Polite Dissent

I did a Century Ride today so now I’m dead tired and my legs are killing me. I doubt I have a substantive post in me tonight.

Instead, let’s just sit back and celebrate the St. Louis Cardinals winning the National League Central title for the third year straight. Playoffs start Tuesday in San Diego against the Padres.

This coming Friday is the National Depression Screening Day, where physicians and other providers are urged to take an extra minute or two to screen their patients for depression.

In commemoration of the day, I thought I’d post this PSA from 1950s dealing with mental illness. (Of course, when you read the PSA you’ll realize that the “Deep Dark Secret” they’re referring too is not having a mental illness yourself, but instead having a relative who has a mental illness. I guess that actually having a mental illness is the deeper darker secret. Still, this is a pretty enlightened approach to mental illness for its time.)

Click on the image for the full PSA

I encourage anyone concerned with depression or other mental illness to talk to their primary care physician, health provider, or counselor. Feeling a little down but not sure whether it’s depression or not? I recommend the Zung Questionnaire — it’s not perfect, but I fnd that it gives a good snapshot of how a person is doing.

Tags: comics medicine psa depression mental illness buzzy

No new episode of House tonight as the baseball playoffs have started There is a repeat episode of House tomorrow night (the second to last episode from last season, “Who’s Your Daddy“, that I found fairly unexciting at the time). With the early cancellation of Justice, it looks like House will be getting Wednesday night repeats for the foreseeable future.

It’s time to resume my chronological look at every Hawk and Dove appearance since their origin in Showcase #75. So far, I’ve covered their original series, their adventures with the Teen Titans, the death of the first Dove during Crisis on Infinite Earths, Hawk’s increasingly insane solo adventures, and then the resurgence of Hawk and Dove with the appearance of the new Dove.

But then real life reared its ugly head and my need for Family Practice recertification trumped Hawk and Dove. However, since discovering that a certain fellow comic blogger lacks the proper appreciation of Hawk and Dove (and passing the recertification exam), I realized it was well past time to resume my postings.

Before returning to the Hawk & Dove comic, let’s take a look at a brief cameo of theirs in Justice League America #42. In this issue from September 1990, Maxwell Lord and John J’onzz decide that the JLA needs a recruitment drive. It should come as little surprise that they seek out the B-level heroes who have their own titles but who aren’t already in the JLA. Blue Beetle and Fire talk with El Diablo, Guy Gardner has a “conversation” with Starman (the otherwise forgettable Will Payton one), and Ice and the Huntress have a chat with Hawk and Dove in an entertaining scene.

Click on the image for the full page

And how did the recruitment go? The answer is below…
Read more…

Outsiders #37 “Silver and Grey, part one: Familiar Faces”
Judd Winick, writer
Tom Grindberg, penciler

The Outsiders and Alan Scott are examining the clone of Jay Garrick that they fought in the previous issue:

Shift: He also seems to be suffering from some dort of decomposition…like a mild form of the flesh-eating virus.
Shift: His costume coated his skin with a constant dose of an antibacterial retardant that seemed to keep it at bay.

A good example of Second Most Common Comic Book Writer Medical Error: trying to treat a virus with an antibiotic. In his first line, Shift clearly says that condition is viral, yet in his second line he states that an antibacterial will stop it. Which is it — a virus or bacteria? (I suspect that the second statement is the correct one because I think Shift’s first statement is meant to refer to necrotizing fasciitis — the infamous “flesh-eating bacteria¹“).

So is Winick wrong, or did he purposefully write Shift to be wrong? I leave it to you to decide, but if the latter is the case, the Outsiders would be wise to choose another member to act as the medic².

Finally, I give full credit to Grindberg for drawing a correct nasal cannula — though it seems to disappear in many panels and often is not even connected to an air source.

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Notes:
¹If this is the case, then that makes this a case of the most common writer medical error: blaming the wrong germ for a disease. Geoff Johns made the same mistake with the same disease in the Red Zone storyline in the Avengers.
²I mean , look at him — why’s he even wearing a head mirror? With all the Outsider’s equipment they can’t afford a good lamp? And what exactly was he looking at with it anyway?

Tags: comics medicine outsiders necrotizing fasciitis

At last! The event every fan had been clamoring for: the return of Titans West! Personally, I never really understood the mystique of Titans West as they appeared for all of two issues in the late ’70s version of the Teen Titans and consisted of mostly B-level heroes (excepting Hawk and Dove of course, and the post-Crisis version did ramp up the power level). Nevertheless, the first Hawk & Dove Annual features their “long-awaited return.” But that’s not all the surprises this issue contains as it also features a final guest star that really puts the machina in Deus Ex Machina. Overall, this is near perfect example of what an annual should be: a larger than life adventure that just wouldn’t fit in the regular title.

The story picks up shortly after Hawk & Dove #14-17. In that adventure, Hawk and Dove had chased their arch-foe Kestrel to his home dimension of Druspa Tau — a dimension that also happened to be the residence of T’Charr and Terataya, the Lord of Chaos and the Lord of Order that gave Hawk and Dove their powers. In the final scene of that story, Hawk and Dove absorbed the essences of their respective creators. This greatly increased their powers, but it also raised the question of whether or not Hawk and Dove also absorbed the love the two Lords felt for each other.

In the days since their return to Georgetown, Hank and Dawn have been avoiding each other and pretty much everybody else. Today though, their friend Donna has a big tennis match and they’ve promised her their support. Donna’s game is against one of the rising stars of the professional circuit: Bette Kane. Does that name ring a bell? It should. Debuting in Batman 139 in 1961, Betty Kane and was the original Bat-Girl (note the hyphen). After a brief time in the sun, she appeared only rarely — the last time with Titans West. After Crisis on Infinite Earths, she was ret-conned to Bette Kane and Flamebird.

Anyway, Bette trounces Donna. After game, Dawn returns home to find a mysterious envelope on her front step made out to Don Dove Dawn. Inside she finds a picture of the Titans West team and a note telling her that she needs to go to a certain hotel room across town. It also hints that father, a S.T.A.R. Labs scientist, may be in trouble. She knocks on the door and discovers that she’s at Bette’s hotel room and that Hank is already there (but not for the reason you think — and not the reason Bette would like — he just wanted someone to talk over the whole Don/Dawn thing). Hank and Bette realize that the note must be from their old teammate Lilith and that they must be needed at S.T.A.R. Labs.

Hawk, Dove, and Flamebird travel to S.T.A.R. Labs. It turns out that the scientists there have opened a portal to some mysterious dimension. The exploration team, as well as the rescue team that went in after them, have both disappeared. Flamebird calls up her old teammates Mal Duncan (once the hero Gabriel — an expert in dimensional travel) and Karen Duncan (Bumblebee — who is a S.T.A.R. scientist in her own right). They bring Chris King with them (who has somehow absorbed the abilities of the H-dial he used to wear and now becomes a different random superhero on the hour every hour) as well as a houseguest who has overstayed his welcome, Charlie Parker (Golden Eagle).

While Mal stays behind to monitor the portal, the rest of the new Titans West team (though you’ll notice they’re actually on the East coast) travel through the portal and find themselves in a barren, rocky landscape. Chris, as Synapse the Energy Man, tracks the homing device used by the rescue team. But it’s a trap! He and then the rest of the team are ambushed and defeated by a gang of villains including the Iron Major, El Papagayo, Icicle, Clayface II, the Top, and the Electrocutioner. Dove realizes that all these villains are dead, and the dimension they are in is some sort of purgatory. The villains take Bumblebee with them as a hostage as well as the homing device. They intend to use the S.T.A.R. Labs portal to return to the land of living and resume their life of crime. They figure they can force Bumblebee to open the portal, and the rest of the Titans won’t be a threat because they’re stranded miles away without the homing device to lead them back to the portal.

Mal Duncan and Lillith are waiting for the villains at the portal. Mal manages to defeat the Iron Major and rescue Bumblebee, but the Icicle takes Lillith hostage easily (maybe a little too easily). About this time, the remaining members of Titans West arrive on the scene riding on the back of the Haunted Tank. Yes, that Haunted Tank, along with the ghost of General J.E.B. Stuart (in a scene that has to be seen to be believed). The tank smashes Clayface with its gun and the Titans easily defeat the remaining villains — but Lillith is still a hostage. Using this to their advantage, the villains escape and have Lillith lead them to the portal — which they eagerly jump into. Of course, it isn’t the real portal, but a fake portal set up by Etrigan the Demon. In fact, this whole scenario was a trap set by the Demon, and he was the one holding the scientists and rescue team captive. All the villains are returned to Hell except the Icicle, who has repented his life of crime and actually helped Lilith trap the other villains. He is allowed to move on to “the mountains”, which is presumably Heaven. Hawk realizes that his brother Don must be there as well and wants to bring him back, but the ghost of J.E.B. Stuart makes him realize that while Don’s life may have been cut short, it was a fulfilling one. Hawk, Dove, and the remaining Titans West members return to the real world, bringing the missing scientists and rescue team with them.

All Previous Hawk and Dove Reviews

Tags: comics hawk dove titans west flamebird etrigan haunted tank

A new subject this week in my examination of psychic power-related nosebleeds: Emma Frost! This image is from Emma Frost #1, by Karl Bollers and Randy Green. I know it looks at first like a fencing injury, but the blood on her fencing outfit is really the blood dripping down from her nose. This is from a scene when her mutant powers are first starting to manifest, mostly as headaches. As an aside, I always thought Emma Frost was a surprisingly well-done series. It’s a shame it had to be marred by cheesecake covers that had nothing to do with the interior story. Tags: comics medicine nosebleed emma frost

Another scene from Emma Frost #1 by Bollers and Green. This occurs towards the end of the issue, when her telepathy first appears. (And, based on the image, it seems another one of Emma’s mutant abilities is gravity-defying blood and/or amazingly three-dimensional lips.)

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed emma frost

Flipping through my collection this weekend, I started re-reading many of the old Marvel and DC Annuals. Since releasing Annuals seems to be coming back into style, I thought I’d share my thoughts on Annuals:

• Annuals need to justify their extra expends. They need to contain a story that is simply too magnificent to fit in a regular 22-page comic. Annuals made up of several shorter stories work well too, as long as the stories are extra-special and not just filler. Reprints are not a good idea for Annuals anymore with the prevalence of Essentials, Showcases, and Masterworks. If their must be a reprint story, make it something extra special and hard to find.
• Annuals should be based in continuity. They can be loosely based, as in the Armageddon 2001 Annuals, but should have some connection to the regular title. The Elseworld themed Annuals from several years ago didn’t seem to go over that well for just this reason. Who wants to pay out a premium for yet another reimagining of Superman?
• On the other hand, Annuals shoudn’t be required reading for continuity. Speaking from personal experience, Annuals aren’t always easy to find and I am always frustrated to discover a story in the regular title that is dependant on knowing what happened in an Annual.
• It’s fine to introduce new characters in an Annual (for example, Lila Cheney was introduced in New Mutants Annual #1). However, Annuals that seem to exist for the sole purpose of introducing new characters (c.f. Bloodlines, Planet DC) generally aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
• Redefining chracters. or reintroducing older or little known chracters works well in an Annual. Captain Britain and Psylocke were introduced/reintroduced to American readers in New Mutants Annual #2. Amanda Sefton was revealed to be Jimaine Szardos in X-Men Annual #4. A great example is the Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #1 (1990 series). This was the first of the “Five Years Later” Annuals and it did a good job showing how the history of the Glorith-verse differed from previous history, as seen through the eyes of Ultra Boy.
• Annuals from different stories that all tie together to tell a single story are a bad idea if each Annual is required reading to understand the whole story. You’re going to lose more readers than you gain thay way. It’s no coincidence that Atlantis Attacks, The Evolutionary War, and Days of Future Present have never been collected in trade paperback. Annuals that share a looser connection are fine. The Armageddon 2001 Annuals shared the same framing device and basic storyline, but reading them was not required to understand the whole Armageddon 2001 story.

In a fit of irony — since it is Columbus Day here in America — I thought it would be appropriate to look at this classic DC PSA about American Indians. Alternately condescending and informative, this PSA gives a good picture of how Americans of fifty years ago viewed Native Americans (ot at least how high school drama teachers in the 1950s did).

Click on the image for the full PSA

I was familiar with Jim Thorpe, but I have to admit not knowing about Maria Tallchief. For those of you with the same lack of knowledge, here is the Wikipedia entry on Maria Tallchief (and here’s the one on Jim Thorpe).

Tags: comics psa native americans

Dr. Strange: The Oath #1
Brian K. Vaughan, writer
Marcos Martin, artist

An excellent start to the series. I thought the story was compelling and the art quite clean. Overall, the medical scenes were well done, but I do have a few nit-picks and observations. I’m certain there are some minor spoilers in here, so be warned if you haven’t read the comic yet. (For non-medical thoughts on the issue, check out the omniscient Neilalien)

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1. The hamstring (”hammy”) is located at the back of the knee and thigh. So why is Iron Fist icing the front of his knee?

2. Strange has a B+ blood type and Wong O-. Interesting. Asians have the lowest prevalence of the O gene, though it’s still common.

3. A close look at page #11 (annotated image to the right, or just click on the image for a larger version)

A. Night Nurse isn’t wearing eye protection.

B. She sure is messy. Not a complaint or a nitpick, just an observation.

C. If the wound is on the left, it would make more sense for her to be standing on the left side of the patient so she wouldn’t have to reach across, but I’ll chalk this up to personal style.
The side table does seem a little out of reach.
I think the black tube going into the wound is suction.

D. This line is the EKG. This particular one is showing an injury current with an abnormal ST segment. The bullet must be close to — or in — the heart.

E. This line usually shows arterial pulsations, so it should be in sync with the heartbeat.

F. This line shows respirations and looks normal.

G. I have no idea what this machine is supposed to be. Either a suction receptacle or bellows, I suspect.

H. You’ll notice that that good doctor is not intubated. This means he is strong enough to breathe on his own.

4. Blood transfusions use gravity. Since Wong is donating blood, the bag should be beneath him, not above him. Blood won’t flow uphill.

5. Timelozar. Not a real drug which means it can do whatever Vaughan says it can.

6. If radiation won’t have any effect on the tumor, this suggests that the cancer has spread beyond the brain.

7. The Hippocratic Oath. Dr. Strange’s end of the line (“..and I will do so at any cost”) is not one I’m familiar with. The more common end of the line is “…and never do harm to anyone.”

8. Dr. Strange is still a licensed caregiver? I assume this means he still holds his medical license. Keeping a medical license generally means you have to stay in good standing with the law and the state medical board, meet your annual education objectives (about 20-50 hours of continuing education per year, depending on the state), and pay a (often hefty) fee. Certainly nothing Dr. Strange couldn’t do.

Tags: comics medicine doctor strange brian vaughan night nurse

Just a quick one tonight. This scene is from the Stormwatch: Post-Human Division preview in World Storm #1*. The art, I believe, is by Doug Mahnke. It’s not labeled well, but he’s doing the art on the Stormwatch comic and it looks like his penciling.

• I’ve covered this before, but it’s been a while: There are no air bubbles in IV bottles. It’s a closed system — fluid-to-fluid — there’s no air to bubble up. Anyway, air in the veins is not a good idea.
• On the postive side, I give the artist credit for drawing a proper triple lumen catheter and a good nasogastric tube correctly taped into place.

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*I have to say that I felt really cheated by this comic as it sets a new low in not-getting-your-money’s worth: all it consists of are two brief previews and 8 house ads for upcoming series (ads that strangely credit the artists and colorists but never mention the writers). Plus 12 pages of actual ads and a Wildstorm newsletter. And the cover — while I like Arthur Adams and wish we saw more of his art, this Fairchild-centric cover is downright embarrassing.

Continuing a look at nosebleeds caused by psychic powers, with a focus for a second week in a row on the young Emma Frost, later known as the Hellfire Club’s White Queen (and later yet, a member of the X-Men).

This image comes courtesy of Karl Bollers and Carlo Pagulayan and is from Emma Frost #7 and I think is one of the best epistaxis telepathica pictures.

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed emma frost

Yet another nosebleed for Emma Frost. I’m thinking it was pretty gutsy of her to wear white later on…

image from Emma Frost #8 by Bollers and Pagulayan

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed emma frost

So your little mutants, metas, and heroes are having trouble learning their ABCs and are on the verge of flunking out of Preschool?

Don’t worry. Here at Polite Dissent we have developed The X-Men Alphabet Primer to help with just such a problem!

A is for Angel, who soars with the birds.
B is for Beast, who uses very big words.
C is for Cypher, shot in a fight.
D is for Dust, who wears her burqa too tight.
E is for Empath, not a giver; a taker.
F is for Forge also known as the Maker.
G is for Gambit, whose accent perplexes.
H is for Havok and his many complexes.
I is for Iceman who loves absolute zero.
J is for Juggernaut who’s playing at hero.
K is for Karma, the niece of a crime lord.
L is for Lila, once queen of the rock chord.
M is for Magneto, who is rather intense.
N is for Nightcrawler who has a tail and can fence.
O is for Onslaught, a sorry occasion.
P is for Psylocke, once English, now Asian.
Q is for Quentin, one of Xavier’s ex-pupils.
R is for Roulette, a Hellion without scruples.
S is for Strong Guy who is strong…and a guy.
T is for Thunderbird, the first one to die.
U is for Unus, who is strongly protected.
V is for Vulcan, a brother neglected.
W is for Wolfsbane, who’s been let off her leash.
X is for X-23, just another pastiche.
Y is for Yukio, one of Claremont’s inventions.
Z is for Zaladane, with evil intentions.

This is the third in the series of Canadian public service comics that were later republished in America. Remember how in the first issue Peter Parker came to Canada to track down Electro’s drug supplier? And remember in the second issue how Spider-Man stopped the Chameleon from stealing a young girl’s science fair project? You don’t remember? That’s okay because none of it matters to the plot in this issue at all. All you need to know is that Peter Parker is in Toronto to cover the Toronto Blue Jays/New York Yankees game.

The action starts as young Phil Danton is riding his bike to the stadium. He’s excited because that night he and the other members of his bicycle team (the “Right Riders”) are going to demonstrate bicycle safety before the game and then get to watch the game free. He’s also hoping he can get some autographs from the ballplayer. Phil’s running late so he cuts through an alley. Unfortunately, a drunk driver also picks that moment to use the alley as a shortcut and hits Phil head-on before fleeing the scene.

Luckily, Phil’s American cousin happens to be in town — a cousin named Danny Ketch. For those of you who remember the ’90s, you’ll recall that Danny Ketch was the alter ego of the second Ghost Rider, a ubiquitous character who appeared in almost as many comics as Wolverine. Danny gets Phil to the hospital and then hunts down the drunk driver as Ghost Rider. The driver escapes and manages to convince Spider-Man that it was Ghost Rider who hit Phil, not him.

Spidey hunts down Ghost Rider and because this is a team-up comic book, they fight. Meanwhile, the drunk driver hires some goons to kill Phil because he thinks Phil is Ghost Rider. Spidey and Ghost Rider manage to patch up their differences (the issue being mainly that Spider-Man believed the word of a two-bit thug over someone he’d worked alongside before) and make it back to the hospital in time to rescue Phil. The goons are caught, the drunk driver confesses, and Phil gets an autographed baseball and visit from BJ Birdy, the Blue Jay’s mascot.

Compared to the strong anti-drug and anti-cigarette stance of the previous issues, this comic is really not much of a PSA comic. It reminds us that drunk driving is a bad thing, and it teaches a little about bicycle safety. Speaking of bicycle safety, I think I’ll let Ghost Rider have the last word:

This is the only PSA comic I know of that resorts to a direct threat.

Part One: The Amazing Spider-Man — Skating on Thin Ice!
Part Two: The Amazing Spider-Man — Double Trouble!

Tags: comics psa spider-man canada ghost rider

Georgetown University, the home of Hank Hall (Hawk) and Dawn Granger (Dove), is hosting their annual Crime and Punishment Symposium. This particular year, the guests include the Vice President of the United States, Judge Irwin Hall (Hank’s father), and political gadfly columnist Jack Ryder. As part of the symposium, the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit will be displaying some advanced weapons prototypes.

Across campus, Farley Fleeter, once leader of the Madmen gang, has taken a job as a custodian at the University so he can steal drugs. While he is snooping around a biochemistry lab, there is an accident and he is exposed to an experimental virus. He thinks little of it at the time and goes on with his job and returns to his apartment. However, it turns out that the virus infects anyone he touches and links their mind with his. These people think the same thoughts he does and carry out the same actions. So when Fleeter decides to dress as the Madman and steal the experimental weapons, every person he has touched also dresses up as the Madman and tries to steal the weapons. Instead of a single Madman, there are now over a hundred Madmen (and women) converging on the weapons display.

When the Madmen swarm the gymnasium where the weapons are being displayed, Hawk and Dove leap into the fray. The Secret Service also springs into action. It seems that when the Vice President shook Fleeter’s hand earlier in the day, he caught the virus. This means that the Vice President is one of the Madmen, but the Secret Service doesn’t know which one, so they decide they have to protect every Madman. This, understandably, puts them at odds with Hawk and Dove.

Of course, Hawk and Dove aren’t the only costumed vigilantes present. Wherever Jack Ryder goes, the Creeper can’t be far behind — and before too long he pops in, adding his own brand of insanity to the mix. Whether he’s helping or hindering is up for debate.

By now Fleeter has figured out what is going on and realizes that he can direct the other Madmen. When he tries to infect the Creeper, his plan starts to fall apart. The Creeper’s personality is to strong — and too maniacal — to be overwhelmed and starts to take control of the other Madmen. Dove takes advantage of the confusion to identify Fleeter as the lead Madman and Hawk punches him out. This frees the rest of the Madmen from his control. The Vice President is rescued and everything returns to normal.

NOTES:

1. The Vice President is never officially named as Dan Quayle, but it’s clear that’s who it is supposed to be (and the comic was published in 1990 when he was in office). There are some admittedly cheap laughs at the VP’s expense (de rigueur for comedy of this era), but the Kesels manage to redeem themselves by taking it one stop farther and having him become one of the Madmen — but nobody knows which one.

2. This storyline is a cornucopia of Steve Ditko goodness. Hawk and Dove as well as the Creeper were all Ditko creations. In addition, the Madmen gang was also created by Ditko (they debuted in Charlton’s Blue Beetle #3).

3. Hawk & Dove #18 is one of my all time favorite Hawk & Dove covers. I love the way everything has been sprayprainted with a neon green “C” by the Creeper, including a pissed-looking cat and his captive mouse.

4. Punch and Jewlee (and their unnamed offspring) appear in this story as well. They are speaking at the Symposium about how they turned their life of crime around, but then they decide to steal a prototype force field vest. Unfortunately, Punch quickly learns the downside of experimental prototypes as the vest malfunctions and causes some painful burns in some delicate places.

Jewlee: Look, Love Puppet — the munchkin thinks it’s funny! I think you’re bonding!

All Previous Hawk and Dove Reviews

Tags: comics hawk dove creeper steve ditko

A few days ago, a patient came in complaining of abdominal pain. He was an otherwise healthy 29 year-old male who I had previously seen a few months ago for some allergies. He reported that the previous day he had a sudden episode of severe cramping lower abdominal pain while driving home from work. The pain was so bad that he had to pull over to the side of the road. After 10 minutes, the pain had decreased enough for him to finish the drive home. Once home, he climbed into bed and wrapped up in blankets because he was starting to feel chills. He turned off the light and took a fitful nap.

After about 2 hours, he woke up. The chills had passed but the pain was still present. He started to feel nauseated, so he stumbled into the bathroom. He threw up and then dry heaved for the next twenty minutes.

He stumbled back to bed and slept for the rest of the night. The next morning, he felt much better. While still present, the pain was significantly decreased. The nausea had passed, though he admits that he didn’t have much of an appetite. He decided he felt good enough to go to work, though his wife did talk him into making an appointment at our office after work.

When he came to see me in the clinic that afternoon, he looked pretty good. There was no fever and his vital signs were strong. His heart and lungs were fine. There was some generalized abdominal tenderness but no guarding or rebound. It was clear that he was looking for reassurance that everything was fine. However, there were a couple of findings on the exam that worried me. First, the abdominal pain was definitely more pronounced in the right lower quadrant. Second, there were no bowel sounds; it was absolutely quiet. That’s what really caught my attention — if you listen to the abdomen long enough with your stethoscope, you;re eventually going to hear some of the normal gurgling/tinkling sounds. Not in this case – there were no sounds at all. This is not considered a good sign.

Even though it was late in the day, I set up a stat CT scan of his abdomen and pelvis. I explained that although he looked and seemed to feel pretty good now, I was concerned about his appendix. He laughed it off, but I told him that I was serious and explained why. He explained that he couldn’t have appendicitis because his pain would be worse, not better. I reminded him that the appendix can do strange things and did he really want to take that chance? Reluctantly, he agreed to have the CT done. I told him to wait in the radiology department after the scan was complete until either somebody from our office or the radiologist discussed the results with him.

About an hour later there was a call from the radiologist: the CT scan showed acute appendicitis. However, when the radiologist went out to the waiting room to talk to the patient, he had left. We were able to track him down on his cell phone and found him in a local bar eating hot wings. He was so sure that nothing was wrong that he left to have dinner. Luckily, this didn’t delay surgery and he had an appendectomy later that evening (the third for our local surgery group that night, and the third of five from our office that week).

Tags: medicine abdominal pain appendicitis

General Lazer in X-Men: Civil War joins the list of military officers who are able to abdandon years of ingrained training and somehow manage to find enough time alone to go rogue because they “know what’s the right thing to do, and dammit, nobody else does!”

According to comics, every general officer in the military is just one decision away from going rogue and breaking the rules and laws they’ve been upholding for the previous 20+ years of their career. Has there ever been a recurring high-ranking (General or Admiral) character who hasn’t eventually gone rogue?

Here’s a partial list off the top of my head:

• General Eiling
• General Ross
• General Lazer
• Half the villains in Global Frequency
• The General from Vertigo’s The Witching

On a similar line, it’s amazing how many times in comics we see the U.S. military engaged in operations on U.S. soil against U.S. targets — usually civilian. That breaks more than a few laws.

Another look at Emma Frost and her problem with nosebleeds. By now, she has dyed her hair blonde (and you thought she was a natural blonde) and attending that great Marvel Universe alma mater, ESU.

In this scene from Emma Frost #13 (script by Karl Bollers, pencils by Adriana Melo), her powers are going haywire at an ESU basketball game. Guess she put a little too much of herself into Spirit Week.

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed emma frost

This is the final look at nosebleeds in Emma Frost. I’m not sure if it’s the last time I’ll be featuring Emma herself, but it is the last time I’ll be looking at an image from her eponymous series.

In this scene, Emma is driving off a potential date rapist (successfully, I should add).

scene from Emma Frost #16, script by Karl Bollers, pencils by Carol Pagulayan

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All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed emma frost

For a change of pace this week, I’m not going to look at medicine being used to heal people, but instead I’ll be looking at characters using medicine as an offensive weapon.

Remember Iron Man #7, where Iron Man uses his repulsor rays to purposefully stop the Crimson Dynamo’s heart? That’s a perfect example of offensive medicine in action (though as I pointed out in my review, it wouldn’t really have worked as well as Stark would have liked).

And if all goes as planned, we’ll end the week with a visit from everyone’s favorite Substitute Legionnaire, Drura Sehpt.

Tags: comics medicine iron man

For a change of pace, I thought I would highlight an Imaginary PSA.

This scene is from Legion of Super-Heroes #49 (the 1989 series, also known as the “Five Years Later” Legion), written by Tom and Mary Bierbaum with art by Stuart Immonen. As continuity goes, this occurs after the Earth has been destroyed — though you probably could have figured that out by context. Anyway, Tenzil Kem (Matter Eater Lad) is dreaming of an All-Star Benefit Concert to Rebuild the Earth with the best backup singers in a comic book ever. (Anyone know the two immediately to the left and right of Mordru? I’m drawing a blank.)

Click on the image for the full PSA

The scream in the last panel is a cry for help from Saturn Queen, who is being held prisoner by her less-than-honorable husband and former Legion foe Evillo. Tenzil proceeds to Evilo’s planet of Tartarus to rescue Saturn Queen. There, he is reunited with Brek Bannin (Polar Boy), who has assembled his own team of Substitute Legionnaires including Policy Pam (she can sell insurance to anyone), Spaceopoly Lad (who has the ability to finish every game of Spaceopoly he starts), and Evilo’s daughters Styx and Stilletto. Together, they team up to rescue Saturn Queen and one of my favorte issues of the Legion of Super-Heroes results.

Tags: comics psa legion of super-heroes tenzil kem

Stormwatch #45
Warren Ellis, writer
Tom Raney, penciler

On a day of R&R visiting family in Alabama, Battalion is captured by some anti-government militia-type terrorists. He is beaten, and then tied to bomb hidden in a van parked in front of the local federal building.

Using his telekinetic powers, Battalion stops the bomb and escapes. He tracks the villains down to a garage on the outskirts of town. In the middle of a sentence, the leader of the militia is struck with sudden severe chest pain; he looks up to see Battalion staring in through the garage door. He explains his plan simply:

“I’m squeezing your ventricles shut.”

The human heart is composed of four chambers: the left and right atria, and the left and right ventricles. The ventricles do almost all of the work of the heart. The right ventricle pumps deoxygenated blood to the lungs to get re-oxygenated, while the left ventricle pumps the oxygenated blood through the body.

If the ventricles are stopped entirely, then the heart will cease beating. As can be easily imagined, this will lead to an uncomfortable death in a matter of minutes.

But what if the ventricles were merely compressed instead of stopped? Then a situation akin to cardiac tamponade will develop. The heart is surrounded by a membranous sac known as the pericardium. In cardiac tamponade, this sac fills with fluid (usually blood), and this presses against the ventricles preventing them from expanding properly. This means the ventricles can neither fill adequately with blood nor pump the blood effectively through the body. Blood flow diminished and the blood pressure drops dangerously low. Other signs and symptoms of tamponade include chest pain, shortness of breath, rapid breathing, anxiety, and distended jugular veins. Tamponade can quickly lead to death (though not as quick as a non-beating heart) and is considered an emergency situation.

Either way, Battalion clearly has things under control.

Tags: comics medicine stormwatch battalion warren ellis tamponade

There was a comic I read in the past few months that had a particular scene in it that I had planned to blog about. I put it aside, but then I forgot and shuffled it back into my main collection, and now I’ve forgotten what comic it was. It may be a recent comic or an older one, I don;t remember. I just hope somebody recognizes it and can tell me which comic it is:

A team of villains invades a lab or research station of some sort. One of the ne’er-do-wells, a female I believe, psychicly induces a heart attack in one of the scientists, and walks away, leaving him writhing on the floor and dying.

Thanks!

Instead of lollipops, our office hands out stickers to children at the end of their appointment. I like to look through the catalogs to make sure we’re getting good stickers (particularly good super-hero stickers), and not just the Strawberry Shortcake ones. As I was flipping through the catalog yesterday, this caught my eye.

I haven’t decided if this is sheer genius or one of the most ridiculous ideas I have ever seen, but I’m leaning towards the former.

Tonka Truck Valentines! And some of the best (or worst) heavy-equipment-related Valentine’s Day puns ever. There’s a bulldozer (“You move me”), a grader (“You make the grade!”), a cement mixer (“You’ve got me all mixed up”), a backhoe (“I dig you”), and a steam roller (“…We’re on a roll!”).

I’m really not sure who the intended audience is, because I’m thinking most kids who are big into Tonka aren’t going to be that much into Valentine’s Day, but I still think this is genius.

(Here’s another view of the stickers, and ordering information if you’re so inclined.)

Tags: valentines tonka

So, I was wondering, who exactly changes Hot Stuff’s diaper? And isn’t he a little old not to be toilet trained? Or maybe we’ve had it wrong all along, and he’s not so much a devil as he is a tormented soul whose eternal punishment is to wear a diaper forever — which makes me wonder what sin that would be an ironic punishment for?

‘Nuff Said

Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men was chock-full of psychic nosebleeding goodness. For instance, here’s an exchange from his very first issue:

First, here’s Charles Xavier fending off a pscyhic attack by Cassandra Nova.	Meanwhile in Ecuador, Cassandra Nova is on the other end of the attack.

Scenes from New X-Men #114, words by Grant Morrison, pictures by Frank Quitely.

And a special thanks to Lene for reminding me of all the epistaxis in Morrison’s New X-Men.

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed x-men charles xavier cassandra nova

Spoiler Warning if you haven’t read Grant Morrison’s run on the X-Men and still plan to.

To rescue Charles Xavier mind from Cassandra Nova’s body, Jean Grey attmpts to absorb his entire mental essence into her mind.

It seems to have worked, but note that Jean looks more than a little worse for the wear. Not just a psychic nosebleed, but the much more rare eye bleeding as well.

.

Images from New X-Men #125 by Grant Morrison and Igor Kordey

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed x-men jean grey charles xavier cassandra nova

Superman #656 “Men and Monsters”
Kurt Busiek, writer
Carl Pacheco, penciler

Interesting scan of Superman’s internal anatomy, courtesy of Subjekt-17. For some reason, I always assumed Superman had a more human arrangement of organs.

That certainly looks like a large heart in the center of his chest, though with more blood vessels entering/leaving than a human heart — but I have no idea what the small red organ just over his heart is. The lungs appear to be behind the heart, but again have many more vessels coming off that human lungs. Speaking of blood vessels, those are some freakishly large vessels looping in the abdomen and going down the leg. There appears to be a small liver or a kidney in the chest. There is some large yellow spiculated organ where I’d expect his bladder to be. The rest of the chest and abdomen seem to be a random assortment of organ and blood vessels.

Superman is an alien, so it would be unlikely for him to have the same anatomy as us, though we know it’s close enough for heart monitors and other medical equipment to work. Still I always pictured it as a little closer to human than this.

I’d love to know what Pacheco used as his reference ot if he was just winging it.

Click on the image for a full-sized scan.

Tags: comics medicine superman

I’ve picked on DC enough recently for their PSA advertisements, so now it’s time to take a look at Marvel.

Here we have one of their “Verb” PSAs, in this case the one starring Wolverine. Take a look…

Click on the image above for the full ad.

A Few Thoughts:
1. I like the way it clearly says “Advertisement” at the top — because there’s no way you’d be able to tell this is an ad without that warning — because, you know, it fits so seamlessly in the narrative of The Ultimates.

2. Chopping off arms and gutting oponents with lethal force = playing football.

3. I don’t care if your bones and claws are made of the second-strongest subtance known to man, there’s no way climbing a mountain like that would be possible (especially if you weigh a ton because your bones are made of metal).

4. Diving at someone with claws extended = sliding into home plate.

5. “Wolverine’s way or your way, it makes no difference how you play”. No, it makes a big difference. For one thing, I don’t routinely eviscerate people.

6. “Verb – It’s What You Do.” While this campaign has a valuable message (“Get off your butt and go outside and get some exercise!”), the way it has been written has always annoyed me. It tries too hard to be clever. Let me remind the crafters of this slogan that loafing, sleeping, and gorging are also verbs.

Tags: comics psa wolverine

From the gang at Riverdale High School:

And from the gone but not forgotten Bloom County:

Tags: comics halloween archie bloom county

House returns with a well done episode with some of the best medicine yet. There is a high “ick-factor” this week, so consider yourself warned when you watch the episode or when you read this week’s House medical review.

Tracy and Jeremy, a young married couple, are eating in a diner when two gunman try to rob the restaurant. Tracy is held hostage, but Jeremy manages to rescue her. After subduing the gunman, he turns around to finder her gasping for breath in anaphylactic shock.

House’s team picks up the case four days later. In addition to the swelling of her throat, Tracy is also experiencing abdominal pain. She has been on steroids and antihistamines the four days she has been in the hospital and has shown some improvement. Allergy tests were negative and a laparoscopy has already been performed and was also negative. The initial differential diagnosis is pregnancy and allergies, both of which are ruled out by testing. Her urine drug screen did show evidence of marijuana and the team speculates that she could have been exposed to Salmonella through contaminated marijuana. She is started on a fluoroquinolone (an antibiotic such as Cipro, Levaquin, or Floxin) to treat the suspected Salmonella.

She develops a rash from an allergic reaction to the antibiotic (an allergy that happened way too fast, by the way). The team now discusses allergies as a cause again, but House suspects exercise induced anaphylaxis. Tracy is placed on a treadmill. She has some abdominal pain, but the test is negative. On the other hand, her husband develops severe chest pain and abdominal pain and finds himself admitted to House’s service. His initial work-up is negative — no heart attack or aortic dissection — and the team thinks it might be psychosomatic or a panic attack.

Then the team makes the assumption that both Tracy’s and Jeremy’s conditions are related and share a common cause. It seems like quite a stretch in logic to me at this point, but it’s not my show. A search of their apartment turns up a box of condoms so Chase and House suspect the cause is Gonorrhea, but all STD tests are negative.

Tracy’s pain is worsening. She goes into acute delirium and hallucinates about Jeremy’s father. She then slips into a coma. An MRI shows some generalized swelling as well as some suspicious spots in the brain stem, but it doesn’t give enough information for a firm diagnosis. House is concerned about sarcoidosis, though he also mentions plaques (multiple scelerosis, Alzheimer’s) and tumors. He starts the pair on methotrexate to treat the presumptive sarcoidosis, but he also wants a biopsy of Tracy’s brain. This sets up an ethical dilemma. Jeremy would normally be able to make medical decisions for Tracy when she is incapacitated, but since the decision will also affect his health, there is a conflict of interest. Another guardian must be declared, but that will take time. House ignores this and sends the team to talk to Jeremy, but he refuses to let them biopsy her brain. House wants to browbeat him into agreeing, so he uses naloxone to counteract Jeremy’s pain medicine. Despite House’s ploy, he still refuses.

Jeremy is not showing any brain symptoms, but he starts showing an elevated lactic acid, which can be a sign of an ischemic bowel (intestines that are not getting enough blood supply. This can proceed to death or infection of the intestines.). The team is concerned that his bowel is dying, so they operate expecting to have to remove some bad bowel. Surprisingly, they find no dead bowel, just swelling of the intestines. House now wonders if maybe it is two separate diseases: Tracy has small cell vasculitis, while Jeremy has porphyria. He then makes one of his patented logical leaps and realizes that they both have a rare genetic disorder called Hereditary Angioedema that leads to the swelling of body tissues, particularly in times of stress. He then takes it one step farther and realizes that Tracy and Jeremy share the same father and are in fact half-siblings, this giving us our ick-factor of the episode.

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Overall, the medicine was sound. I have a few complaints, most of which I mentioned above, but no deal breakers this week. Most of the mistakes were jumping to conclusions too quickly without any real evidence, but that’s par for the course on this show. The team also went to surgery too quickly, both on Tracy’s laparoscopy (though that was the previous team), and on Jeremy’s bowel surgery. (And why didn’t they see edema during Tracy’s surgery?). I feel I should point out that the Young Guns did not perform any unrealistic testing themselves this week (the treadmill was a test I would expect them to run); since I always criticize them in this area, I will compliment them for getting it right this week. Additionally, lupus was not mentioned this week, nor was “autoimmune disease.”

Some nice soap opera this week. All three of the Young Guns, particularly Foreman, are standing up to House more. There is a clever sub-plot involving Wilson and a pediatric nurse, as well as House’s continues insistence that Cuddy is pregnant. David Morse also appears as a taciturn and disgruntled patient of House. He lodges a complaint, but House rebuffs him. In the final scene, House is speeding down the street on his motorcycle when he is pulled over by a cop — one that just happens to be Morse. House ends up arrested for possession of narcotics (this scene would have had a lot more punch if FOX hadn’t spoiled it by showing it in every preview for the past month).

I give this episode a B for the mystery, but an A for the solution because it was clever and supported by the signs and symptoms of the patients. Surprisingly, I award the medicine an A — a weak A, but an A nonetheless. The soap opera/non-medical aspect was good and deserve a B+.

The previous House review
A list of all prior House reviews

Tags: television medicine house sarcoidosis angioedema.