It’s the beginning of the month, so it’s time to look at some of the more interesting internet searches that led people to Polite Dissent over the month of September.

• bwana beast – the #1 search this month. I smell a new series! Hey Bendis: forget Batman, I suggest a Daredevil/Bwana Beast cross-over!
• hawk and dove – the #2 seach this month. If you count all the variations on Hawk, Dove, Hank Hall and Don Hall, it beats out Bwana Beast (but bwarely barely!)
• super-heroes with multiple personality disorders - Good question. There’s the Incredible Hulk (at least in Peter David’s run), Crazy Jane and the new Rose/Thorn (the old one was too, but she wasn’t exactly a hero).
• empty narcotic bottles on e-bay - a surprising number of searches for this every month. Why? Are they the new collectible?
• godot action comics – so Samuel Beckett is writing Superman stories now? Well, he can’t be any worse than the current writers. This one does crack me up because Waiting for Godot and Action Comics seem like such opposite terms.
• zatanna porn – yes, I am apparently the top Google seach for Zatanna porn (and I’m sure this post will help). There is no porn here — Zatanna or otherwise! If you want to ogle naked women, at least do it for a good cause.
• annuals of internal medicine – here’s your problem: annuals are generally over-rated comic books while annals are medical jounals.
• how to remove a running subcuticular suture – you don’t have to! That’s the beauty of this stitch…on the other hand, it’s also a problem if you screw it up. If that happens, just cut it out and start over.
• jack daniels watered down – kind of defeats the whole purpose, doesn’t it?
• mars is light years away from earth – no, no it’s not. It’s only light minutes from Earth (despite what StarBlazers might tell you).
• signalman phobia - if you’re going to be scared of any particular supervillain, Signalman is not the one.
• super hero advertising itch medicine -
  “Say Wally”
  “Yes Kyle”
  “I know I’m new to this super hero thing, but I’ve got this problem…”
  (Flash waits impatiently)
  “…it’s chafing! This uniform chafes something fierce!”
  “Don’t worry Kyle, it’s a common problem. Do what all experienced super-heroes do: use Dr. Light’s Medicated Powder! It works like a charm!”
  [voiceover] “Also available in Silver Age and Golden Age!”
• tuscan beige paint - great! Now my wife’s choice of colors for the den is leading people to my site!
• colonoscopy gloves – recommended

I caught the last twenty minutes of The 101 Most Unforgettable SNL Moments on E! I can’t say I necessarily disagree with their choices, but I sould have done it differently. The one that caught my eye was the Ebony & Ivory skit with Stevie Wonder (Eddie Murphy) and Frank Sinatra (Koe Piscopo). It was certainly funny, but there were better muscial sketches on Saturday Night Live. Her’s my favorite musical sketches on SNL…

1. “Direct Hits” This was on sometime in the mid-80s (1984, I think), when George McGovern was the guest star. In this skit, he portrayed an Army general selling a K-Tel style compilation album, rewritten to highlight the military. Songs included Guerillas Just Want To Have Guns, Drop It (to the tune of Beat It), Deploy Dense Pack (i.e. My Boyfriends’s Back), I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Cruise, and many others. Funny stuff.
2. “Musicians for Free Range Chickens” I don’t remember who the main guest star was, but Michael Bolton was the musical guest and he took part. This was a hilarious send-up of the “We Are the World” type events.
3. “Unforgiveable” “Natalie Cole sings with her dad’s dead friends.” Sammy Davis Jr, Young Elvis, Old Elvis, and Chris Farley as Mama Cass.
4. Anything with the Blues Brothers (and this did score higher on the countdown than Ebony & Ivory)
5. “Choppin’ Broccoli” with Dana Carvey
6. The Neil Diamond sketch with Will Ferrell and John Goodman. An MTV unplugges type set-up, but Neil keeps saying more and more bigoted things.

Run, don’t walk, over to the Comic Treadmill and listen to the opening song from Songs & Stories about the Justice League of America. Mag has kindly provided it for us in MP3 format. More background on the album can be found on an earlier post at the Treadmill.

I may never forgive him.

I had missed “For the Man Who Has Everything” when it was on the first time (I think we were en route to Indianapolis), but I managed to watch it this time. Good. I know the more modern canon has Batman and Superman as more antagonists than friends often, but I alway slike seeing them together relaxing as friends. Remember some of the great Silver Age stories? How about the one where Clark, Bruce, and Lois all went on a cruise and Clark dressed as Batman and Bruce as Superman to fool Lois. Those were the days. Anyway, the point I was making is that I liked the underlying friendship that this episode hinted at. Plus, there was Dana Delaney (mmm…Dana Delaney), or her voice at least. I was puzzled by the inclusion of Mike Farrell as “Pa Kent” in the credits. I don’t remember Pa Kent being anywhere in the episode.

The “Cat and the Bat” on Batman introduced (suprise!) Catwoman. As if the title didn’t give it away. I liked that she was in a more Darwyn Cooke inspired outfit, very similar to outfit in the current Catwoman comic. But was was with those giant ears? She looked more like a fennec fox than a cat. Overall, the episode was good, setting her up as a very-friendly and somewhat-honorable burglar.

When I was watching NASCAR this afternoon, I saw my first commercial for a lawyer wanting to talk to people what had been on Vioxx about a “big cash settlement.” That phrase must have been used at least three of four times in the commercial: “big cash settlement.” The drug has only been recalled for four days and there’s already someone offering assistance in filing lawsuits. That was quick.

I have nothing against lawyers. Every lawyer I personally know is a credit to society. But people like this bring shame to the whole law profession. And I’m not just picking on lawyers here. I can’t stand any of those “hair loss for men” commercials, or all those infomercials with “doctors” on them, touting their latest plan for obesity, acne, or cellulite. We should go back to old days when professionals – lawyers and doctors – did not advertise on TV (or billboards).

(Personally, I didn’t prescribe much Vioxx as I have had little success in relieving pain with any of that class of drugs (COX-2 inhibitors). I was also aware of the negative results from recent studies and had been switching people off of Vioxx before it was withdrawn from the market. Hearing that I was doing this, one of the Merck reps pulled me aside in the office last week and gave me his “personal assurance” that Vioxx was s perfectly safe drug and that he would feel comfortable putting his own grandmother on it. I haven’t seen him back in the office since, but it should make for an interesting conversation.

Situations like these is when you feel sorry for the FDA. Thousands of people are complaining that they’re not approving new drugs fast enough, while thousands more are complaining that they’re approving drugs too fast. Personally, I think they’re doing a good job and wouldn’t change their policies. For all the fuss and furor, people don’t realize that we have the safest drug supply in this country by far. Not just in which drugs are approved, but the quality controls on these drugs. The things I’ve seen passing for drugs in other countries scare me. (And this is another reason why I have problems with many of these ‘herbal’ medicines — no testing and no quality control. How many reports of adverse effects did the makers of Metabolife hide from the government? Thousands and thousands. For all our complaining about pharmaceutical companies, they could never get away with something like that.))

Reeses Sticks are by far the best candy in the whole Reese’s line. They have the perfect combination of chocolate and peanut butter without being overwhelming (Reeses Peanut Butter Cups are just too cloying at times). Add in that wafer-cookie crunch and you have a near perfect candy. When the lab technicians in our office are trying to buy me off for some reason or another, they bring me a couple of these.

Works every time.

Birds of Prey #71 Between Dark and Dawn part 3: Insanity Defense
Gail Simone, writer
Ron Adrian, penciler

• Why are the electrodes on Barbara’s shirt instead of her skin? They can’t pick up anything through the fabric.

• What is the heart monitor on Barbara’s right reading? [click on the thumbnail to see the full panel]
  All the leads go to the machine on her left. Also, none of the waves on that same monitor are in synch – different leads read the same heartbeat, just from different positions, so they should have peaks occurring at the same time.

• Watch the magical IV. First it’s there…then poof!…a few panels later it’s gone!

Avengers #501 Chaos, part 2 of 4
Brian Michael Bendis, writer
David Finch, penciler

• Captain America suffered a dislocated left shoulder in the fight at the Avengers Mansion. In this issue, the doctor is shown smashing it back into place from behind. It’s a graphic image, but the wrong way to replace a dislocated shoulder.
  Pounding the arm back into place would chip the shoulder bone and humerus; instead the arm needs to pulled out away from the body and then forward pressure should be applied.



• The medical charts on the Wasp and Captain Britain are absolutely horrible. All they list is their name, medical record number and their condition. There’s no information that could actually help a physician.
  If they were admitted at roughly the same time, why are their medical record numbers so far apart? Not just by a few numbers; Kelsey has a 7-digit number while Janet’s is ten digits.

• Finally , I hate that I keep having to point this out but the Wasp’s nasal canula is drawn wrong.
  And why is there a tube and a wire? The tube carries the oxygen, but what possible purpose does the wire serve? There is no such thing as a “nose sensor”.

So which is correct?

• penciller (used by DC)
• penciler (used by Marvel)

I prefer the single-”l” version, but I’m no expert

Hank and Don Hall had planned to meet their father for a ride home after an afternoon of studying at the library. Instead, they arrive just in time to see someone dragging their unconscious father down an alley. Don provides first aid while Hank chases after the criminal. Despite changing into Hawk, Hank still cannot catch the criminal.

The next day, the boys return home after school to find their house ransacked, their mother on the floor and their father kidnapped. Hank changes into Hawk and starts beating any criminal he can find until he manages to locate one who was going to attack the judge himself, but instead watched somebody else do it – and can name who that person was. Meanwhile, Don is looking through his father’s voluminous court records and pulls a file on a criminal who recently died in jail. He realizes that this man’s son had done some gardening work for the Halls and immediately becomes suspicious.

Arriving at the gardener’s house, Don changes into Dove and discovers his father caged in the basement with the armed criminal gloating nearby. It seems the kidnapper’s father died in jail, and he blames Judge Hall for it. Don notices electric eyes protecting every door and window. He climbs the nearest utility pole to cut power to the building. Suddenly, Hawk barges in and breaks through the door. The criminal begins firing his gun wildly, but Dove manages to cut the power and Hawk is able to subdue the gunman in the dark.

The next day, the Judge mentions how is inclined to be lenient on the kidnapper because “he couldn’t help what he was doing”. He then goes on to say that he would never be lenient on the Hawk and the Dove because their interference almost got him shot.

At the end of the story, both Hank and Don leave the house wondering if it’s worth being Hawk and Dove. The last caption reads: Is this the end of the Hawk and the Dove??

There are no art or writing credits anywhere in the issue. The Standard Catalog of Comic Books lists Gil Kane as the artist and Kane and Dick Giordano as the writers. The art is standard good Kane art with clever use of angles and excellent action scenes.

The story is a little lacking as the coincidences are way too convenient: Hawk just happens to find a criminal who was going to assault the judge, but instead spied on the actual perpetrator; Don just happens to find the right file out of all of his father’s records. On the other hand, this is undeniably a story written for the Hawk and the Dove; no other characters would work in this comic. Both characters stay true to form – Hawk is “action first, think later” while Don is “think first, action later”. The ending seems contrived, with the brothers suddenly deciding to stop being Hawk and Dove. Their father’s lashed out at Hawk and Dove many times before, why do they decide to quit now?

Notes:

1. Once again, the cover bears little resemblance to any scene inside the comic. The text on the cover suggests that someone knows the identities of Hawk and Dove, but it’s not true. The only electrical wires involved in the story are the ones Dove cuts, and there are no policemen involved in the story. Kane draws some truly dramatic covers, but they seem to rarely convey an actual scene from the comic.
2. This isues marks the first time that ?thletic Hank actually refers to playing a sport – of course he’s hitting on a girl at the time so he could be lying…
3. Don’s Fashion Scene: Blue blazer, yet again. This time the yellow tie from issue #3 is back.
4. Why does Judge Hall blame both Hawk and Dove in the end when he only saw Hawk? As far as he knew, Dove wasn’t there (he was on a utility pole nearby).
5. Here’s a good website with excepts from interviews with many of Hawk and Dove’s creators.
6. This is the final issue of The Hawk and the Dove series but it’s not the end of the characters. Hawk and Dove show up in several issues of Teen Titans, and then as members of Titans West. There’s an apocryphal “last Hawk and Dove story” in The Brave and the Bold #181 and then there are the tragic events of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Hawk has some scattered appearances of his own for a few years after that and then joins with a new Dove in the Hawk & Dove mini-series (1988) and then the regular Hawk & Dove series (1989 – 1991). But these are all topics for later posts…

JSA #65 “Out of Time, Part 1″
Geoff Johns, writer
Don Kramer, penciler

The original Hourman, the android Hourman, Dr. Mid-Nite, and other members of the JSA travel to the Timepoint to repair the wounds Rick Tyler (the current Hourman) suffered during the invasion of Khandaq (Hawkman #24)

Dr. Mid-Nite: His abdominal muscles are severed, his peritoneum cut clean through the viscera

In regular English, what Dr. Mid-Nite is saying is that the sword cut through the muscles overlying Rick’s abdomen and then sliced open his abdominal cavity injuring his stomach, intestines, and spleen.

Dr. Mid-Nite: I’m going to fuse the major laceration across the stomach with an electrical current then stitch it up.

Electical current can be used in surgery to cut incisions or to cauterize wounds, but it has no use in fusing tissue together. Plus, if you’re going to fuse the wound, why does it need to be sewn up afterwards? I suspect Dr. Mid-Nite means that he is going to use an electrical current to cauterize the bleeding edges of the laceration and then stitch them together by hand.

Dr. Mid-Nite: High-intensity focused ultrasound generator. Capable of creating heat at a rate of seventy degrees centigrade in less than a second.

This is an actual technology that is currently being investigated, particularly by the military. It allows deep wounds to be cauterized without surgery. The ultrasound can first be used to locate the bleeding and then to stop it.
Seventy degrees centigrade (174? F) is not hot enough to cauterize a wound. The minimum required temperature is 100? C (212? F), though some electro-cautery machines are capable of generating heat of more than two-thousand degrees F.

Other concerns:

1. Time
   49 minutes and 42 seconds to repair a severe abdominal trauma? That’s really pushing it, but then this is Dr. Mid-Nite: surgeon-extraordinaire.
2. Anesthesia
   It doesn’t appear that any anesthesia is being used. Using some anesthesia would be a very good idea because it would relax Rick and reduce his pain. This would help stabilize his blood pressure and other vital signs. It would also stop him from moving during surgery (“Now, I’m going to sew the stomach back together and…wha? I’ve sewn his pancreas to his bladder? Dammit Rick, hold still!”)
3. Stitches
   Hourman’s miraculous speeded-up-time healing technique somehow even managed to remove Rick’s stitches. You can see where they used to be on his abdomen, but they’ve miraculously disappeared (and before you ask, absorbable sutures are used for stitches inside the body, not outside).
4. Dirt
   Traumatic abdominal surgery is one of the nastiest and dirtiest surgeries there is. The stomach and intestinal contents have spilled into the abdominal cavity. The digestive acids will cause severe inflammation, while the semi-digested food and other intestinal contents are a set-up for a particularly nasty infection. Strong antibiotics and generous cleaning of the abdominal cavity are key (but not mentioned here at all).

Aquaman #21 continues the tale of the people of Sub Diego. It’s a fascinating premise, and one of the better Aquaman stories in recent memory. I’ve addressed certain issues of the storyline a few times before, but this latest issues brings up a few more questions.

The Delivery – A baby delivered to water-breathing parents is discovered to be an air-breather and has to be rushed to the surface to survive.

• Why is the doctor wearing gloves when he’s delivering the baby? Any contaminants are just going to float around in the water (and in fact a later panel shows floating blood).
• In some ways, it makes sense that the parents would not know their child was not a water breather until the delivery. Fetal circulation bypasses the lungs, so the baby’s lungs aren’t used until after delivery and there would be no telltale signs beforehand. However, you’d think they would have checked an ultrasound to look for gills.
• Did they cut the umbilical cord before racing the baby to the surface?

Pressure – Has it ever been established how deep Sub Diego is under the water? I’m just wondering about water pressure. For every 33 feet of depth, there is an additional atmosphere of pressure (additional to the regular one atmosphere at sea level). Thus if Sub Diego is at 100 feet, the water pressure is equal to four atmospheres, or four-times normal pressure.

Bends – I have seen some readers speculating that Atlanteans and the citizens of Sub Diego should be suffering from the Bends. Decompression sickness, better known as the Bends, is the result of nitrogen bubbles precipitating out of the blood. At high pressures, air bubbles easily dissolve in liquid (think of a closed 2-liter bottle of soda). As the pressure is reduced, these bubbles rapidly enlarge (open that 2-liter bottle). These enlarging nitrogen bubbles in the blood and organs are responsible for the symptoms of the Bends. The nitrogen gets into the blood by breathing air at high pressures. Since the citizens of Sub Diego have gills and not lungs, they are not breathing air but instead filtering oxygen out of the water. Nitrogen should not be an issue.

Light – There is not much light available underwater. Humans require sunlight to correctly make use of vitamin D. Rickets will be a concern.

Air bubbles – Since everyone in Sub Diego uses gills to get oxygen, why are they all breathing out air bubbles? Where did the air to make these bubbles come from? Similarly, how do the residents of Sub Diego talk? Air passing over the vocal cords causes gives rise to the sounds of speech. I guess water traveling over the cords could work in a similar way, but the carrying distance would be shorter and the tone changed. And in this panel it sure like like one of those gangsters is trying to smoke.

Hair – Here’s an interesting article regarding the hair of Atlanteans, looking at the subject from a physics and anthropology point of view. Good reading, though I think he’s wrong about the Bends.

I’d like to point out that tonight’s presidential debate is being held at my undergraduate alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis. Sadly, Brother Voodoo was once again not invited to participate (and nor was Wong invited to participate in the vice-presidential debate). I’m told there will be a press release in the near future to address this egregious oversight.

(for the continuity minded, you might notice some slight resemblance between the buildings at Wash U and the buildings at Latverian State University…)

With the recent return of Colossus, the poorly named Legacy Virus has no legacy left. It was a “plague” that lasted for eight years, yet only managed to kill off a few second- and third-tier characters. Thankfully, the main players in the genesis of the whole plot are long gone and long forgotten.¹

For those of you who don’t remember, the Legacy Virus came about at the end of the X-Cutioner Song crossover. Stryfe, the leader of the Mutant Liberation Front, gave a vial to Mr. Sinister that was supposed to contain the genetic material of Scott Summers. Instead, the vial contained the Legacy Virus, which was unleashed when the vial was opened.

That’s not a bad start, honestly. Treachery and intrigue are always fun. Unfortunately, there were also problems from the beginning. Stryfe’s plan was, to put it simply, idiotic. He wanted mutants to become the lepers of the modern world (as if they weren’t already) by infecting them with a disease that would kill them. Wasn’t he supposed to be a mutant savior? Luckily, both Stryfe and Mr. Sinister have disappeared from the pages of the X-Men. The MLF too was blown-up (though somehow Skids survived and reappeared recently in X-Treme X-Men).

That the Legacy Virus is to some extent a metaphor for AIDS cannot be overlooked. The similarities are obvious: a deadly and mysterious new disease which strikes down members of a persecuted minority. (However, unlike AIDS, the Legacy Virus actually was the result of a secret plot to rule the world.) Sadly, as the storyline progressed, this aspect of the disease was neglected.

The Legacy Virus itself was never clearly explained. Or rather, the explanations for the disease kept changing. At first, it only affected mutants, but even then it would act in different ways – sometimes victims would waste away, sometimes their power would kill them. Later, it started to spread to non-mutants as well. Eventually it was explained that it was not just one disease, but three separate strains of a similar disease. Then later it was explained that it wasn’t a virus, but instead a viroid or prion. A viroid is a type of very primitive virus, but it only affects plants. A prion is an infectious protein particle (as opposed to an infectious nucleic acid particle like a virus or viroid). Prions are thought to be the cause of rare diseases such as “Mad Cow Disease”, CJD, and Kuru².

The mode of transmission of Legacy was never clearly explained. Was it spread by airborne particles? Body fluids? Farm implements? Prions in particular have very particular means for being transmitted and are not likely to the cause of any “plague”.

Several minor characters were killed off by the Legacy Virus. The most significant were Mastermind and Illyana Rasputin, but both were past their prime. Mastermind was years past his Dark Phoenix glory days and Illyana had become a second string character since she reverted back to her normal age at the end of the Inferno storyline. Other characters who died included Revanche, a multiple man, Infectia, several of the Externals³, and Pyro. Several other characters were infected, including Moira MacTaggert, but died by violence rather than the disease itself.

The Beast developed a cure to the Legacy Virus, but it needed a mutant to sacrifice their life to make it work. That’s right; somehow a single mutant killing himself would eradicate the virus worldwide. In Uncanny X-Men #390, Colossus took this final step to end the virus. Is there anybody who read this issue and didn’t think it was one of the stupidest plot devices ever? But at least it ended the mess of a storyline that the Legacy Virus had become⁴.

---

¹ Yes, I know that Liefeld and Nicieza are back working on X-stories, but I originally intended this comment to refer to Stryfe and Mr. Sinister, though it also holds true for the various writers on the X-books at the time.

² Despite being one of the world’s rarest diseases (I mean, how many brain-eating New Guinean cannibals are there?), and one I’m guaranteed never to see in my mid-west US practice, a question about Kuru has shown up on every Medical Licensing Exam at least once.

³ Come on, you remember them don’t you? No…you’re thinking of the Eternals, a different group entirely.

⁴ Here’s an excellent website that looks at the Legacy Virus. There’s some good stuff there, including some newsgroup messages from one of the (non-comic) people who helped come up with the virus. I think he’s a little shaky on some of his molecular biology, but his concept of the disease is vastly superior to what it became in the end.

This was a brisk enjoyable book. It’s nice to see a story with a female Hispanic super-hero who isn’t a hand-me-down (a la Wildcat II or Tarantula II) or a teen wannabe (Silverclaw, or whatever her name was from the Busiek Avengers).

The Cover – Good and bad. The cover is a parody of Time magazine, with fits with the tone of the story. On the other hand, the cheesecake on the front has little if anything to do with the story. The readers it attracts probably won’t like the story and it will turn off readers who would potentially like the series.

The Art – Nice clean art by Jonathan Luna. The story is well served by the straightforward penciling and subdued coloring. While there aren’t any particularly dramatic scenes or angles, the script doesn’t really call for any. Luna does a good job differentiating characters and an excellent job drawing backgrounds, a skill lacking in many more established artists. There was a clever fake ad for Llama cigarettes; I missed it on my first read through.

The Story – The script by Jonathan and Joshua Luna serves as a good introduction to the characters. Driving home after a late night of partying, three women decide to stop and see a “fortune teller.” As the story hints, these are no ordinary women, but the reader is only explicitly introduced to Pearl Penalosa, otherwise known as the super-heroine Ultra. It’s not an action filled issue by any stretch of the imagination, but it keeps the reader’s interest and sets up the future storyline. There is a little bit of adult humor, but nothing a person wouldn’t encounter around the office.

I look forward to the next issue of Ultra, and hope the Luna brothers can keep up the potential of the first issue.

The latest issue of Dungeon Magazine (#116, November 2004) lists the “30 Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time” compiled by a select panel. I think the list cheats a little because there are a fair number of “combined edition” modules on the list, for example Scourge of the Slave Lords (A1-4) is listed, instead of each individual A-series module. I can understand why they did this, and the combined editions were legitimately published, but it still feels like cheating to me.

The breakdown of the list is interesting:

• Out of the 30 adventures listed, 18 are for the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 5 for 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, 3 are for 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons, and 2 each are for Basic and Expert Dungeons and Dragons.
• 29 of the 30 are from TSR/Wizards of the Coast. 1 is from Judge’s Guild
• 2 of the 30 are for the Forgotten Realms setting. Another 2 are for the Greyhawk setting. There is 1 adventure listed from each the Dragon Lance and Planescape settings. The other campaign settings are not represented. (I6, the original Ravenloft, is on the list. But it was produced before Ravenloft was split off into its own setting.)

The list is reproduced here, but if you have any interest at all, I’d recommend picking the issue up because it has a lot more to say about each adventure.

Here are some thoughts of my own about various entries on the list:

#30 Ghost Tower of Inverness (C2) – A favorite of mine. Sure it was full of clichés but it was before they became clichés. It should have been higher than #30.

#23 The Forgotten Temple of Tharzidun (WG4) – Tough. I lost more players in this module than any other (well, except maybe Tomb of Horrors). The fuchsia front cover and illustration were pretty ugly though.

#20 Scourge of the Slave Lords (A1-4) – In all my years of playing and DMing, I’ve never played this series, or even read it.

#16 Isle of Dread (X1) – Overrated. More of a mini-setting than an adventure. There was never much of a unifying theme for players to get into.

#15 Castle Amber (X2) – My all-time favorite module, both as player and DM. There was a quirky castle to explore as well as a magical “French countryside.” I’m surprised that there weren’t more X-series modules on the list, because with the exception of X1, it was full of great adventures.

#9 White Plume Mountain (S2) – The first module I ever played. I still have found memories of jumping from hanging disk to hanging disk.

#7 The Keep on the Borderlands (B2) – We always spent more time pillaging the keep than protecting it.

#5 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (S3) – I remember playing this one during lunch in 5th Grade. I thought the included book of illustrations was neat. Plus laser guns, in Dungeons & Dragons! Cool! That little bunny-on-a-log cost out best player (a monk) his foot.

#3 Tomb of Horrors (S1) – Did any player actually enjoy this module? I know DMs did, but did players?

#2 Ravenloft (I6)– The best atmosphere of any adventure, ever. Having some of the key locations depend on a gypsy’s fortune teller prediction was a clever twist. It definitely had one of the best maps ever.

#1 Queen of the Spiders (G1-3, D1-3, Q1) – I loved the Against the Giants part (G1-3), but once the Drow became involved, I lost interest. G2 (Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl) was the first module I bought. Queen of Demonweb Pits (Q1) did have a fascinating map, and it was the first adventure I knew where players actually could go against a god (well, goddess).

The Batman Family #14 “Old Super-Heroes Never Die — They Just Fade Away!”
Bob Rozakis, writer
Don Heck, penciler
published in October 1977

Batwoman knocks on the door to Barbara Gordon’s apartment, only to disintegrate before Barbara’s eyes when she opens the door. It turns out that a short time before, Batwoman had confronted a couple of thieves who shot her with their special gun called a “Convincer” that knocked her out. She came to and crawled to Barbara’s apartment.

Believing the remnants on the costume look familiar, Barbara travels to Hudson University to meet with chemist Dr. Nu. He confirms what Barbara suspected, that it is a virus similar to the hybrid virus he once created – only this one is deadly! Both Dr. Nu and Batgirl put on a special plastic suit to keep the virus from spreading.

Barbara calls up Robin and together they look for clues. Their investigation leads them to a carnival on the Washington D.C. Capitol plaza. While there, they run into carnies Mr. Brain and Dr. Brawn who they soon deduce are the criminals responsible. Dr. Brawn pulls out the Convincer, and fires it at Robin, knocking him back into the crowd. He then fires it at Batgirl, but it has no effect. It seems she is protected by her plastic sheeting. Batgirl is able to subdue the crooks and bring. Kid Flash swoops in and runs the Dynamic (more or less) Duo and the Convincer to Dr. Nu for testing. The doctor determines that the virus it produces shrinks people into smaller and smaller bits. A counter-virus is produced and Batgirl, Robin, and even Batwoman are cured.

Medically, this “shrinking virus” is nonsense. I suspect “virus” was a convenient scientific-sounding catch word at the time this was published, because the concept of a virus introduces more plot holes into the story:

• A gun that shoots viruses?
• How exactly did Dr. Brawn and Mr. Brain (not particularly competent criminals) get their hands on such a gun? Did they invent it or steal it?
• Why weren’t Dr. Brawn and Mr. Brain infected?
• Why was Dr. Nu able to see the virus with a normal microscope?
• Why is a chemist investigating a virus instead of a biologist?
• When Robin asks Kid Flash to help him write his overdue term-paper, is this the beginning of the moral slippery-slop that leads to the murder of Blockbuster in Nightwing?

The comic does contain some classic Silver Age moments, reproduced here (click on thumbnails for larger views):

I love that line: “We’re fighting the clock, sir…the clock of doom!”

From its beginning in issue #9 until its abrupt end in issue #132, Dave Trampier’s Wormy comic was one of the highlights of Dragon Magazine. Following the adventures of the title character, a cigar-chomping pool-sharking wargame-playing dragon (and his friends), the comic’s storylines were cleverly plotted and the art beautifully penciled and colored. Each issue of Dragon would have anywhere from 1-4 pages of Wormy. The comic suddenly stopped appearing after issue #132, right in the middle of a storyline.

A few issues later there was a brief note from the editors saying that Wormy would never be appearing again. No one really knew why. Was Trampier hard to get along with? Was Dragon? Artist and writer Dave Trampier pretty much vanished and has never been reliably heard from since.

Notes:

• Dave Trampier also provide much of the black and white interior art in many of the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books.
• An article on his disappearance
• General information on Wormy
• A (partial) Wormy archives

Here’s a short interesting article on the bacteria Serratia marcescens. Serratia is the bacteria that started the problem with this year’s supply of flu vaccine when it was found contaminating several batches of the vaccine. For a long time Serratia was considered a harmless germ (we know better now), and was even used by the Navy to test the delivery of germ warfare on civilians. It has also been linked to at least one religious miracle in medieval times. Not a bad resum頦or a simple organism.

More information on Serratia is available here.

Just some random bits that have caught my interest lately:

• Medical Dictionary Word-of-the-Day…delivered by RSS!
• The Musem of Black Superheroes. Make sure to check out the entries on Black Goliath and Brother Voodoo.
• The Top 10 Pieces of First Edition [Dungeons & Dragons] Art.
• One of my patients scheduled for tomorrow suffers from a mild form of the blood disease porphyria. This is the condition that some people have been claiming is the basis of the vampire legend. “Not True!” claims the Straight Dope.
• Titans Tower. The best resource for any fan of any incarnation of the Teen Titans (except maybe the Team Titans, but then, did they really count?)
• Dublin Dr. Pepper Bottling Company. The only place where the original recipe Dr. Pepper is available.
• Somehow, Polite Dissent has become the top result on Goolge when searching for Bwana Beast. Thus, I’m sad to report that the new DC Encyclopedia does not feature an entry on the illustrious hero. Hawk and Dove have an entry though.

Unlike War Games: Act One, Act Two has very little medicine. Unfortunately, it also had very little of substance occurring at all. Compared to the generally well done Act One, Act Two was mediocre at best.

The first act had two important things that Act Two is lacking: a sense of action and a rewarding climax. In Act One, readers could feel the frantic sense of desperation as the outnumbered Bat-team tried to confront gang after gang after gang. There was a sense of frantic action that is missing entirely from Act Two. The main players in this drama – the warring gangs – are nowhere to be seen in this arc, which is a shame because their cross-purposes and double-crossing made for some entertaining reading.

Act One had a definite climax it was building toward: the showdown at Tim’s school. There was a sense of organized movement. Sadly, this is also missing from the second act. There is no big climax. The big villain reveal was halfway through the storyline – so much for any sense of drama (and the Black Mask – who really cared?). A group of gangs meeting at a park doesn’t sustain the interest like a pitched battle in school hallways, and it doesn’t even happen until the next act.

There were also some moments that stretched believability too far. For instance, I can see Catwoman successfully defeating the Ravens – she has style and ability. But Tarantula handily defeating villains that Batman and Flash have a hard time with? Maybe she could have taken down the new Trickster and that caped guy from last year’s Batman Family crossover, but Killer Croc and Deadshot? No dice.

In terms of supporting characters, it was nice to see the Tim Drake Robin back in on the action. Both Batgirl and Catwoman had two of the better stories this time around. On the other hand, Nightwing has become such a psycho-whiner recently that I wouldn’t care if he did end up as the killer in Identity Crisis. Spoiler? I didn’t like torture being shown in Long Bow Hunters and it hasn’t improved with age. Plus the art in Robin was really ugly, which didn’t help. Speaking of spoilers, I’d like to thank the DC Comics Encyclopedia for giving away too much about certain characters in this storyline.

I hope that Act Three will be able to regain the momentum that this month lost, but I have little hope. DC should have ended War Games after the first month and it would have been a great success.

S.C.R.U.B.S. scores for War Games Act Two. The S.C.R.U.B.S. system is a simple numeric formula for quickly determining which Batman storylines are worth reading — and which ones aren’t. Scores for Act One can be found here. I should make an extra penalty for torture – that serves no place in a storyline like this, so add as many torture points to Robin as you like. Remember, the lower the number the better the story. The higher the number, the more likely it’s a bad story. Detective Comics 798 13 Legends of the Dark Knight 183 14 Nightwing 97 21 Batman: Gotham Knights 26 Robin 130 15 Batgirl 56 9 Catwoman 35 13 Batman 632 20 War Games: Act Two (as a whole) 46

HIV is not just a disease, it’s an issue. This is unfortunate, because the human cost of the disease frequently gets lost among all the fuss and furor. Once, this stance was undoubtedly important, but now it’s become more of a hindrance than a help to patients. Ask yourself, would this story have been such a news item if it had been reported that Green Arrow’s sidekick was infected with Hepatitis B – another deadly viral disease spread the same way as HIV? HIV and AIDS need to be addressed, but not as a political issue or a statement. It needs to be addressed as a disease. This is true for comic books as well as the evening news.

Comics as a medium do not do a good job of presenting diseases. The only conditions mentioned seem to be colds, cancer, addiction/alcoholism and HIV. When was the last time there was a story about a super hero with high cholesterol? What about high blood pressure? I can name a handful of comic book characters of the top of my head that are HIV-positive, but I can’t name one who is diabetic.

Comics need to move from the “them” to the “us” in regards to HIV. This is nothing unique to comics; other media have had to make the same move, only they did it years ago. For instance, in the second season of St. Elsewhere, there was a city councilman who was diagnosed with HIV; everyone knew he just had to be gay because of the HIV and “only homosexuals had HIV” (and, of course, he was). This is an example of “them” thinking. However, by the end of St. Elsewhere, there were major characters that had become HIV-positive for other reasons including promiscuous behavior and needle-stick accidents. This is the change to the “us” thinking. HIV is no longer something that happens to other people, but something that can happen to us – either by our own actions or by unlucky coincidence.

Comic books are still stuck in the “them” mode for the most part. Most characters that have HIV have been purposefully infected with the disease. This is simply another kind of “them” thinking: “we don’t get HIV unless someone evil intentionally gives it to us.” Comics need to move on and join the 21st century (well, join the 90s really, but it’s already too late for that). There have been some writers who have already taken that step, such as Peter David in his Incredible Hulk run and Paul Witcover and Elizabeth Hand on Anima. More writers need to follow their example. If HIV is going to be addressed in comic books (and it should be, but so should many other diseases and conditions), then it needs to be done in as adult a way as possible.

The Brave and the Bold #142 was the first comic that I ever bought. I’d received comics as gifts before, but this was the first I’d ever saved up my own meager allowance to buy.

Look at the cover. How could I not buy it? Batman and Aquaman — two of my favorite super-heroes – fighting, and fighting underwater! Notice how the usual “and” in the title has been crossed out and replaced by “vs.” Now add in the mystery of a sunken ship. As an eight year old, I just had to have this.

The plot? As I recall, Batman is seeking the log book of the sunken freighter Alhambra but Aquaman wants the log book to remain hidden. Batman is seeking “Mr. Big”, a Gotham drug lord, and believes the log book will give him a clue as to the true identity of Mr. Big. At first, it’s a mystery why Aquaman is trying to stop Batman from reaching the sunken ship. In the end it all becomes clear: Aquaman is concerned that the Alhambra’s log book will show that it was negligence on the part of his adopted father, lighthouse keeper Arthur Curry, which caused the Alhambra to sink. Batman succeeds in reaching the log book and reassures Aquaman that the sinking of the ship was not his father’s fault; it was instead the fault of the notorious Mr. Big, the same Mr. Big who he now knows the identity of…

I never picked up the next issue (the cover wasn’t nearly as good and the price went up to 50 cents), so I never learned the identity of the mysterious Mr. Big.

The script to Brave and the Bold #142 was by Bob Haney and the art by Jim Aparo. The cover scan is courtesy of the Grand Comics Database.

Madrox #1 – Rahne makes a joke comparing Jamie’s coffee to something the “Witches of Endor” might have brewed. At first, I thought she was making a reference to Andre Norton’s Witch World series, as writer Peter David has a habit of throwing sci-fi and fantasy allusions in his comics. Then I realized that they would be Withces of Estcarp, not Witches of Endor.
I recalled that “Witch of Endor” was the ship that Horatio Hornblower used to escape France in Flying Colours, but I didn’t know the allusion other than that. Thanks to Google and the Occultopedia, I now know that the Witch of Endor is a biblical reference (though I don’t know where the witches came from). I should have paid more attention in Sunday school, I guess.

Manhunter #1 – So basically Copperhead got off the hook because he has the meta-gene. One problem: he doesn’t. When he started out, he was a skilled contortionist with a poison fixation and a special slippery suit. He gained his current look and powers by selling his soul to Neron. There is no meta-gene in his background. If I were the D.A., I’d appeal (can the D.A. appeal?).

Nightcrawler #1 – Remember what I said before about psychiatrists? About how making a character a psychiatrist is a shorthand way of letting the reader know the character is up to no good? Nightcrawler #1 is simply the latest example of this trend. (And if I were Nightcrawler and my demonic-appearing visage were scaring a child, I would slowly back out of the room as opposed to teleporting out in a puff of brimstone — that’s not going to help the situation at all).

In honor of Mad Mod’s second appearance on the Teen Titans cartoon, and for all you Mad Mod fans out there (all six of you), Polite Dissent proudly presents the cover image to Teen Titans #7, published in January/February 1967. From my own collection (sigh).

The Polite-Wife and I enjoyed this week’s episode (“Revolution”), it was a fun not-much-thinking-required episode, which can be good every now and again. Beast Boy’s unique take on American history was humorous (in a Dave Barry sort of way), and we especially enjoyed all the Monty Python and Beatles in-jokes throughout.

(Click on the thumbnail for a larger image)

There has been a good deal of concern voiced about bias in the doctors responsible for publishing certain guidelines or carrying out certain studies. With pharmaceutical companies funding most of these studies and guidelines this is a legitimate concern.

It used to be that the federal government sponsored most of the studies, but they’ve been cutting back funding (nothing new, it’s been happening for several administrations now). Drug companies are picking up the slack and fund many of the big studies and guideline groups. This wouldn’t be so bad if the involved physicians and organizations were upfront about it. Instead, they’ve been secretive about their funding, and then defensive when questioned.

Since I live ten-miles from Peoria, this quote caught my eye:

Christopher Seymour, executive director of the National Lipid Association, a group that promotes cholesterol control and is largely funded by drug companies, has six of the nine guideline doctors on his board.
“Who in America is going to write these guidelines if you don’t go to the thought leaders? Should I call Dr. X in the middle of Peoria? What gives them credentials to be on my board?” he asked.

Because apparently there are no good doctors in the mid-west; you have to live in New York, Boston, or LA to be a “thought leader.” Give me a break. Most of these “thought leaders” haven’t actually touched a patient themselves in decades. I know this guy is just defending his organization, but being condescending and demeaning doesn’t help at all.

Luckily, the AP reporter had enough sense to talk to a cardiologist in Peoria.

But at the University of Illinois in Peoria, they think quite a lot of Dr. Frank Gold, who in 30 years as a cardiologist has taken no consulting or lecture fees from industry.
“I’m squeaky-clean,” he says, and “would jump at the opportunity” to serve on a guidelines panel. “There are tons of people like me, and they’re even in places like Des Moines, Iowa.”

I’ve never dealt with Dr. Gold myself, but I’ve heard many good things about him from patients, medical students, and other doctors.

Bias is a definite concern in published guidelines and reports. The best option is for the various groups to be upfront about any ties to the drug companies. In today’s health economy, the only way some important studies are going to get done are with pharmaceutical company funding. This is an unfortunate fact, but true. Still it is the responsibility of those involved to be truthful about it.

There’s something about this show that just grabs my attention. It’s like a car wreck (no joke intended) — you just can’t look away. I think it’s the grainy video and the over-earnest narration that gets me. Whenever I’m flipping through the channels and come upon this on Spike TV (where it’s apparently the only show they have, other than that over-dubbed bizarre Japanese gameshow), I find myself watching for the next 45-minutes.

The good-always-defeats-evil part of me wished they would tell what the ultimate sentence (if there was one) of the people involved was. The last show I watched had a 17 year-old girl who was pulled over for speeding/DUI who got out of her hand-cuffs, commandeered a police squad car and then played bumper-car for the next twenty minutes. I would love to know what happened to her.

And why does the copter pilot always have the same voice, no matter what part of the country the video is from? And why does he always say “narrowly missed an accident” when the two cars were at least half a block apart?

Looking at recent issues of three titles I’ve endorsed/picked-on before: Aquaman, Ultra, and Starjammers.

Aquaman #22: Writer Will Pfeiffer answers some of my medical questions here by pointing out that inhalers and smoking do not work underwater (though he mentions two panels earlier that inhalers for smokers are big on the black market). All in all a satisfying conclusion to the storyline. I wish Pfeiffer were staying on the title. Recommended

Ultra #2: I’m still immensely enjoying this title. Good art and just the right mix of soap opera and action (Noble Family take note). The parody ads and magazine columns are well-done. I hope the Luna brothers can keep the momentum up. I continue to recommend this title.

Starjammers #3 and #4: Bleah! I enjoyed the first two issues because they had the trappings of an enjoyable space opera. Nix that idea. The next two issues go nowhere, and all the interesting bits have been dropped. The big reveal (the evil aristrocrats are aking drugs that are really the seeds of the plant people) was blatantly telegraphed in issue #1. And why were the most intersting members of the Starjammers dropped for a crew of tree-people (yet Hepzibah was pictured on the first cover…false advertising?). A definite “no longer recommend.”

The Hawk and the Dove didn’t just appear in their own short-lived series but also appeared together in several issues of the Teen Titans. As you may recall, the Teen Titans make a brief (very, very brief) appearance at the end of The Hawk and the Dove #5 which leads into Teen Titans #21: “Citadel of Fear.”

Chasing the same smuggler, the Teen Titans and Hawk and Dove stumble into each other in a warehouse. The Teen Titans suspect that Hawk and Dove are villains and the obligatory super-hero fight breaks out. Dove recognizes the Titans and tries to stop the fight, but Hawk is happy to hit anyone. The fighting only stops when Hawk manages to save Wonder Girl from some falling crates and the two teams reluctantly agree to work together.

The smuggler has escaped through a teleporter. It has two settings, but no one knows which one the smuggler used. Hawk, Dove, and Wonder Girl teleport to one destination, while Robin, Speedy, and Kid Flash travel to the other. Both groups find themselves in a trap. Hawk, Dove and Wonder Girl are gassed and imprisoned, but Dove figures out a way for them to escape. Robin, Kid Flash and Speedy are attacked and knocked-out by a giant robot. Robin and Kid Flash are carried off before Hawk, Dove and Wonder Girl arrive to help Speedy defeat the robot. At the end of the battle, the robot crashes down on top of Speedy and only by combining their power are Hawk and Dove able to rescue him.

The group sets off in search of Robin and Kid Flash, but the tunnel they’re following forks. When Hawk suggests that he and Wonder Girl go one way and Speedy and Dove go the other, Speedy gets mad and punches him. After Wonder Girl dresses down Speedy for hitting someone who saved his life, the teens split off down the two tunnels. Both groups arrive at the villain’s hideout at the same time and battle the smuggler’s henchmen. The smuggler himself is captured when he tries to blow up the hideout. Although the heroes are victorious, some questions remain: Who was the voice that was controlling the smuggler? And where are Robin and Kid Flash?

Unfortunately, Hawk and Dove won’t be around to help find the missing Titans. As soon as the smuggler was captured, they began to change back to Hank and Don and had to make a hasty exit.

Neal Adams provides both the script and the pencils. He is ably inked by Nick Cardy. The art is quite good with dramatic angles and exciting action sequences. The issue as a whole has that unmistakable Adams look to it. The cover art is credited to Nick Cardy.

The script does a good job with Hawk and Dove. Their various strengths and weaknesses are well shown and neither emerges as the superior hero. This issue even manages to mention Hank’s fear of heights, a topic that had been neglected in the Hawk and the Dove title. The Teen Titans themselves don’t fare as well. Kid Flash is injured early on and Robin and Speedy are shown as particularly stubborn and pig-headed. Wonder Girl is there to look pretty.

The Hawk and the Dove return to their own title for its final issue (The Hawk and the Dove #6), but will show up again in the Teen Titans with issue #25.

Due to the recent proliferation of comment spam, I am temporarily turning on comment moderation. This means there might be a slight delay between posting a comment and seeing it online.

In the meantime, it looks like I no longer have any excuses for not upgrading to WordPress 1.21…hope it works…

UPDATED 20 Oct 2004 14:58 – The WordPress Update is complete, but not without some headaches (header and comment issues mostly). If anyone notices any unusual behavior, please let me know. If any legitimate comments were lost, I apologize and please let me know so I can (try to) fix it.

New polls released today show a strong support of the Brother Voodoo presidential campaign. When reached for a comment, Dissent Party Spokesman Morgana Blessing said, “These latest numbers show that it is too soon to count out the Brother Voodoo/Wong Presidential Ticket. I suspect our numbers will continue to grow as election day, like a celestial convergence, draws nearer.”

When shown today’s results, the Bush Campaign spokesman simply gave a puzzled “no comment”, while the Kerry Campaign spokesman just chuckled. A spokesman for the Ralph Nader campaign demanded to know how Brother Voodoo was able to get on the ballot in these locations when Nader had been unable to.

To recap: the latest polls show Brother Voodoo a strong favorite with 53% support in Puerto Rico, a commanding 4% lead in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and in a dead heat with Bush and Kerry in Guam. Sadly, none of these territories actually has any electoral votes.

Results:

• Guam
• Puerto Rico
• U.S. Virgin Islands

Since I’ve been watching too many TV shows, when I look at the new cover to Identity Crisis #1, the following things catch my attention:

• blood from somebody…or somebodies
• broken glass
• probably some fingerprints or hairs or fibers

This is clearly a job for the forensic investigators of CSI: Metropolis.

Starring Harvey Keitel as gruff Dr. Graham Clark, Helen Slater as the quiet yet competent Dr. Jane Trellis, and Adrian Pasdar as intern John Spar — ready to be shot or killed on a moment’s notice if contract talks go awry.

I know I’d watch it.

Starting in 1970, the Teen Titans gave up their costumes and their powers. They continued adventuring, not as super-heroes, but instead as teen secret agents. A similar plot concept failed spectacularly a few years previously in Wonder Woman and it didn’t succeed any better here. Within two years, the Teen Titans was canceled. Still, the stories were not entirely without merit. Several important characters were introduced and Hawk and Dove officially joined the Teen Titans, at least for a few issues.

So what led to the Titans and Hawk and Dove giving up their costumes and powers? I’m glad you asked!

It all started on night when the Titans went to a disco in their civilian identities. While there, one of the dancers comes up to them, addressing them as the Teen Titans. This dancer is the precognitive telepath Lilith in her first appearance. She gives the Titans a cryptic warning but they blow her off.

Later the Titans attend a peace rally headlined by Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Arthur Swenson. Hank and Don Hall are also in the audience; Don siding with the peace protestors, Hank with the counter-protestors. A riot breaks out in the auditorium and both the Titans and the Halls run into the back alley to change into costume. They recognize each other and run back into the auditorium together. The Titans and Dove try to quell the violence, while Hawk uses it as an opportunity to assault peaceniks. One of the rioters brings out a pistol and all of the Titans, including Hawk and Dove, tackle him. In the ensuing struggle, the gun goes off — mortally wounding Dr. Swenson.

The heroes rush the Nobel laureate to the hospital, but it is too badly injured and he dies. The members of the Justice League arrive and all but accuse the Titans of murdering Dr. Swenson. The Titans walk out of the hospital, their heads hung in shame.

A short time later, they encounter Lilith again, this time with mysterious Mr. Jupiter (“That man — I recognize him — one of Bruce Wayne’s business friends – a great, selfless man!” thinks Robin). He offers the teens a chance to do heroic work, but without the use of their costumes or powers. The Titans and Hawk and Dove agree, all except Robin, who takes his leave from the group in order to attend college. The remaining heroes go off with Mr. Jupiter and turn in their costumes.

Gil Kane’s Nick Cardy’s art on this issue is excellent. He uses non-traditional panel layouts to emphasize key aspects of the story. He excels at action scenes and is skilled at varying angles and views to add emphasis and interest to the art. His superb inks add strength to the darkness of the plot.

[Update - Johhny Bacardi is right; the art is all Nick Cardy, not Gil Kane. I was using faulty information from a particular source and didn't confirm it with other sources. Sigh. Mea culpa]

The story? Well, to put it simply, the story is a mess. The “heroes inadvertently cause the death of an innocent person” is a comic book cliche, and was cliche when this story was published. It seems hard to believe that the Justice League would so savagely indict the Teen Titans for an accident they were trying to prevent when the entire League has been in similar situations themselves. The way the story is told in a variety of flashbacks adds nothing to the story except to build up an artificial mystery of “who was shot.” This story is mostly set-up, and it shows. Unfortunately for the Titans, the stories it sets up aren’t much better.

Notes:

1. Robin doesn’t take part in the auditorium brawl as he is conveniently off calling the police. Consequently, he doesn’t share the blame in Swenson’s death and doesn’t join the other Titans in their vow of giving up their costumes. Undoubtedly, this is so he can continue his adventures with Batman in that title.
2. The Titans association with Mr. Jupiter lasts until the end of the first series of the Teen Titans (issue #43). He appears as a benefactor in a later Teen Titans series as well.
3. I realize Hawk tends to be violent, but beating up innocent peace protestors just because he disagrees with them seems out of character (at this point in his career, anyway).
4. Since Hawk and Dove are supposed to change back into Hank and Don when danger is no longer present, how is it that they can stay in costume the entire time they are in the hospital?
5. Hank and Don Hall fashion watch: Both characters are nattily dressed in turtle necks and double-breasted suits at the peace rally. No bow ties — or ties at all — this time.

As Election Day draws nearer and nearer, make sure you take a moment to visit the Brother Voodoo Campaign Headquarters Website.

Remember, this November…Vote Voodoo!

Teen Titans “Wavelength” was good. Not great, but certainly enjoyable. HIVE and Brother Blood (in this version, Brother Blood is the Ras Al Ghul-like leader of HIVE, not a megalomaniac cult leader) are planning to use technology stolen from Cyborg to cause an immense tidal wave. The Titans and Aqualad sneak into HIVE’s underwater hideout to stop them.
Some thoughts:

1. This cartoon version of Bumblebee is better than the comic book version — she was always a laughable character there.
2. The Titans escaped from their death traps a little too easy. There just happens to be a convenient computer terminal — not damaged by the water — that Robin can quickly use to shut down the traps?
3. The underwater physics in this episode was pretty bad, enough to detract from the story for me. (Though, to her credit, my wife did keep telling me, “It’s just a cartoon.”).

“Child’s Play”, the Justice League Unlimited episode, was another great episode. The story owes a great deal to both the “World Without Grown-Ups” and “Sins of Youth” storylines from the comics. Morgan Le Fey and her perpetually young son Modred find a powerful mystic amulet. Chafing at the perpetual presence of his mother, Modred grabs the amulet and wishes all the world’s adults away.

Superman, Batman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman had just captured a gang of thieves (Blockbuster, Cheetah, Copperhead and KGBeast) when the magic hit them and they found themselves stranded in a magical limbo. Morgan Le Fey changes the four heroes into children so they can go back and defeat her son.

There were some very funny bits: John Stewart needed glasses as a child, so starts out with Urkel glasses but morphs them into a Kyle Rayner-style mask. Despite being a child with so much imagination, he only uses his ring to make giant boxing gloves and all the other trappings of the Silver Age Green Lantern. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman is hitting on Batman (who ignores her) while Superman is completely oblivious.

The hero’s solution was brilliantly Mxyzptlkian¹, and the final scene reminded me of the tragedy of the Greek Myths². Overall, another good episode with excellent voice work.

The Batman was another repeat. So far, it’s been on 7 weeks and only had 4 new episodes. Not the way to build an audience. The episode was “The Cat and the Bat.”

---

Footnotes (Spoilers – so highlight with the mouse to read…)
^1. As clever as the solution was, I’m not sure it would have worked. Modred did not simply wish for all adults to disappear, he wished for everyone “older than him” to disappear. So even tricking Modred into becoming an adult would not have made him vanish since he can never be older than himself.
^2. According to Greek Myth, Eos, the Goddess of the Dawn, fell in love with a mortal shepherd. She asked Zeus to grant him eternal life, which he did, but she forgot to ask him to grant eternal youth. The shepherd eventually got so old and feeble that he became a grasshopper.

Last Thursday, the local health department held a flu shot clinic at the Moose Lodge down the street. They had 750 vaccinations, which they figured would be enough. People started lining up by 2:30 AM, and by the time I was trying to drive to the hospital at 7:30 it was a full traffic jam, with cars bumper to bumper. People were parking two-wide along the sides of the street and had even parked in the Lodge’s prized softball field. It took me twenty minutes to drive the two blocks past the lodge. I felt like I was back in big city traffic.

There’s a real shortage of flu vaccine this year in Illinois and it looks like I won’t have a chance to get vaccinated. This will be the first time that I haven’t received a flu shot in six years. They were offered to us for free during medical school, but in my first-, second-, and third-year I never got one because I knew that “I never got sick.”

That all changed quickly my third year, when I was serving my time doing a month of general surgery at the St. Louis Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital. St. Louis has 2 VA hospitals. One in way out on the edge of south county, but that hospital is used mostly for psychiatric care and long term rehab. The main VA hospital, John Cochrane, is located in the older part of downtown St. Louis. It’s not in the nicer near-the-Arch downtown, but instead the older downtown, full of dark streets, tenements and abandoned buildings.

Every morning in February, I would wake up at 3 in the morning, shower and shave. I would put on a pair of threadbare VA surgical scrubs, pull on my coat and gloves and trudge downstairs to scrape the ice off my car and coax it into starting. The road would be nearly devoid of other cars as I drove downtown. Being a lowly student, I wasn’t allowed to park in the VA lot, but instead had to park in a public lot three blocks away. That meant walking three blocks in the dark St. Louis morning, a freezing wind cutting through my paper-thin scrubs, skirting around vacant lots to reach the VA emergency entrance.

Entering the VA didn’t offer much relief. I’ve noticed that each hospital has a unique atmosphere — more like an aura. It’s hard to put into words, but different hospitals give off different feelings. For instance, most children’s hospitals give off a sense of hope and promise when you enter them. VA hospitals are the opposite. You could feel a palpable miasma of depression and despair when you entered the hospital.

I would trudge up three flights of stairs to the surgery residents’ room and drop off my coat and gloves. Wandering out to the ward, I would pick up may patients’ charts and begin “pre-rounding”. As a medical student, you are expected to know every single thing that has happened to your patients in the previous 24-hours; therefore you have to pore over their charts page by page and examine every inch of the patient before official rounding starts at 6AM. This pre-rounding process usually took just shy of two-hours. We would then round with the residents on our patients, pause for about 5 minutes, and then round on them again, this time with the attending physicians. After that, we would write notes on each patient and take care of whatever scut-work the residents or senior physicians needed us to do. In the meantime, we were also responsible for attending (and sometimes assisting) in surgeries.

The VA rotation was designed for five students. Unfortunately in February there were only three of us. That meant that we had to cover every third patient, attend every third surgery, and take call every third night. Then Amy, one of the other medical students, came down with a severe case of pneumonia. Now there were only two of us. Tom and I had to cover every other patient and attend every other surgery. Thankfully, we talked them out of making us take call every other night, but it was a close thing.

About the end of third week I started to feel very run down. I figured it was just the long hours and unpleasant residents taking their toll and tried to telling myself, “Just one more week.” Then I developed a hacking cough. It was mostly at night, and just enough to keep me from getting what little sleep I was able to scrounge. By Friday, I had developed a high temperature and felt totally miserable. I had muscle aches all over and uncontrollable chills. Now, as a medical student I knew that fevers were “bad”, but had not yet reached the point where I actually knew what to do about them. It never occurred to me that reducing the fever would make me feel better.

I also knew better than to miss work. Amy only got out of it because she was hospitalized. So dutifully I trudged into the VA like always. I pre-rounded, rounded, and rounded. Most of the rest of that day was a blur. I remember scrubbing into surgery and feeling absolutely horrible. Wearing a surgical gown, gloves, and hat is always hot; with a fever, it was absolutely unbearable. I was pouring sweat like a fountain. At one point, we were doing a bowel surgery and I was holding the retractor keeping the rest of the abdominal organs from spilling over into the work area.

“Hold that retractor steady!” bellowed the surgeon.

“I am,” I replied meekly. I was trying as hard as I could to hold it steady, but was simply shivering too much.

Finally, he glanced at me and noticed that I was clearly quite sick. Never let it be said that surgeons lack empathy. He eyed me up and down and then told me: “Then use both hands, idiot!” Is it any wonder I never wanted to be a surgeon?

I went home, wrapped myself in a blanket and slept for the next thirty-six hours. I haven’t missed a flu shot since.

I’m in trouble. So far this Halloween I haven’t been able to find any Dem Bones. Put out by Brach, Dem Bones are a bone-shaped fruit-flavored candy. They’re quite tasty, actually. Kind of like a SweetTart, but with more flavor. The shapes include skull, foot, hand, chest, and generic “long bone.” The flavors include cherry (red), grape (purple), orange (umm, orange), lemon (yellow), lime (green) and pineapple (white). I usually buy 2 or 3 bags around this time of year (which lasts maybe a week-and-a-half, tops), but I haven’t seen them in any of the local stores this year.

I vaguely remember buying a similar candy as a child that actually came in a plastic coffin. These candies were actually interlockable, like jigsaw puzzle pieces. Somehow, each coffin never held enough bones to make a full skeleton. Haven’t seen that candy in twenty years, and I have no idea what the name even was.

I brought all my kid-appropriate comics from Free Comic Book Day into the office and scattered them among my exam rooms. They’ve been a great hit with kids and adults alike. Who wants to flip through another news magazine with another political story when they can be reading about Batman or Spider-Man. By now, these comics have become some of the most beat up and abused comics I’ve ever seen, but that’s fine with me. They’ve given people something fun to read in my office, and maybe — just maybe — someone will develop an interest in comics from what they’ve read in my office.

That got me to thinking that there should be a way to promote comic books in doctor’s (and dentist’s) waiting rooms. After all, it’s a captive audience happy for any form of escapism.

I would love to see comic book publishers (or Diamond or local shops or somebody) offer a “professional discount” on comic books. Most magazine publishers offer these discounts. After all, we’re not just ordering one Newsweek for the office, but five or six. The same with various sports magazines, home magazines and the like. I would love to be able to do the same with comics. There are at least five or six titles I would buy multiple copies of and place in the waiting room and the exam rooms. If a publisher could arrange this, they would be a big hit with doctor’s offices, dentists, barbers – basically anyone with a waiting room.

Even better, I’d love to be able to send kids home with comics. There could be a special comic put out just for waiting rooms. It wouldn’t have to be long, just about 10-pages, and the old newsprint paper would be fine. A monthly issue would be nice; maybe several publishers could take turns or combine for a digest comic. These could be sold in bulk for a low price. That way, each child (or adult) could keep their copy when they went home. Instead of handing out lollipops or cheap toys, we could hand out comics. It would be a reason a kid would look forward to coming to the doctor: “I get a comic!” Comic publishers could place house ads and subscription forms in these comics, or local shops could stamp their name and/or include coupons. This would be a way of to bring new readers into the comics world, plus let them know that their doctors are cool.

Something similar could be done with the military. When I was deployed in the Middle-East with the Air Force, our little air base had a small library. Almost all the books were donated by various publishers. The companies were clever: they wouldn’ ship their latest books, but instead the first two or three books from a series. For instance, there were multiple well-read copies of the first three Honor Harrington books. This way, soldiers got good books for reading, but also got interested in a particular series and might be inclined to pick up the rest on their return from duty. It may have already been tried, but I think the comic book companies should do something similar and donate some of their trade paperbacks to the military. Marvel could send copies of Ultimate Spider-Man or some of their Essentials volumes. DC could send Batman and Superman storylines. It would be a good way to re-introduce people to comics. It’s a captive audience, and trust me, they’ll read anything they can get their hands on.

Fables #1-5 “Legends in Exile”
Bill Willingham, writer
Lan Medina, penciler

In the end of the first storyline in Fables, Bigby Wolf is able to show that Rose Red’s death was faked. Jack and Rose had collected her blood and stored it in their freezer then used it to stage a crime scene. Is this possible?

No, not really.

First off, Bigby’s math is right on. The average female has just about 9 pints of blood (roughly 4½ liters). A blood loss of 40% (known as a Class IV Hemorrhage) is invariable fatal if not treated immediately.

The issue comes down to blood collection and storage. According to the story, Jack withdrew 5 or 6 pints of blood from Rose and stored it in the freezer. While the body can replace the fluid lost to blood donation in 24 hours, it takes nearly two months to replenish the blood cells. That is why a person is only allowed to donate blood every eight weeks (56 days).

Jack and Rose couldn’t withdraw blood too fast or Rose would develop a severe anemia and be extremely weak and tired (and unable to drink heavily — a significant problem for a party girl like her). Assuming that Jack and Rose were pushing it, they could probably withdraw double, or 2 pints of blood, every two months. Thus it would take them 5 to 6 months to get the necessary amount of blood.

Blood isn’t easy to store; it takes special chemicals and a constant temperature. Whole blood and red blood cells are stored at 1-6° C (34 – 48° F); this shouldn’t be a problem for a good quality home freezer. The shelf life of whole blood is 42 days. Even then, the blood requires the addition of certain chemicals to keep if from clotting and still undergoes some decomposition. Rose and Jack would be storing blood for three time longer than that (assuming they used it right away). While some of Rose’s stored blood would still be good by the time the pair got around to using it, much of it would have clotted or been noticeably broken down.

Even if the appearance of the blood wasn’t a tip-off, certainly Bigby’s wolf nose is good enough to tell that other chemicals had been added to the blood, or at least that the blood had degraded. After all, his senses are good enough to identify the blood as Rose’s just by smell.

Final nit-picks:

• According to the art, Jack looks to be withdrawing blood from the back of Rose’s hand, not the antecubital fossa (the inside of the elbow), which is the preferred place for speed and comfort.
• The freezer looks to be holding more than 6 pints of blood.

As a former Family Practice resident, I am always interested in news stories that highlight the incredibly long hours residents are expected to work. Some recent federal legislation attempted to limit this, but has only been a partial success as a recent study shows.

[For those unfamiliar with the terminology, a resident is a physician who has finished medical school and is now on training for a specialty. Residency can last anywhere from three years (for various primary care specialties) to seven years or even longer (for some surgeons and other subspecialties). Residents work long hours, take call night after night, and get paid a pittance for it.]

A recent Harvard report has been all over the news recently. It shows that despite recently passed legislation, residents are still working long hours. It also shows that the longer a resident works, the more likely they are to make a mistake. This should come as no surprise to anyone.

This outdated system continues to persist for two reasons. First, many senior physicians consider it a rite of passage. “I was on call long hours,” they say. “And I survived. It builds character.” Sound familiar? The identical argument is used to defend fraternity hazing. That’s essentially what these long call hours are: hazing. Only this hazing puts a patient’s health at risk.

The second reason the system persists is money. Residents are cheap labor — residencies actually get paid money to teach them. If institutions can’t use residents as a physician labor pool, they will have to hire full-time trained physicians. This costs money and requires a reworking of the entire schedule. Many institutions are reluctant to make the switch and do what they can to skirt, if not entirely break, the legal requirements.

The bottom line is that no one thinks well after being awake for twenty-four or thirty-six hours straight. Expecting them to make critical life-or-death decisions is just asking for trouble. The system needs to change for good, but I suspect it will take more reports like this, and undoubtedly some law suits, before this archaic system is once and for all abolished.

Personally, in my three years as a resident, I can count the call nights I was up for twenty-four straight on one hand (OK, maybe one-and-a-half hands). I was very careful about choosing a residency where I knew long calls would not be a problem. Unfortunately, medical students fixated on certain high-demand residencies, or those with poor test scores, don’t have much of a choice. I did encounter some long calls in the Intensive Care Unit, the OB unit, and once or twice on regular Family Practice call. The only thing I saw that really worried me was the OB residents’ practice of performing circumcisions on newborns the morning after a long night of call. Ouch!. I always waited until the next day for my patients.

“Doctor: Arafat Has Blood Platelet Deficiency” screams the CNN.com headline. Blood platelets? What other kinds of platelets are there? All platelets are blood platelets. That’s like saying someone has a “deficiency of blood red blood cells.” Sheesh!

Teen Titans #26 and #27 continue with the concept of the Titans as powerless secret agents. If possible, these issues are even less interesting than Teen Titans #25, the issue that set up the entire premise. A lot of events may take place but there is not really any action occurring.

In Teen Titans #25, “A Penny For a Black Star”, the heroes are sent through Mr. Jupiter’s training room. Next, he plunks them down in a ghetto with a penny each and tells them to get a job and find a place to live. They take their pennies and buy lemonade from a small girl who has a lemonade stand. A gang of toughs straight out of Every Which Way But Loose come by to harass the girl, but her brother Mal intervenes. Donna and Lilith get jobs selling clothes in a ghetto boutique and the boys help out at a local gym. They encounter Mal again and ultimately invite him to join the group. The Titans (including Mal) return to Mr. Jupiter’s secret hideout and begin training as astronauts for a mission to Venus. Then one night, Mal sneaks off and leaves for Venus on his own.

In Teen Titans #26, “Nightmare in Space”, Mal runs into trouble on his mission to Venus and the rest of the Titans take another rocket into space to rescue him. While most of the Titans land on the moon, Kid Flash and Lilith head off to rescue Mal. At this point one improbable thing after another occurs as the writer seems to throw everything at the Titans but the kitchen sink. Mal’s spacecraft is stranded and is out of fuel — but don’t worry Kid Flash is there to rescue him. Wait! Mal and Kid Flash’s tether is cut while space walking — but don’t worry, Wally’s “propulsion gun” will save them. (Best line in the comic: “Man — if this boost doesn’t work — we’ll be swinging cats in this funny space disco for the next trillion years!”). Wait! Donna, Roy and Hank encounter aliens on the moon — but don’t worry, they’re friendly aliens — they just want to listen to more groovy Earth music. Wait! The Titans start to hallucinate due to oxygen deprivation — but don’t worry, Wally turns the correct switch in time. Wait! The Titans nearly miss the re-entry angle but manage to correct in time and return to Earth safely. At the end of the comic, nothing has happened and it’s taken 23 pages and millions of dollars of federal equipment to get there.

The art by Nick Cardy is serviceable, and actually quite good in places, but the script doesn’t give him much to work with.

The story is simply awful. Other than introducing Mal, the rest of the plot is laughable. The ghetto scenes are definitely not politically correct, but are so ludicrous that there’s no way anyone could consider them offensive. The outer space adventure the following issue makes even less sense.

While Hank and Don appear in these issues, Hawk and Dove do not. There is nothing in these issues that set the Hall brothers apart as being special (or even brothers). Any other teen heroes could have taken their place in the story with no changes at all. Frankly, any other teen heroes would make more sense than a powerless Hawk and Dove. Without their powers, Hank is athletic but Don is not — yet we are expected to believe that he could keep up with the rest of the Titans.

Unless you are a Teen Titans (or Hawk and Dove) completist, there is no sense in tracking down and buying these issues. It’s simply not worth the time, money, or effort.

After visiting a variety of creator message boards and reading Fanboy Rampage daily, I started wondering what it would be like if the fanboy mentality took root in other professions. For instance, what if famous doctors had their own message boards complete with fawining fanboys, sycophantic medical students, and other hangers-on?

doc_scott: Every antibiotic since penicillin has been overrated. They’re all just pale imitations. So I’m going to ignore them all and just go back to penicillin.
dr_yes: Yeah. Great idea!
sawbones116: The Sanford Guide hasn’t recommend penicillin as a first-line agent for years.
doc_scott: That’s because it’s written by hacks. They don’t understand my genius. My use of penicillin will be the definitive antibiotic.
dr_seuss: Dr. Midas from Harvard says that penicillin is a useless drug now.
doc_scott: He’s a quack!
smithers: He hasn’t had a good run since he was editor of the New England Journal.
toady: Those issues were overrated.
dr_yes: yeah!
squirrel_boy: Can you believe he actually recommended bisphosphanates for osteoporosis?
porkys16: LOL. That run was so overrated. They’re not even worth anything now.
flash_137: You couldn’t give them away.
dr_yes: yeah!
dr_seuss: What about what the Surgeon General says?
smithers: Who is the Surgeon General now anyway?
toady: ????
doc_scott: IMHO there hasn’t been a good Surgeon General since C. Everett Koop.
smithers: What about Joycelyn Elders?
dr_yes: Yeah!
flash_137: Date her.
porkys16: Date her.
smithers: Marry her.

It was a pretty lightweight Saturday in terms of super-hero cartoons. Two original episodes and one repeat, but neither of the original episodes was particularly outstanding. The best episode of the day was the Justice League Unlimited, even if it was a repeat.

On The Batman, “The Man Who Would Be Bat” featured the origin of Man-Bat. Unlike previous incarnations of the character that had been good-but-tortured or good-but-misguided, this Man-Bat is pure evil. The character design is excellent with the “bat” side of Man-Bat shining through. The plot, however, was weak with numerous lapses and the writers (and animators) seemed to frequently confuse infra-red vision with sonar. And just a hint to Batman (the “World’s Greatest Detective”), measles does not cause deafness.

The Teen Titans episode, “The Beast Within,” was a Beast Boy werewolf tale. There was a slight plot twist, but nothing overly unexpected. All in all, a slight episode. As an aside, I have always wondered who built and paid for the Titans Tower. And why is there only one bathroom in a tower full of teens?

“This Little Piggy” was the Justice League Unlimited episode tonight. It was a repeat, but a repeat of the best episode so far this year. Basically, Wonder Woman gets turned into a pig and Batman enlists Zatanna, Bwana Beast and others to track her down. That description doesn’t do the episode justice, so make sure to catch it for yourself. (My impressions of the episode its first time out can be found here).

Since I’m feeling a little under the weather, I thought I’d stay way from heavy-duty posting and stick with today’s “television animation” theme. In honor of Halloween, here is the official Polite Dissent list of the five best “Treehouse of Horror” episodes from the Simpsons. It was hard to choose just a few because the Treehouse episodes are almost always some of the best.

1. “Time and Punishment” from Treehouse of Horror V. Homer inadvertently invents a toaster time machine.
   

   HOMER: Aaah! OK, don’t panic. Remember the advice your father gave to you on your wedding day.
   GRANDPA SIMPSON (in a tux): If you ever travel back in time, don’t step on anything, because even the tiniest change can alter the future in ways you can’t imagine!

2. “Citizen Kang” from Treehouse of Horrors VII. Aliens Kang and Kodos impersonate Clinton and Dole during the 1996 Presidential campaign.
   

   KODOS (as Clinton, speaking at a political rally): We must move forward not back, move up not forward, and always turning, turning, turning.

3. “The Shinning” from Treehouse of Horror V. The Simpson family is hired to be caretakers for the isolated estate of Mr. Burns during the winter.
   

   HOMER: No TV and no beer make Homer…something something
   MARGE: Go crazy?
   HOMER: Don’t mind if I do!

4. “Dial ‘Z’ for Zombie” from Treehouse of Horror III. Bart casts a spell that brings the dead back to life.
   

   BART AND LISA: Dad! Dad! We did something horrible!
   HOMER: Did you wreck the car?
   BART AND LISA: No.
   HOMER: Did you raise the dead?
   BART AND LISA: Yes.
   HOMER: But the car’s OK?

5. “Lisa’s Nightmare” from Treehouse of Horror II. A retelling of “The Monkey Paw”, where Lisa’s wish for world-wide peace allows Kang and Kodos to easily conquer the Earth.
   

   KANG: That Board with the nail in it may have defeated us. But the humans won’t stop there. They’ll make bigger boards and bigger nails. Soon they will make a board with a nail so big it will destroy them all!

Runner’s up:
“The Devil and Homer Simpson” from Treehouse of Horror IV.
“King Homer” from Treehouse of Horror III.
“Bad Dream House” from Treehouse of Horror I.