen, but again it is extremely easy to accidentally take a toxic dose.

Another interesting fact about Jimsonweed is the plant’s rumored use in the preparation of zombies. Also known as “Zombie Cucumber”, Datura has long been suspected as one of the drugs used to turn people into zombies. We’re talking the classic Haitian zombies here, not the modern brain eating ones. Since the Drakes’ kidnapper is a Haitian medicine man, this Haiti-Zombie-Jimsonweed connection is undoubtedly intentional, if unnoticed by Batman.

Several common themes resurfaced time and again in DC Comics’ PSA ads. I’ve already mentioned the “stay-in-school” theme as well as the “United Nations” one. A third common theme is the “kids act while adults complain” theme. In these ads, the adults whine and moan and complain, but don’t actually take constructive steps; the kids, on the other hand, always decide to “act for the good of the community” by the end of the page. Today’s ad, “Know Your Community,” is a perfect example of this kind of PSA.

This PSA was written by Jack Schiff with art by Win Mortimer, who not only drew all the Buzzy PSAs, but the Binky ones as well. This ad could be found in a variety of December 1953 DC Comics including Action Comics #187, the source of this scan.

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Tags: comics psa binky jack schiff win mortimer

I can identify Ms. Martian and Mind Grabber Man, but the rest just seem like generic psychics.

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Tags: comics medicine nosebleed final crisis grant morrison

images from The Amazing Spider-Man #113 (October 1972) by Gerry Conway and John Romita

It’s good to see Dr. Bromwell again, and nice to know that he’s still performing house calls. One of the implications here is that Peter has pulled one over on the good old doctor, who of course is not aware that all of Peter’s numerous problems relate to him being Spider-Man.

But on the other hand, who’s to say Dr. Bromwell isn’t right? It wouldn’t surprise me to discover that in addition to being Spider-Man, Peter has an ulcer, just like the doctor says.

You can tell the time frame this was written by Dr. Bromwell’s approach to the diagnosis and treatment of ulcers. For the better part of the twentieth century, it was believed that ulcers were caused by a combination of high stress and poor diet. Later, increased stomach acid production was suspected as the underlying cause. Then, in the last twenty years or so, it was discovered that most ulcers have an infectious cause — a nasty little bacteria known as Helicobacter pylori (more commonly called H.pylori). Thus current treatment for ulcers includes acid reducing medication in addition to a course of strong antibiotics.

Dr. Bromwell seems to be firmly in the first camp: ulcers are caused by stress and a poor diet. He tells Peter that he is too tense for someone his age, and then tells Gwen what food he can and cannot have.

The main treatment for ulcers at the time of this comics was antacids, which were available over the counter. Some physicians at the time mistakenly prescribed anticholinergic medications (which are good for other gastrointestinal problems, but not ulcers), and this is probably what Dr. Bromwell is sending Harry out to get.

As for his “further tests,” Dr. Bromwell is talking about an Upper GI, where Peter would drink a contrast solution like Barium, and then an x-ray would be taken and examined for the tell-tale sings of ulcers. Today, upper endoscopy (an EGD) is the most common method of diagnosing an ulcer.

Sorry Jimmy, but I don’t think you’re going to survive this adventure.

The straw Jimmy is using is simply too long and too narrow to work. That means that there is too much flow resistance to get the old air out and fresh air in. Instead, he’ll end up breathing in the same oxygen-deprived air he just breathed out, and within a minute or two he’ll pass out. Since he’s underwater, that’s likely to prove fatal.

There’s a reason snorkels (and endotracheal tubes) are wide and relatively short.

This was a free comic produced by DC Comics and Schering in 1999. Although generally well written and illustrated, the underlying concept makes this a very bad comic.

A rare white orchid is on display at the black-tie dinner at the Gotham City Botanical Gardens and Bruce Wayne (Batman) and Tim Drake (Robin) are there to keep an eye on it. The reason? Poison Ivy has recently broken out of prison and this is just the kind of plant she likes to steal. Sure enough, she shows up and Batman and Robin spring into action. Unfortunately Robin is so sedated from his over-the-counter allergy medication that he lets Poison Ivy escape with the orchid.

When Batman and Batgirl head out to track down Poison Ivy and the orchid, Robin wants to come along, but Batman grounds him because of his antihistamine-related grogginess. Robin starts to sulk, but Alfred sends him to his doctor who prescribes him a non-sedating antihistamine (Claritin, of course — this was published when it was a prescription-only drug). Thanks to his new medication, Robin is able to conquer his hay fever and avoid sedating side effects; he joins the battle just in time to redeem himself by capturing Poison Ivy and rescue the orchid.

As giveaway comics go, the story by Christopher Priest is quite well done and Joe Staton handles the art well. What keeps it from being a good comic is the fact that Batman is selling drugs. Batman. Is. Selling. Drugs. Look, I don’t mind using super-heroes on occasion to sell something: subscription, Hostess snack cakes, Underoos, etc. I understand that bills have to be paid. But I draw the line at using super-heroes to sell drugs, even ones as innocuous as Claritin. There are some lines that just should not be crossed.

Marge Bannerman has a problem. Her father runs a carnival freakshow but an unscrupulous competitor has lured all his freaks away, and her father is now on the verge of going bankrupt.

She goes to her friend Bob Benton for help because she knows that a pill can solve any problem¹.

Luckily Bob has just the thing for her — the latest wonder drug: Camiana. He gives her a bottle of the pills and she returns to the carnival^2.

She asks the single remaining freak to take the pill, and he agrees. A little while later, in the middle of his act, the pill kicks in and he lights up like a glowing skeleton³

Bob Benton: That drug is a wonderful aid! It lights up the human form, and may well prove as great a discovery as the x-ray!

This sight brings the customers in droves and soon the sideshow is making money hand over fist⁴. Once again, medicine saves the day.

Notes:
1. Kidding! Kidding! Sometimes it takes liquid medicine instead of pills.
2. It sure sounds like he’s prescribing medicine without a license
3. This certainly doesn’t look healthy to me; if anything, it looks suspiciously radioactive. The unfortunate guy doesn’t look to happy about it either. I have a feeling he’ll end up like one of the poor radium girls.
4. Of course, the comic’s not quite over as it is a “Black Terror” story, and not a “Bob Benton, pharmacist” story. Like any Black Terror story, this involves a tremendous number of fist fights and the Terror getting hit over the head and knocked out at least once (seriously, the Black Terror is worse than Black Canary).

Blue Beetle #34 “Boundaries, Part Six: Monopoly”
Matthew Sturges, writer
Rafael Albuquerque, penciler

At the end of the previous issue, Dr. Polaris zaps Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes) with a particular potent burst of magnetic energy, knocking him to the ground and — gasp! — killing him.

However, as is common in comic books, particularly among title characters, death is not always fatal.

When Dr. Polaris can find no heartbeat in the Beetle, he flies off. Since Polaris’s magnetic powers should be able to detect any cardiac electrical activity, it’s safe to say that Jaime’s heart is not functioning at all — in other words, he is in asystole (or flatline, if you prefer).

Time for Blue Beetle’s armor, the scarab, to work its mojo:

Epinephrine (otherwise known as adrenalin) is one of the recommended treatments for asystole. As shown, 1 milligram delivered intravenously is the standard dose in this setting. You’ll notice the author, correctly, did not have the scarab shock the flatline — which is a nice change.

The epinephrine works — it restarts the heart, but unfortunately it excites the heart too much and knocks Jaime into ventricular fibrillation, a potentially fatal heart rhythm.

The preferred treatment for ventricular fibrillation is to shock it (the machine is called a “defibrillator” for a reason — it is used to stop fibrillation). Quick treatment is key and the chance of successful resuscitation decreases by 5-10% for each minute defibrillation is delayed. With rapid defibrillation, the success rate of treating ventricular fibrillation nears 85%. The scarab follows through appropriately:

360 joules is the recommended setting for the treatment of ventricular fibrillation, at least when using a monophasic machine. Newer machines use biphasic defibrillation, which is felt to be superior (it has a higher success rate at any given energy level), but there is no recommended setting for these machines — it varies by manufacturer. Apparently for the scarab, it’s 360 Joules.

After 4 1/2 years of medically reviewing comic books, it’s nice to see one finally get the treatment of asystole correct.

As Superboy points out, winter is here (at least in the northern hemisphere), and so everyone’s thoughts turn to shoelaces. Well, that’s what Superboy suggests anyway — read the full PSA to discover why.

This PSA appeared in various DC comics in January 1952 including Action Comics #168, World’s Finest #56, and Wonder Woman #51. The script is by PSA-meister Jack Schiff, with art by the prolific Win Mortimer.

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Tags: comics psa superboy shoelaces jack schiff win mortimer

Marvel Zombies 3 #1
Fred Van Lente, writer
Kev Walker, penciler

Jennifer Kale is a sorceress and member of Florida’s state super-hero team, the Command. They are sent to investigate strange happenings in the middle of the Florida swamp only to discover the first stages of a zombie attack from another dimension. In just a matter of minutes, her team is attacked and decimated by zombie Deadpool and his cohorts. Jennifer is the only one who manages to escape, but she is injured in the process:

1. The flexor digitorum profundus is a muscle of the forearm that is required for fully flexing (bending) the fingers. It is a deep muscle, located right against the bone on the underside of the forearm. The muscle is used to flex the distal aspect (the far portion) of the fingers, but also plays a role in flexing the rest of the hand.

2. Flexing the fingers certainly seems to be an important part of spell casting in the Marvel Universe. For one thing, it’s impossible to make Dr. Strange’s classic casting technique of Ditko-fingers without flexing the fingers. From what I’ve seen, Jennifer Kale has a similar casting style. While I don’t have her earliest appearances in various Steve Gerber Man-Thing stories, in more recent years she has shown up in the absolutely horrible mini-series Witches, and there she uses a modified flexed finger technique.

3. I don’t think that zombie Deadpool’s shot was as good as he thinks it was, but even if I’m right, it wouldn’t affect the eventual outcome:

It’s not clear to me that Deadpool injured Jennifer’s flexor digitorum profundus. The injury seems to be on the upper-medial side of the forearm, while the flexor digitorum profundus is in on the lower medial side. His shot seems more likely to have affected the extensor muscles, but they seem equally important to Marvel universe spellcasting, so the ultimate result would have been the same.

The tendons of the flexor digitorum profundusdon’t start that far back anyway; his shot would have hit the belly of the muscle (though severing that would have pretty much the same effect as cutting the tendons).

Finally, remember that the flexor digitorum profundusis a deep muscle. The flexor digitorum superficialis lies on top of it, and any injury that severs the profundis would have to go through the superficialis as well. Of course, the flexor digitorum superficialis is another important muscle in flexing the fingers, so the outcome would be the same — but you’d think the always chatty Deadpool would have mentioned he was severing two muscles for the price of one.

4. Even in our non-magical world, flexor digitorum profundus injuries are repairable, so assuming Jennifer survives the Zombie onslaught, she should be able to regain full use of her fingers after a surgical repair.

After looking at the Worst Comic Book Medicine of 2008 earlier, now I’m going to celebrate the Best Comic Book Medicine of 2008.

Best Depiction of Medicine:
The hospital scenes in Blue Beetle #31.link

Best Doctor:
Doctor Mid-Nite finally got the chance to strut his stuff as the preeminent physician of the DC universe, showing up not just in the Justice Society of America, but also having medical assistance roles in Detective Comics, Blue Beetle, and Terra.

Best Single Medical or Scientific Concept:
Slim pickings again this year, but I’d say the best and most realistic medically-driven storyline this year was Sadie’s marked personality changes after suffering brain damage, as seen in David Lapham’s Young Liars series. link

Best Imaginary Medicine or Treatment:
Warren Ellis’s fascination with super-heroes and polyploidy (additional sets of chromosomes), as seen in both Ultimate Human and his run on Astonishing X-Men. link

Special Mention:
Best New Doctor: Dr. Faiza Hussain, the Excalibur-wielding physician from Captain Britain and M.I. 13.
Best Medically Accurate Art: Rags Morales in Nightwing #148.
Best Technobabble: Mandarin’s scientist in Iron Man #24, when he tried to explain how Maya had disguised the Extremis code by hiding it binarily in protein complexes in the genetic structure..

Previous “Best of the Year”: The Best Comic Book Medicine of 2007 The Best Comic Book Medicine of 2006 The Best Comic Book Medicine of 2005 The Best Comic Book Medicine of 2004

It’s that time again: time to look back on the absolutely worst examples of comic book medicine, both real and imaginary, over the past year.

Worst Depiction of Medicine:
While there was a bunch of mediocre and questionable medicine, there was nothing horrible — at least until the Emergency Room scene on Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #200 was reprinted in the Batman: Going Sane trade paperback. link #1 link #2

Worst Doctor:
She’s not technically a doctor, but she was acting as one in X-Men Legacy #209, so that counts. The worst doctor of the year was the Omega Prime Sentinel for her plan to revive Professor Xavier from his coma. Far from “jump starting” his brain, her plan would have instead caused him to suffer a massive seizure. And did I mention that she confused volts and amps? Not a good idea when you’re a cyborg. link

Worst Single Medical or Scientific Concept:
The complete mess made of the concept of the genome — confusing the term with both individual genes and genealogy — in Ultimate Origins #1. The idea can be done right (see Warren Ellis), but this was painfully bad. link

Worst Imaginary Medicine or Treatment:
Superman using his heat vision to keep Lois’s heart beating (and then the fact that he kept looking away from her) in Final Crisis and Superman Beyond. No, Don’t ask, I can’t explain it either. link #1 link #2

Dishonorable Mentions:
Hulk’s retina scan.
The continuing mistaken belief that the speed of thought is faster than the speed of light.
Peter Parker being unconscious, yet “alert”.

In what may be a surprise, Catwoman’s missing heart didn’t make the list. There were certainly some problems with the medicine in the storyline — mostly nit-picking and logistical — but ultimately I was willing to accept the fact that Mr. Freeze’s science allowed Hush to pull it off.

Later today, the “Best Comic Book Medicine of 2008″.

Previous “Worst of the Year”: The Worst Comic Book Medicine of 2007 The Worst Comic Book Medicine of 2006 The Worst Comic Book Medicine of 2005 The Worst Comic Book Medicine of 2004

scene from The Incredible Hulk #373 (by David and Keown)

Polite Dissent returns to its regularly scheduled programming on Wednesday with my annual review of the best and worst comic book medicine of 2008.

This causes a reaction from his own Gen-factor (which leads me to believe that he must be a lot of fun at I.O.’s annual Christmas party).

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Tags: comics medicine nosebleed deathblow gamorra

Christmas Day is here! And to celebrate the final day of Scott’s 2008 Comic Book Cover Countdown Advent Calendar is an obscure title from 1960 combine both space and Santa (and no, it’s not Santa Claus Conquers the Martians).

A Christmas Journey Through Space (Western Publishing, 1960)

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Christmas Day!

It’s Christmas Eve! Just one more day to go until Christmas, and this year’s penultimate Advent Calendar cover is Bugs Bunny’s Christmas Funnies #1!

Bugs Bunny’s Christmas Funnies #1 (Dell, November 1950)

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1 Day until Christmas!

With just two days to go until Christmas, the Advent Calendar Comic Cover Countdown features a great cover that features two of this year’s themes: 1) Funny Animals, and 2) Super-Heroes.

Merry Christmas from Hoppy the Marvel Bunny!

Fawcett’s Funny Animals #2 (Fawcett, January 1941)

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2 Days until Christmas!

scene from The Authority: Human on the Inside (By John Ridley and Ben Oliver)

Jack Hawksmoor has been seriously injured in a battle with the mythological Erinyes. In this scene, the Engineer is telling him the full extent of his injuries.

What medical error (or errors) are in the scene?

Previous picture quizzes

Three days left until Christmas, and the second super-hero cover in a row. Today’s cover comes straight from Gotham City, where the Riddler seems to have fallen victim to (or more likely, perpetrated) that most feared of Yuletide disasters: the Christmas tree fire.

The Batman and Robin Adventures #3 (DC Comics, December 1995)

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3 Days until Christmas!

Another psychic nosebleed from the early WildStorm era. In this scene from Backlash #2, the Daemonite Lord S’Ryn takes over the command of the villainous organization The Cabal from the soon-to-be-late H’Tarh.

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Tags: comics medicine nosebleed backlash daemonite

A mere 4 days until Christmas, and for today’s #4 cover, I dip back into the super-hero bag for Generation X #4. This was a great series, at least for the first year or two, with good writing, interesting characters, and good Bachalo art. It was a fun comic, something sorely missing in today’s mainstream X-titles.

Generation X #4 (Marvel Comics, February 1995)

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4 Days until Christmas!

Only 5 days to go until Christmas — it’s just round the bend! And speaking of “round the bend,” here comes the Disney Christmas Train, featuring Mickey, Donald, his nephews, and Scott’s bad segues.

Walt Disney’s Christmas Parade #5 (Gold Key, February 1967)

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5 Days until Christmas!

For today’s Christmas Cover (less than a week to go!), a second holiday cover from the Maze Agency, the best mystery comic book ever.

The Maze Agency #6 (Comico, May 1989)

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6 Days until Christmas!

A concept that shows up in medicine from time to time is the Metabolic Equivalent, or met. It is important when dealing with sports physiology, weight loss, and cardiac stress testing.

This page from The Brave and the The Bold #46 (February-March 1963) does a nice job of illustrating the concept.

Only 1 week left until Christmas! I hope you have all your shopping done…

For today’s cover, we dip back to the Golden Age and find another hitch-a-ride-on-Santa’s-sleigh cover, a common theme.

Marge’s Little Lulu #7 (Gold Key, January 1949)

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7 Days until Christmas!

In his super-hero work with Wildstorm and Marvel, Warren Ellis has repeatedly returned to the concept that extra chromosomes can lead to super-powers. Sure, it’s mostly comic book science-fiction, but there is some real science behind it — science that Ellis mostly gets right.

DV8 #8
The team stumbles across a forgotten Soviet town populated entirely by children. Of course, these aren’t normal children, but children who were experimented on and are now genetically — and in many cases, mechanically — enhanced.

Sublime talks to one of the girls who recognizes DV8 as kindred spirits. The girl tells Sublime that they both have “three-strings” which Sublime realizes means that they are triploid — they have three sets of chromosomes instead of the normal two.

It is not clear if the Soviet children were born with three sets of chromosomes or theirs were altered later. The story suggests that either may be true. DV8, however, were born with their “Gen-Factor” and so if we are to believe the little girl, were born triploid.

Triploidy has been known to occur in humans, but always results in severe birth defects with the unfortunate child usually dying within a few hours after birth. In fact, the defects in triploid fetuses are so severe that the vast majority (50,000:1) are miscarried. While the idea that a third set of chromosomes grants the DV8 team and the Soviet children super-powers seems a clever concept, it is far from the unfortunate reality of triploidy in humans.

ULTIMATE HUMAN #1

In this series, Bruce Banner comes to Tony Stark looking for help in controlling his transformations into the Hulk. Looking at the data Bruce provided, Tony mentions

Is this polyploidy I’m looking at? More than two sets of chromosomes? It might account for increased cell size…

Polyploidy is an SAT-word for individuals or species that have more than 2 sets of chromosomes. If you want, you can get even more specific: three sets (triploidy), four sets (tetraploidy), five sets (pentaploidy), six sets (hexaploidy), and so on, but polyploidy is a good generic term.

Polypoloids are important in agriculture and a very common finding in plants. It is estimated that at least 70% of flowering plants are polyploid. Special techniques and chemicals are used by horticulturists to create polyploid plants. This tends to dramatically increase the size of these plants and their resultant fruits and vegetables.

On the other hand, polyploidy is rare in animals. It can be found in some of the lower species (flatworms, leeches) and even some amphibians; but requires reproduction through parthenogenesis. In higher animals, polyploidy is extremely rare – especially in mammals. There have been attempts to breed polyploid cattle, but they never worked out well. However, the animals did have greatly increased muscle mass over their normal ancestors.

In this case, I like the polyploid idea. It explains — as well as anything else — why the Hulk’s muscles are so ridiculously huge, and it has at least a little basis in reality. It opens up some other questions (such as, is the Hulk sterile?), but these are probably best left unanswered.

ASTONISHING X-MEN #25
The X-Men have discovered at least two people who apparently have mutant powers, but don’t register as a mutant on any of their scans. After obtaining a tissue sample, the Beast is able to determine that the individuals in question have had a third set of artificial chromosomes added their genome. He tells Cyclops that “functional triploids do not occur in human nature” (which is true, but maybe somebody should tell DV8). He then goes on to explain that these new chromosomes with their misplaced x-gene is what is allowing them to remain undetected.

An artificial triploid is a clever concept, and not entirely in the realm of fiction. Yeast artificial chromosomes have been around since the early 80s, and bacterial artificial chromosomes were developed 10 years later. In 1997, artificial human chromosomes were developed. These are small mini-chromosomes – they can only hold a handful of genes — that are only stable for about six months. Far from what the Beast was describing, but still closer than most comic book genetics.

The Beast’s comments in this issue raise some interesting points:

How do you get that third set of chromosomes into every cell in the body? Or does it only have to be in certain cells — in which case the Beast got lucky with his tissue sample.

Beast mentions that the mutant gene sits on the 23rd chromosome. Interestingly enough, the 23rd chromosome is the sex-chromosome…so the x-gene must be on the X-chromosome, but is it also on the Y? Are female mutants more powerful?

Only 8 days left until Christmas, and I figured it was finally about time to use a super-hero cover. Today’s cover comes courtesy of The Sensation She-Hulk #8, co-starring Nick St. Christopher (wink, wink).

The Sensational She-Hulk #8 (Marvel Comics, November 1989)

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8 Days until Christmas!

I hope it goes without saying that Batman’s recovery is nothing short of miraculous: in less than two years, he manages to go from struggling to breathe to a full return to crime fighting, none the worse for wear. As the late night infomercials say, “results not typical”.

For the purpose of this post, I’m going to focus on the period initially after the injury where he is under the care of first his faithful butler Alfred, and then neighborhood physician Dr. Shondra Kinsolver.

I. The Injury
To start off, let’s take a close look at what happened to the Dark Knight. There are two mechanisms of injury here. First, Batman’s spine is hyperextended; it’s bent backwards farther than any back is meant to go. Second, Bane is driving his knee into the back, pushing the spine forward.
[click here for an annotated image.]

II. The Doctor’s Assessment

Dr. Kinsolving: These x-rays clearly show a fulcrum-type stress fracture. Not at all the kind of trauma sustained in a car crash.

Dr Kinsolving is both right and wrong.

She’s right in that the way the injury was explained to her (a car accident) does not match the injury she observes (blow from behind). Alfred tries to explain it away, but she’s already suspicious.

However, she’s wrong in the way she herself describes the injury. While Bane’s knee was used as a fulcrum to break Batman’s back, what he suffers is not a fulcrum fracture per se. Those are a type of Chance fracture and occur with hyperflexion (the back bending forward too far), not hyperextension.

It’s not really a stress fracture either. Those can occur in the spine, usually with an increase in repetitive trauma (for instance, athletes who increase their workout), or with trauma. However, stress fractures of the spine don’t occur in the verterbral body, and do not occur with the kind of trauma Batman experienced.

Despite what she says, I don’t seem much of a fracture on the x-ray she’s holding up, unless it’s the diagonal line on the vertebra. If that’s what she’s referring to, it doesn’t match the type of injury she’s describing, or the one Batman suffered. [click here for an annotated image.]

(Based on the mechanism of injury, I’d predict that Batman suffered a fracture/dislocation injury. There was some spinal breakage occurring, but most of the injury is from one or more of the vertebrae being pushed forward into the spinal cord, injuring it).

III. Steroids
Steroids are a good treatment for spinal cord injuries. Bear in mind the term “steroid” generally refers to one of two related, but distinct, classes of medication.
1. There are the infamous anabolic steroids. These are the ones that cause an increase in muscle mass and have been abused in most major sports; Bane’s own drug Venom is a particularly fast acting and potent anabolic steroid.
2. Then there are the glucocorticoids (a type of corticosteroid). These are potent anti-inflammatory and immune suppressing drugs. They are used for asthma attacks, poison ivy, autoimmune diseases and other conditions where it is important to calm down inflammation or the immune system. This is the class of steroid that is used in treating spinal cord injuries; it reduces the swelling and improves the recovery.

Decadron was not developed for or “specifically made” for spinal cord injury. It has many medical uses and was around a long time before anyone thought to use it for spinal trauma.

Additionally, it is not a controlled substance and is easy to obtain with a prescription. We have a large supply in a drawer in our office. I suspect the writer is confusing it with an anabolic steroid — which is a controlled substance.

Today’s entry in the Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar should probably just be called “A Fan Service Christmas.”

Battle Vixens #9 (Tokyo Pop, September 2006)

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9 Days until Christmas!

With things getting a little hectic and stressful as Christmas nears, I thought it was time for a little levity (very little, I’m afraid) in the form of a funny animal public service ad.

Peter Porkchops was one of DC Comics’ most popular funny animal characters. He first appeared in Leading Comics, and then headed up his own title for 62 issues. Gone, but not forgotten, Peter resurfaced in Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew where he became the super-hero Pig Iron.

This PSA is from June 1953, during the height of Peter’s popularity. This particular copy was found in Action Comics #181. It was written by Jack Schiff with art by Otto Feuer, who is credited with creating Peter Porkchops.

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Tags: comics psa peter porkchops captain carrot jack schiff otto feuer

Only a mere 10 days until Christmas. Today’s cover comes courtesy of one of the better black and white comics of the 1980s, The Trouble with Girls. It concerns Lester Girls, who wants to do nothing more than live out a nondescript quiet white-picket fence life. Unfortunately, that’s not to be, and Lester keeps finding himself with more money and beautiful women than he knows what to do with. It’s recently been re-released in trade paperback and is well worth your time and money to track down and read.

The Trouble With Girls #10 (Eternity, May 1988)

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10 Days until Christmas!

No longer just limited to comic books, genre movies, and science fiction television, the psychic nosebleed now appears on half-hour situation comedies.

In this scene from the upcoming season premiere of Scrubs, Dr. Cox tries in vain to resist the infectious smile of the hospital’s new chief of staff Dr. Maddox, played by Courtney Cox Arquette.

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Tags: comics medicine television nosebleed scrubs

Fourteen days down, just eleven to go until Christmas!

Yogi Bear #11 (Gold Key, January 1963)

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11 Days until Christmas!