Polite Dissent

It’s always nice to find new reprint collections of old pulp stories. I’m a big fan of these stories — sure, many of the characters are rather two-dimensional and the plots paper-thin — but there are enough diamonds in the rough to make it worth the time and effort. In the past year or two, a number of my favorites have managed to work their way back into print:

El Borak, by Robert E. Howard
The White Wolf — a.k.a. El Borak — is my second favorite Howard character (with Solomon Kane being number one). El Borak has swashbuckling adventures in the early part of the twentieth century: think Lawrence of Arabia with a liberal dash of sword and sorcery. His stories have been out of print for decades, but will be available Tuesday in a nice new edition.

Jirel of Joiry and Northwest Smith, by C. L. Moore
Moore was one of the first female adventure pulp writers — she wrote as “C. L.” instead of Catherine to disguise her gender. Most of her stories were published in Weird Tales and have a slight Lovecraftian feel to them.
Jirel is the ruler of a small medieval kingdom and her lands always seem to be under threat from natural, and supernatural, enemies. Her stories tend towards the darker aspect of fantasy.
Northwest Smith is a smuggler and anti-hero in the distant future. His stories have a darker edge to them as well.
The Science Fiction Book Club has inexpensive hardbound collections of Jirel and Northwest Smith. Paizo, under their Planet Stories imprint, also offers a Jirel as well as a Northwest Smith collection. (Paizo also offers several collections of Moore’s husband and fellow writer, Henry Kuttner. Sadly, I haven’t seen any recent reissues of stories by Lewis Padgett, which was the name Moore and Kuttner used when they collaborated together on a story).

Speaking of Paizo, they also are offering what look to be great collections of the Eric John Stark series by Leigh Brackett.

Stories from the Golden Age of comics generally had a great deal more death than comics today where super-heroes have their vows against killing. More often than not, Golden Age villains died at the end of the story (especially if they were mad scientists or crime bosses), often in a poetic manner. Even Batman and Superman, while they usually didn’t kill the villains outright, often did nothing to stop their easily preventable death.

However, of all the Golden Age heroes, Doctor Fate had the highest body count. Here’s a quick tally of all the opponents he killed in just his first year of appearances:

Appearance	Comic	Body Count
1	More Fun Comics #55	1 mad scientist
2	More Fun Comics #56	(no one)1
3	More Fun Comics #57	1 sorcerer
4	More Fun Comics #58	1 sorcerer + “thousands” of fish
5	More Fun Comics #59	large alien spaceship
6	More Fun Comics #60	medium-sized enemy spaceship2
7	More Fun Comics #61	an entire planet3 + 1 mad scientist
8	More Fun Comics #62	1 mad scientist
9	More Fun Comics #63	1 sorcerer
10	More Fun Comics #64	1 Mayan god + 1 unfortunate explorer
11	More Fun Comics #65	underwater city
12	More Fun Comics #66	1 criminal

Notes:
1. While not killed outright, Wotan was chained to a rock for eternity within a hidden cavern deep in the earth — like Loki, only without the venomous snake.
2. It was piloted by tiny men, so that counts double, right?
3. An entire inhabited planet destroyed, forty years before Phoenix was essentially put to death for the same actions.

There’s a little (very little) snow on the ground here in southern Illinois, so I thought I’d go for a snow-themed PSA this week.

Peter Porkchops — one of DC Comics premier “funny animal” characters from the 1950s (and later a super-hero in Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew) — is back for another public service ad. This time, he’s teaching the readers to stand up for what’s right, even if it’s unpopular (a good choice for a PSA topic actually).

Wolfie seems to be a common name among antagonists in DC humor comics.

Click on the image for the full ad

This PSA was found in Action Comics #203 as well as the other DC comics from April 1954. This ad was written — as always — by Jack Schiff, with art this time by Rube Grossman.

More PSAs

Tags: comics psa peter porkchops wolfie jack schiff rube grossman

It’s Christmas Eve! Only one last day until Christmas, and this year’s penultimate Advent Calendar Comic Book Countdown cover tries to take over the world!

Pinky and the Brain Christmas Special #1
(DC Comics, January 1996)

Click on the cover for larger view

1 Day until Christmas!

Read more…

Today’s entry in the Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar Countdown is the oldest title featured this year. It dates from before the Golden Age of super-hero comics — two and a half years before Superman’s first appearance. The cover features Popeye, Henry, and Jiggs (from the comic strip “Bringing Up Father“). Other characters appear as ornaments on the strangely two-dimensional tree.

King Comics #9 (David McKay, December 1936)

Click on the cover for larger view

9 Days until Christmas!

This year’s Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar (so far).
One year ago, the cover was Battle Vixen #9.
Two years ago, the cover was Bugs Bunny’s Christmas Funnies #9.
Three years ago, the cover was Richie Rich Fortune$ #9.
Four years ago, the cover was Walt Disney’s Christmas Parade #9.
Five years ago, the cover was Christmas Calvalcade #9
Don’t miss Yet Another Comic Blog’s annual advent calendar

Comic Cavalcade #18 (December, 1946)

That’s one helluva turkey if it takes three superheroes — including the fastest man alive — to catch it!

The criminal who discovered Jor-El’s super-power pills has escaped from prison and rumor has it that he has hidden one last pill somewhere. Superman, Batman, and Robin rush off to capture him before he can reach the pill, but the criminal slips by them. Batwoman (the mini-skirted all-but-incompetent Silver Age Batwoman, not the current one) decides she wants in on the act. She manages to find the villain and grabs his pill before he can swallow it. She then swallows the pill herself — and with her new super-powers — returns the criminal to prison.

Now that Batwoman has super-powers for the next twenty-four hours, how do you think she decides to use them? Stop crime, right? Wrong. She decides she is going to use her super-powers to discover the identities of Batman, Robin, and Superman.

So, not only does Batwoman — an alleged super-hero — not use her new powers to fight crime, but instead she uses them to betray the confidence of other heroes. Nice going.

Batwoman follows Batman and Robin as they drive around Gotham City in the Batmobile. They give her the slip — or at least they think they do — but as soon as they drive into the Batcave, there she is waiting for them. She tells the duo she used her x-ray vision to find the Batcave, and now, based on the mansion above the cave, she knows their identity. Next she sets out to discover Superman’s.

Batwoman catches up with Superman when he is saving a small town from an avalanche. She follows him, hoping he’ll lead her to his secret identity. He tries to scare her away by flying through a lightning storm, walking through an artillery proving ground, and floating over Niagara Falls, but none of it works. Finally, he decides what his only option is to expose her to the thing every woman is scared of: mice.

Superman’s plan works and he sneaks out through the basement, drilling through the ground, making sure to stay below veins of lead-bearing ores, but Batwoman is able to track him by sound. When he emerges from the ground, she tells him that he has fallen into her trap. She’s lured him away from his job for the whole afternoon, and since she saw what block of Metropolis he came from, all she has to do now is find the office in that block where a worker has been missing all afternoon. When she shows up at the Daily Planet, Lois tells her everyone has been there the whole day (but she only mentions Clark, Jimmy, and Perry — so in the Silver Age the Daily Planet apparently only employed four people). At this point, Batwoman’s twenty-four hours of powers are up and she admits defeat in figuring out Superman’s identity — but at least she knows the true identities of Batman and Robin. Not so fast, says Superman:

And just in case you were wondering:

Story from World’s Finest #90 (September/October 1957), by Edmond Hamilton and Dick Sprang

Tags: comics medicine kryptonite superman batman robin batwoman jor-el pills

It’s time for three more case studies to determine if you’d be a good doctor in a super-hero world. So put on your thinking caps and your diagnostic head mirrors and see if you can make the correct diagnosis.

The previous case studies and a bit more an explanation can be found at Dr. Scott’s Case Studies of Comic Book Medicine

This was purely a character episode for House, and a pretty good one, at least until it became ridiculously sappy at the end — sappy enough to put a soap opera to shame. There wasn’t that much medicine, which is probably good, because this is a long enough review already.

The episode starts out with a montage of scenes of House locked in a room and undergoing Vicodin withdrawal. Not a very pleasant experience, but he comes through it unscathed.

Now that he has detoxed from the Vicodin, wants to check out of the clinic and resume his previous life. Dr. Nolan, the head psychiatrist of the clinic, confronts House and tells him that he is free to leave, but if he wants the letter of clearance he needs to regain his medical license, he’ll have to attend inpatient therapy. Dr. Nolan points out that it wasn’t the Vicodin that was causing his hallucination, but other deeper problems. Reluctantly, House allows himself to be admitted to Ward Six, the inpatient psychiatric unit.

Dr. Beasley is the young psychiatrist in charge of the unit. Point blank, House tells her that he’s only there until he gets the clearance letter he needs. He threatens to “turn the ward upside down” if he doesn’t get what he wants. He is shown his room and soon meets his roommate, Alvie, a manic depressive (in modern parlance: bipolar) who is in a full manic state because he doesn’t like to take his medications which “bring him down.” (Alvie is a pretty good example of someone who is manic. If anything, he’s more subdued than most manics I’ve encountered.) Alvie introduces him to the other patient including Annie (a mute), Hal (an anorexic), Jay (a claustrophobic) and Richter (a paranoid schizophrenic — probably because he was in all those Revenge of the Nerds movies). They all meet for the first group therapy session, which doesn’t go well, and House finds himself confined to a locked room as punishment.

House rejoins the rest of the patients when they’re outside playing basketball, and quickly turns their psychoses and neuroses against them in order to win the game. House goes back to the ward and encounters Lydia, the sister-in-law of Annie, playing the piano for her. About this time, the orderlies arrive to take him back to the locked room for his behavior on the basketball court.

This time, when House comes out of punishment, he leads a vocal patient rebellion until Dr. Nolan steps in. After things calm down, Steve, a new patient, joins the group. Steve believes that he is a superhero and goes by the name “Freedom Master.” House decides his best bet to get the clearance letter he needs is to find something incriminating on Dr. Nolan and blackmail him. He sends Alvie up to his office, but he can’t find anything. He sneaks a phone call to Wilson, but he refuses to help him.

Now House’s plan is to cooperate, or at least to fake it. He pretends to take his pills and is, to all appearances, getting better and more social. A third psychiatrist, Dr. Medina, wants House to provide a urine sample to prove he is taking his medication. House is ready, though, and has Hal waiting in one of the bathroom stalls to provide a sample. Sure enough, the sample shows evidence of psychiatric medication and Dr. Medina is satisfied.

A little while later, Dr. Medina strolls onto the Ward and confronts Steve about his delusions and the fact that he doesn’t really have superpowers. His extremely confrontational approach angers House, and he becomes even more concerned finding Steve medicated to the gills a short while later. Dr. Nolan steps in. He pulls House into his office and reveals that he knows House has been faking. He had only been getting sugar pills, so his urine should have been clean. Having a positive drug test was proof that he was faking.

Lydia visits later that day, bringing Annie’s old cello. House has Steve help her get the heavy instrument from the car, hoping it will bring back his old super-heroic feelings. Next, he decides that he and Steve should take a ride and he “borrows” Lydia’s car. He takes Steve to a nearby carnival where they have one of those “skydiving over a giant fan” rides (would that really work out in the open like that?). Both he and Steve have fun soaring, and it seems to bring Steve out of his funk — so much so that once again he believes that he has superpowers, and he jumps off the parking garage to prove it.

Steve survives his plummet, but just barely. He has a lacerated spleen and multiple bone fractures. Nolan confronts House and tells him that he is going to transfer him to another psychiatric facility. House is shocked by what happened to Steve and clearly feels guilty. He asks Nolan not to transfer him and promises to comply with his therapy.

House and Nolan start regular one-on-one counseling sessions. He is also started on an antidepressant (an SSRI — serotonin specific reuptake inhibitor. This is a class of antidepressant/antianxiety drug that includes Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, and Lexapro). Nolan takes him to a charity dinner so he can mingle and learn to trust people. Lydia is there, and the two of them have a good time lying and pulling pranks on the other attendees. At the end of the night, she kisses him. Nolan tells House that the night was a success because no one tattled on House’s lies, therefore he can trust other people– which seems a painful stretch of logic to me.

Lydia comes back to visit the next day, but the return of the severely injured and now catatonic Steve to the floor puts a damper on whatever may have happened between her and House. Nolan tells House he needs to apologize to Steve, but he can’t bring himself to do it.

Meanwhile, Dr. Beasley announces that there is going to be a talent show and wants everyone to participate. During group session, House receives an urgent note from Nolan. He meets him at the hospital where Nolan’s father lies in a coma. Nolan tells House that the doctors have told him there is no chance of recovery, but he wants a second opinion. House looks at the CT scans and tells Nolan that his father has had a catastrophic hemorrhagic stroke and agrees that there is no chance of recovery. After being confrontational at first, he pulls up a chair and sits by Nolan as he holds his father’s hands.

Returning to the ward, he finds Lydia by herself crying. One thing leads to another and they end up having mad passionate sex in the office. (Ask anyone: locked ward insane asylum love making is the best kind.) At the talent show, House ends up helping his roommate Alvie rap by stepping in and helping when he starts to stumble over words.

House finally finds the strength to apologize to Steve. He starts to wheel him to group therapy when he notices that Annie is looking down at a music box Steve is holding. He slows down and Steve hands the box to her. She accepts it and opens it.
“Thank you,” she says — the first words she has spoken in ten years.
“You’re welcome,” replies Steve. His first words since the accident.
(And this ridiculously maudlin moment is where all forward plot momentum was lost and along with it, most of the good feelings I had about the story).

Since she is no longer mute, Annie is discharged to an out of state rehabilitation facility. The rest of her family, including Lydia, is going with her. House gets a pass from the hospital and goes to confront Lydia. She tells him that she doesn’t want to leave, but she must because she doesn’t want to break up her family. Nearly broken, House returns to the psychiatric hospital where he encounters Dr. Nolan. Nolan offers to write him the clearance letter he needs — not out of pity — but because House has shown he can change: he cared enough about somebody else to get hurt, and he turned to Dr. Nolan for help when this happened, not Vicodin. The next day, House leaves the hospital and hops on a bus back to his old life.

Not much non-psychiatric medicine this episode, so no major complaints. Minor ones are in blue, nit-picking in green:

Confronting someone with a delusion as strong as Steve’s the way Dr. Medine did is not going to work. Logically, you would think that showing someone that their beliefs are wrong would break the delusion — but by definition, delusions aren’t logical. The mind is very facile and will find a way to keep the delusion despite the evidence. For instance, Steve might now say, “My powers didn’t work because no one was in danger. They only work if there is a lady in distress.” Dr. Medina should know this.
And if you do choose to confront him that way, you don’t do it in public.

Why on earth would you give oral Haldol (a strong anti-psychotic medication. Also a tranquilizer) to someone who’s agitated. First you’ve got to get them to swallow the pills, then you have to wait for them to take effect. It’s much faster just to use injectable Haldol.
And that brings up the ethical question of whether this is an appropriate use of Haldol (my answer: no).

A nitpick here, but House is shown to be receiving 15MG of an unnamed SSRI. It seemed that House was only taking a single pill, but no SSRI comes in that strength. It could be Lexapro, which comes in 10MG, and 15 is a common dose, but that would take a pill and a half

No medical mystery this week, so no grade for it or the final solution. The medicine overall was pretty good, at least until the miraculous cures in the end. I’ll give it a solid B. The soap opera was good — at leas the House part — because it wasn’t as maudlin as Annie, Steve, and Alvie. House’s soap opera gets an A- (everyone else gets a C).

A list of all prior House reviews

House Challenge scores have been posted. Pretty much everybody is tied for second this week.

Last week, I discussed a vaccination that prevented you from becoming a zombie. Tonight’s subject is the opposite: a vaccination that turn you into a zombie (actually, it turns you into a mindless super-strong drone, but close enough). This comes from the Pyroman story “The Saboteurs of Steel” in America’s Best Comics #4 (1943).

Evil gangster Ornitz sneaks into a nearby Army base and slips his mind control serum into the paratyphoid vaccine. The next day, the soldiers are vaccinated…

…and they all become the invulnerable super-strong mindless slaves of Ornitz who uses them to take over the Army base.

Can Pyroman stop Ornitz and his army of Army men? Of course he can, this is his story after all. To understand how he does it, it helps to understand the story as a whole:

A couple of medical notes to end the post:

Paratyphoid fever is similar to the more famous typhoid fever, though it is usually milder. It is caused by a bacteria from the Salmonella family, which is found in contaminated water. It is rare in the United States, Canada, and Europe but fairly common in developing nations. There is a vaccine available, but it not used very often as it is only partially effective.

As the vaccination is labeled “serum,” I suspect the soldiers are getting an immune globulin injection to ward off paratyphoid, and not actual paratyphoid vaccine. In immune globulin injections, the patient receive an injection of antibodies against the disease. These antibodies will circulate for several months, protecting the patient, before eventually breaking down. The patient does not gain any permanent immunity from the injection. This is known as passive immunity, as opposed to active immunity, which occurs when patients are exposed to the germ in question and develop their own antibodies. Active immunity can occur by natural exposure, or by vaccination. All the vaccines routinely given in the United States induce active immunity.

All in all, a rather unexciting way to start the season. Though, to give the writers credit, they are just starting what seem to be several intriguing plotlines.

The Plot: The episode starts out with head on collision between two cars: a silver one and a black one. A wounded man stumbles out the silver car and runs down the street. He hides in a nearby apartment building and kills man who tries to help him. He then uses a strange machine to change himself into an exact replica of man he killed.

The black car is identified as Agent Dunham’s, but she is nowhere to be found and the evidence suggests no one was in the car at all. Peter and Walter arrive on scene and find a junior FBI Agent Jessup in charge. Walter jimmies the lock of the car open and looks around. As he leaves the car, it suddenly turns on and Agent Dunham comes crashing through the windshield and onto the road. She is rushed to the ER in critical condition. The doctors do everything they can, but Olivia remains in a coma (or maybe brain dead, the writers can’t make up their mind). Later that night, Peter comes in to sit by her, and Dunham suddenly regains consciousness and shouts a line of Greek at him. She has no memory of what happened other than she met with someone somewhere and there is something important she has to do or everyone will suffer.

Peter, Walter, and Agent Jessup team up to track down the driver of the silver car who they determined was purposefully trying to hit her car. Finding a body that matches the driver of the car, only more decomposed than it should have been, they bring it to Walter’s lab for autopsy. The examination reminds Walter of an old experiment he did (what doesn’t?), and he plays a tape of an old ESP project. The subject of the experiment warns of a soldier from another world who has the ability to shapechange, just like the one they are facing now. Belatedly, Peter and Agent Jessup realize the soldier still means to kill Olivia, so they rush to the hospital. Meanwhile, the soldier has killed and taken the appearance of Dunham’s nurse; he tries to weasel some information from her, but when he is unsuccessful, he starts to suffocate her. A couple of bullets from Agent Jessup send the nurse running but Charlie manages to catch her. There are some more gunshots, and when Peter and Agent Jessup arrive, Agent Francis is standing over the nurse’s dead body. Agent Dunham is safe and the soldier from the other world is dead — but is that that what really happened?

1. They Canceled ER, Didn’t They?
A sloppy ER/hospital scene.
“Possible brain herniation” — that’s a secondary diagnosis. What’s causing the brain to herniate? She’s probably bleeding inside the skull from the trauma, which in turn forces the brain down.
Pupils non-reactive — but are they dilated or fixed?
Blood pressure 180/20. Can one really measure of diastolic pressure of 20, particularly in an ambulance? 160 is quite a wide pulse pressure.
Instead of telling the EMTs to “prep her” when she is coding, how about actually doing something about it — like starting CPR?

2. Brain Death or Coma?
Olivia’s sister implies they are going to take Olivia off life support in the morning. What life support is that? Her heart is beating and she is breathing on her own. This isn’t brain death; it’s a coma. There is nothing to stop.

3. It’s All Greek to Me
For the record, here’s what Agent Dunham said: Einai kalytero anthropo apo ton patera toy

4. Eye See You
You can hear the cardiac monitor speeding up, but yet her heart rate on the machine remains the same at 72, a normal reading. While a beta-blocker would lower the heart rate, her heart’s not going fast enough to need one — and you risk dropping the pulse too low.

5. Silent Lividity
A short time after a person dies, their red blood cells settle to the lower parts of the body since there is no longer a working heart to pump them around. This results is a purplish discoloration of the skin which is known as livor mortis, or lividity. It starts at about 1-2 hours, and reaches its maximum at 6-12 hours. It persists after that, but becomes masked by other changes of decomposition. So all it could really tell Agent Jessup was that the victim had been dead around 6-12 hours; nothing to indicate he couldn’t have been in a car accident the day before.

6. Unpalatable
I think they’re confusing the palates. The soldier seemed to be putting the nail-plate directly behind the teeth, which is the hard palate not the soft palate (which is father back in your mouth than you think: feel the roof of your mouth all the way back until it switches from hard to soft).

7. Her Father Wasn’t in Intelligence, Was He?
It takes Agent Jessup several hours after they learn that they are dealing with an enemy soldier to suddenly realize that he is still going to try to kill Agent Dunham? I see she has the making to be just as incompetent an investigator as Dunham herself was last season.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention the “cocktail” Walter mixed to help him sleep. Sleep, hell, that concoction would knock out an elephant! It contained Valium (diazepam, an antianxiety drug with strong muscle relaxant and sedative properties), Haldol (haloperidol, a classic antipsychotic drug which is also a strong tranquilizer), Seconal (secobarbital, a barbiturate and another strong sedative), and lorazepam (Ativan, another drug from the Valium class). Unless he has developed one heck of a tolerance for these drugs, Walter should have been asleep for the rest of the show, if not the entire season.

Though it introduced a new hero, as well as a spooky new villain, the episode was rather “meh”. The medicine was pretty bad, but I’ll give them credit for the typewriter scene, which was cool. The Fringe Doomsday Clock remains where it ended last season, five minutes ’til midnight.

It’s time to check in again on super-pharmacist and super-hero Bob Benton, this time is a story from Exciting Comics #45 (March, 1946)

All is not right in the home town of Bob Benton (a.k.a. The Black Terror). Several city officials have been found dead of unknown causes. In each case, a strange flower was found beside the body. Benton suspects the flower is a clue and he diligently searches his botanical reference books, but is unable to identify the plant. Meanwhile, the coroner calls Benton after he discovers an unknown poison in the blood of one of the victims. Benton, despite his years of pharmacy training, is also unable to identify the poison.

Arriving back at his pharmacy, he discovers a mysterious package has arrived — a package containing a beautiful flowering plant. The neighborhood cat wanders in and brushes against the plant — and then suddenly falls dead. Benton matches the mysterious flowers found at the murders to the plant and belatedly realizes that the mysterious plant is not just a clue, but the source of the poison. Looking closely at the plant under the microscope, he identifies it as a new variety of gentian, which he claims is closely related to the curare plant.

He tracks down the source of the plants and discovers that the murderer was the city Parks Commissioner who was using the flowers to kill off his rivals so he could take over the city. There is a pitched battle between the Black Terror and the commissioner and his goons. The Black Terror triumphs (this is his story, after all) and the commissioner dies, falling prey to his own poison plants — yet another victim of the Golden Age sense of poetic justice.

Curare is an arrow poison used by several South American native tribes. It can be derived from several different jungle vines, the most common being Strychnos toxifera (which is from the same genus as the plant that produces the poison strychnine, so that should tell you something).

Curare is a paralyzing agent, and, as the name suggests, it kills by paralyzing the respiratory muscles so the victim suffocates to death. The drug wears off after an hour or two, so if the victim were to receive artificial respiration for that period of time, they would survive. Derivatives of curare have been used as part of surgical anesthesia since the 1940s (to allow muscle relaxation during surgery), though they’ve largely been replaced by synthetic alternatives in recent years.

The plants from which curare can be derived and the common gentian share the same order (Gentianales), but are from completely different families and genera so calling them “closely related” is quite a stretch. In fact, gentian extracts are not poisonous, and have been used (generally unsuccessfully) as herbal remedies since the Greeks. Gentian extracts can also be found in various liqueurs, beers, and in the soda Moxie.

From Irredeemable #1, Samsamus is being questioned by his former teammates about the hero-turned-villain Plutonian. For reasons I don’t want to divulge (for fear of giving too much away), Samsamus is not only having trouble remembering, but develops a telling nosebleed.

OK, I’ll give a little (just a little) away by mentioning that this is the first post-mortem psychic nosebleed I’ve posted.

Irredeemable, by Mark Waid and Peter Krause

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed irredeemable mark waid

I’ve had several people ask me what I think, medically, of the game Batman: Arkham Asylum and I’m happy to oblige. If posting to the blog seem light this week, you can blame the game.

Overall, it’s a great experience. Though I’m a big fan of video games, it takes a lot for a game to really suck me in to its world completely, and Batman does that (the previous game that pulled this off was the first God of War). The setting, character design, and storyline are all appropriately creepy and the voice acting — especially Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill — is excellent. Playing the game, I really feel like Batman — I see a crowd of thugs and think, “I can take them, easy,” just like Batman should.

Admittedly, the game isn’t quite perfect:
Riddler’s voice seems flat and tinny, but I just blame this on him using a jerry-rigged radio transmitter.
The final confrontation with Harley Quinn was a definite anti-climax.
Once Poison Ivy joins the big baddies, the atmosphere becomes more cartoony and loses much of its creepiness.

Even with these (admittedly minor) flaws, I’d consider it the best solo super-hero video game.

Detective Comics #856 “Elegy, part 3: Affettuoso”
Greg Rucka, writer
J.H. Williams, III, artist

Another strong issue, both in story and art. Not to mention Bette Kane (and is she still Flamebird?). There were a couple medical and chemical terms thrown out that I wanted to discuss. Consider this more an “annotation” than anything else.

Opioids are “chemicals that activate the opioid receptor” — which is an obvious and unhelpful definition. Put another way, opioids are drugs that are derived — naturally or synthetically — from the opium poppy. These include morphine, codeine, meperidine, oxycodone, hydrocodone, heroin, methadone, fentanyl and others.

These medications produce analgesia (pain relief), sedation, and at high levels, respiratory depression and death. They also cause really bad constipation. Opioids can be quite addictive, but are the strongest pain medications available.

Naloxone (brand name Narcan) is a medicine that blocks the opioid receptors, stopping opiate drugs from working. It works quickly, and for all intents and purposes causes a near instant opioid withdrawal. Naloxone is used for the emergency treatment of opioid overdoses.

In another scene in the comic is a cache of barrels labeled “Cyanogen Chloride”

Cyanogen chloride is a nasty toxic gas that has been used in the past — most notably during WWI — as a chemical warfare agent. In addition to having cyanide like effects, it is also acts as an irritant. Initial symptoms include tearing, runny nose, and a watery cough. Higher doses or longer exposure lead to dizziness, nausea, seizures, loss of consciousness, respiratory depression, cardiac arrest, and death. It is a fast acting gas that can kill in a little over five minutes (indoors, at high concentration. Outdoors, it would take longer, but it certainly wouldn’t be pleasant). Supposedly, and I haven’t tested this myself, cyanogen chloride can pass through gas mask filters.

The barrels are also labeled CK VII and RTECS#GT2275000-7. CK is another name for cyanogen chloride (I don’t know what the VII indicates), and GT2275000 is the Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances number for cyanogen chloride (and, again, I’m not sure what the 7 indicates).

Technically, opioids refer to any chemicals that affect the opioid receptor, not just medications (which are more properly termed “opiates”), but I’m just trying to make it simple. Still, that first paragraph is going to line me up for some nasty comment spam.

A little more on the Liberator and his eye-catching costume…

The Liberator was one of the heroes who appeared in Exciting Comics and America’s Best Comics in the 1940s, both of which were published by Nedor Comics.

Dr. Nelson Drew is a chemistry professor at a small college. Like most heroic alter-ego found in the Nedor line, he is a brilliant scientist but quiet and unassuming — if not downright nerdy (cf. the Black Terror and the American Eagle). Dr. Drew has a crush on one of his students, a co-ed named Annabelle Evans, but she doesn’t show the slightest interest in him — mostly because of the characteristics I mentioned earlier, but also because she already had a boyfriend, a strapping jock named Tommy.

Depressed about his lack of a love life, Dr. Drew throws himself with renewed vigor into his hobby: researching ancient Egyptian poisons. He finds a hidden recipe for a formula known as Lamesis that’s supposed to turn someone into their “ideal.” For the heck of it, he decides to make the concoction and then he accidentally inhales the fumes.

Once exposed to the Lamesis formula, Dr. Drew finds himself turning into a super-strong super-fast and (apparently) super-handsome hero.



Meanwhile, Annabelle and Tommy are on their way to a costume party, but on the way decide to stop by Dr. Drew’s house hoping to persuade him to raise their chemistry grades. When they arrive, the couple sees no sign of Dr. Drew, but sees this strange half-naked man. The mysterious man slugs Tommy and steals his patriotic costume — and thus the Liberator is born.

The formula wears off after a couple of hours and Dr. Drew returns to normal — but not before he stops a Nazi plot or two. From then on, he keeps some of the Lamesis with him at all times so that he can become the Liberator when the situation arises. Annabelle and Tommy don’t seem to bear any ill-will against the Liberator as they go on to have several adventures together before he faded into history in the mid-’40s (though he does appear, after a fashion, in Tom Strong #12 and the two Terra Obscura mini-series. He can also be seen in Dynamite’s Project Superpowers series).

Story from Exciting Comics #22 (Standard, October 1942)
Brilliant scientist Dr. Wentworth has developed a special serum for the United States war efforts that uses steel ions to give men bulletproof skin.

Of course, he is shot by Nazi agents before he can deliver his formula to the authorities.

The Nazis then proceed to capture the young co-ed Wentworth whispered the formula to with his dying breath. They are able to get the formula from her and use it to make a small company of bulletproof Nazi infantrymen.

Enter our hero: the Liberator. Seeing the Nazi soldiers standing next to each other in tight formation, he comes up with a plan. He deduces that the formula not only turns the skin bulletproof, but actually turns it into steel — which he reckons is a good conductor of electricity. He hits the first soldier in line with a high-powered electrical line and the fatal current is passed through the entire formation due to their conductive steel skin.

Tags: comics medicine liberator steel nazi secret formula

It starts, as good stories often do, with the hero visiting an unassuming hospital:

While touring a research hospital, Dr. Standish surreptitiously injects Captain America with the Commie Serum (sure, he calls it the Virus of Evil, but we know what it really is: the Commie Serum). Within mere moments, Captain America is suddenly agreeing with communist propaganda and even spouting off some himself. Bucky is horrified, but Cap plays him no mind, and agrees to perform missions at the behest of his new Soviet friends, including destroying a U.S. ammunition dump. Delighted with how well the drug is working, the doctor has Captain America row out to meet a Soviet submarine laying in wait off the coast. It is here that Cap is to meet the head Soviet spy and be taken to the Soviet Union.

Once on the deck of the submarine, Captain America shows his true colors. He decks the Soviet leader and then he and Bucky sabotage the submarine so that they can’t escape. It turns out that Captain America was never affected by the Commie Serum at all, but just played along so that he could capture the head Soviet spy:

There are two parts of this story that straddle that fine line between genius and insanity:

1. The deus ex machina explanation for Cap’s resistance to the drug is priceless: the scientists who created Captain America knew that he’d be facing a drug like this, so they designed immunity to it into the Super Soldier Serum. Genius! That same concept can be used to make Cap immune to anything: Radiation? Protected by immunity designed into the Super Soldier Serum. The vacuum of space? Protected by immunity designed into the Super Soldier Serum. The cloying sounds of Kenny G? Protected by immunity designed into the Super Soldier Serum. Current Captain America writer Ed Brubaker could have used it himself to resurrect Cap by claiming that the scientists behind Captain America knew he’d be facing bullets someday, so they made him immune to them.

2. How about the manner by which Captain America discovered that Dr. Standish was actually a Soviet spy? When the good doctor stepped behind the x-ray machine (the fluoroscope) to demonstrate how it worked, Cap noticed a Soviet medal in his stomach. Brilliant — at least until you stop to think about it. One of the Soviet’s top spies, instead of leaving his medal back in Russia with all his other belongings, decided it along with him to America. To hide it, he then swallowed it. Soviet medals are not small, they’re about the size of a fifty-cent piece or dollar coin — and that’s not counting the ribbon that’s usually attached. And these medals are, well, metal…and frequently pointy. Not only why would he swallow it (and did he hope to get it back?), but how did he swallow it?

Scenes from “Captain America Turn Traitor” in Young Men #26. The GCD lists John Romita as the penciler and Stan Lee as the probable writer

Famed actress Miss Senter¹ has been injected with the Ugly Serum, and in the climactic scene of her new play the serum takes effect. In the space of just a few seconds, she goes from stunning beauty to complete ugliness².

A mysterious note turns up demanding $50,000³ for the antidote to the serum. The actress decides she must pay up to save her career and heads off to exchange the money for the antidote. Silver Scorpion⁴ — legal secretary by day, super-hero by night — follows along and manages to capture “Mr. Black” a.k.a. “The Beauty Butcher,” but better known as:

Notes:
1. Miss Senter apparently does not have a first name — or if she does, it’s “Miss.” In the eleven times she’s spoken to or even mentioned in the story, it is always as “Miss Senter.”
2. Assuming you equate ugliness with old age, as author/artist Harry Sahle apparently does. To me, it seems more of an Aging Serum than an Ugly Serum.
3. $50,000 may not seem like that much to extort an actress for, but remember, this was published in 1941. In today’s money (or 2008, the latest year I could find the information for), this would be equal to about $725,000.
4. Surprising few, this was Silver Scorpion’s third and final Golden Age appearance.

In the Motto Grosso region of Brazil, a strange and deadly new plague has arisen: the Green Death! Its symptoms really aren’t mentioned — other than the obvious key words “green” and “death” — though one scientists refers to it as a “terrible body wasting disease.” Judging from the pictures, it turns people into green hippy zombies. As the rural farmers flee from the disease, they spread it to the larger towns and cities of Brazil until a full epidemic of Green Death has broken out.

Luckily, scientists from the Grant Institute of Medical Research have sent a team into the jungle to find the cause of the disease and develop a cure. Unfortunately, their native porter betrays them and they are captured by a local tribe of headhunters and imprisoned. The head scientist meets an unfortunate end, but the beautiful-female-scientist-hiding-under-a-mousy-façade and her hunky fellow scientist survive. Something to be said for being a good looking junior scientist, I guess.

All is not lost though, as one of the members of the expedition is really the Golden Age hero “The Hurricane” in disguise. He rescues the scientists and kills the evil witch doctor who was behind the Green Death. He also managed to “convince” the witch doctor to hand over the cure to the plague. As the remaining scientists are flown to safety, Hurricane unleashes his fury on the tribe of headhunters, destroying the whole town — if not the entire populace. Such is the vengeance of the Golden Age.

The Green Death resembles two plagues we’ve seen before: the Yellow Death from Superman and the Red Death from Doc Savage. Of course, this story predates the Yellow Death by three months, and the Red Death by nearly fifty years.

Motto Grosso is an actual region of Brazil, but the tribe mentioned, the Jivaro, live in Peru and Ecuador, not Brazil. I don’t think there are any Mayan ruins in Brazil, either.

This Hurricane story is from Captain America Comics #2 (June 1941), by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

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

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

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

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

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

More PSAs

Tags: comics medicine psa teen titans

Five years ago, I started Polite Dissent…

…and much to may amazement I’m still here going (more or less) strong.

Along the same theme, here’s Five Years by David Bowie. OK, other than the title and the vague sci-fi theme, the song has nothing to do with this site or anniversaries — but the name fits, it’s classic Bowie, and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars is definitely on my “Five Albums to Have when Stranded on a Desert Island” list, so enjoy.

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

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

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

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

Norman Osborn:
Psychopathic megalomaniac
Qualified anatomist

This issue was brought to my attention by snell of Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep!!
He was also kind enough to provide the scans of the comic.

Tags: comics medicine avengers norman osborn clavicle dan+slott

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sadly, the giant termites never actually participated in the robberies, or the story would be have been that much more awesome.

This story, “The Man Who Betrayed Himself,” is found in America’s Best Comics #26 (May 1948).

More Black Terror (super-pharmacist in action!) stories

Tags: comics medicine black terror bob benton pharmacist cacobane termites

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

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

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

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

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

All Previous Hawk and Dove Reviews

A mystery with potential, an interesting patient (in an annoying sort of way), and good soap opera all marred by very sloppy medicine (but at least they got the defibrillation right this time).

Doug is an environmental activist who starts the episode chained to a giant bulldozer. After being forced to leave, he stumbles around and discovers that he is unable to walk or even stand up. He sees a variety of specialists, but no one can cure him, so he is transferred to Princeton Plainsboro and admitted to House’s team.

Cameron tells the team that the “tox screen” is negative, and that there are no neurological, muscular, or cardiovascular abnormalities. House has Cameron perform a vestibular caloric test (irrigating cold water in the ear canal and monitoring any resulting nystagmus — eye twitching) to test his inner ear — the test is normal. Foreman suggests that Doug may have carotid atherosclerosis (hardening and narrowing of the carotid artery, leaving Doug at risk for stroke) worsened by stress. House orders a Holter monitor and a carotid doppler, both of which are normal. While performing the procedure, Cameron discovers that Doug has a serious case of the hiccups, and has had them on and off for a week. She realizes that his hiccups are somehow tied in to his condition. She suggests that he may have organophosphate poisoning from spending time protesting at commercial agricultural warehouses (organophosphates are commonly found in commercial insecticides). Taub counters that multiple sclerosis is a more likely diagnosis. House agrees and orders a lumbar puncture to test for the disease.

Cameron is having difficulty performing the spinal tap on Doug because he keeps moving when he hiccups. She gives him some chlorpromazine (better known as Thorazine, a potent antipsychotic which can be used to treat intractable hiccups). Then Foreman notices some swelling in his neck. At first, Cameron thinks it is torticollis (a severe muscle spasm) caused by the chlorpromazine, but House points out the neck is not just stiff but swollen. It also crunches when he touches it, a sign of crepitus, or air in the subcutaneous tissue. In this case, it comes from an “air leak between the lungs.” Sarcoidosis is suggested, but so is scleroderma, and House chooses to go with the latter, starting Doug on intravenous steroids.

Doug is lying in bed, wheezing (and this wheezing is never really mentioned or even addressed), when he develops a sudden excruciating pain in his left leg. The team decides it is likely osteomyelitis (infection of the bone) after deciding it is not a tumor, aneurysm, or metabolic bone disease. He is started on intravenous antibiotics and x-rays of the left leg are obtained. Surprise, surprise — the x-ray shows a fracture of his left femur. Cameron suggests it may be due to osteogenesis imperfecta (an inherited bone disease), but House is convinced it’s cancer. He wants to start Doug on chemotherapy. Meanwhile, Chase is surgically repairing the broken leg (because he’s an orthopedic surgeon this week), and Foreman asks him to obtain a bone biopsy at the same time. The biopsy is clear, showing no cancer. Unfortunately, Doug has bleeding problems after the surgery, with bleeding from the leg wound and purpura (a skin discoloration that is commonly seen in platelet disorders, vasculitis, and coagulation disorders) showing up on the other leg. Foreman orders 2 units of FFP (Fresh Frozen Plasma).

House is still convinced Doug has cancer and wants to proceed with total body irradiation. Instead Taub suggest that they give Doug Insulin-like Growth Factor, which should make the cancer grow larger, and thus they’ll be able to find exactly where it is. It should really come as no surprise that House agrees with this dangerous and unethical plan. About this time, Doug goes into pulseless ventricular tachycardia and needs several shocks to resuscitate him (and defibrillation is the right idea in this situation). An echocardiogram is normal, as is the troponin level (a blood test that is elevated after a heart attack). House and the team are stumped, stymied, and stuck. They have no idea what is happening to Doug. House decides to implant a defibrillator while they try and deduce what is going on. Then he his has his weekly Eureka! moment talking to Wilson. Despite being fervently anti-commercial-florist, Doug broke down once and bought his wife some roses after missing their anniversary. He caught sporotrichosis (a fungal infection) from those roses, and that’s what’s caused his problems.

As usual, major complaints are in red, minor in blue, nit-picking in green:

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of different kinds of cancer. Different types of cancer require different types of chemotherapy. What works for one cancer may not work for other cancers. There is no generic “chemotherapy” that treats every cancer — you need to know what type of cancer you are treating.

Similarly, total body irradiation only works on certain cancers — the blood and lymphatic cancers, primarily.

How exactly did the sporotrichosis make Doug unable to walk and start this entire situation? Are they suggesting he had a sportrichosis-related meningitis (a known, albeit rare, possibility), that didn’t have any affect on his mental status? They probably should have gone ahead with the lumbar puncture.

Cameron announces that Doug is free from cardiovascular disease, yet is quickly testing for carotid atherosclerosis — a cardiovascular disease.

A Holter monitor is a portable heart monitor that patients wear so that their heart rhythm can be recorded while they go about their normal daily business. It would be redundant in the hospital where all of House’s patients are already hooked up to heart monitors.

If Doug is bleeding out so much that he’s weak and fainting, a transfusion of blood might be a good idea in addition to the fresh frozen plasma.

Pulmonary sporotrichosis (from inhaled fungus) is a distinctly different form of the disease than cutaneous sporotrichosis (from superficial penetrating trauma), which is what House is describing.

His femur is broken, but everyone is focusing on and looking at his calf.

I’m suspicious that defibrillating ventricular tachycardia would be enough to raise the troponin level, at least a little bit. (From what I can find, the jury is still out on this: studies suggest defibrillating atrial arrhythmias doesn’t do much to the troponin, but multiple shocks in ventricular tachycardias do affect it).

The medical mystery itself was good again this week and deserves a B+. The final solution almost fit, but should not have been as significant a puzzle as House’s team made it, I give it a B-. The medicine was very sloppy, and even the smallest amount of research would have shown that “generic” chemotherapy was wrong. The medicine earns a D, and that’s probably generous. The soap opera was good, with Cuddy, Wilson, and Cameron/Chase all having their moments. I give it a B+.

Last week’s House review
A list of all prior House reviews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For the record, here’s my Top Five Direct-to-Video Animated Films.

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

Tags: comics wonder woman dvd batman

Moses Magnum is selling gamma irradiated mutant growth hormone. “Gamma irradiated mutant growth hormone” — frankly, that’s a clever concept that I hope will be revisited at some point.

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

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

scene from The Amazing Spider-Man #577, by Zeb Wells and Paolo Rivera

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

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

Tags: comics medicine mutant growth hormone gamma radiation

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

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

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

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

scene from Doc Savage #12 by Mike Barr and Rod Whigham

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tags: comics nascar nascar heroes daytona

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

Previous Comic Book Valentines:
♥Legion of Super-Heroes (2008)
♥Legion of Super-Heroes (2007)
♥Legion of Super-Heroes (2006)
♥Spider-Man
♥The Legion of Doom
♥The X-Men

I notice the Invincible Chris had a similar inspiration.

Tags: comics watchmen valentines rorschach dr manhattan ozymandias

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click on the cover for larger view

1 Day until Christmas!

This year’s Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar (so far).
One year ago, the cover was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer #1.
Two years ago, the cover was Jingle Belle #1.
Three years ago, the cover was Santa Claus Funnies #1.
Four years ago, the cover was Christmas With the Super-Heroes #1
Don’t miss Yet Another Comic Blog’s annual advent calendar

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

Merry Christmas from Hoppy the Marvel Bunny!

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

Click on the cover for larger view

2 Days until Christmas!

This year’s Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar (so far).
One year ago, the cover was Jingle Belle #2.
Two years ago, the cover was Chrissie Claus #2.
Three years ago, the cover was Tomb Raider #2 (alternate cover).
Four years ago, the cover was Alf Holiday Special #2
Don’t miss Yet Another Comic Blog’s annual advent calendar

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

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

Click on the cover for larger view

3 Days until Christmas!

This year’s Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar (so far).
One year ago, the cover was Geeksville #3.
Two years ago, the cover was Archie’s Christmas Stocking #3.
Three years ago, the cover was Batman: The Long Halloween #3.
Four years ago, the cover was The Goon #3
Don’t miss Yet Another Comic Blog’s annual advent calendar

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

Generation X #4 (Marvel Comics, February 1995)

Click on the cover for larger view

4 Days until Christmas!

This year’s Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar (so far).
One year ago, the cover was Batman Family #4.
Two years ago, the cover was Fantastic Four #4 (creepy variant cover).
Three years ago, the cover was Jingle Belle #4.
Four years ago, the cover was Street Fighter #4 (variant cover)
Don’t miss Yet Another Comic Blog’s annual advent calendar

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

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

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

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

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

ULTIMATE HUMAN #1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click on the cover for larger view

8 Days until Christmas!

This year’s Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar (so far).
One year ago, the cover was Star Comics #8.
Two years ago, the cover was Walt Disney’s Christmas Parade #8.
Three years ago, the cover was Mary Marvel #8.
Four years ago, the cover was Richie Rich #8
Don’t miss Yet Another Comic Blog’s annual advent calendar

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

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

Click on the image for the full ad

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

More PSAs

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

Only 22 days remaining until Christmas, and today’s cover for Advent Calendar Countdown is Fat Albert #22. I never read the comic, but I always loved the show, especially the later episodes featuring the adventures of Fat Albert’s favorite super-hero, the Brown Hornet.

Fat Albert #22 (Gold Key, December 1977 )

Click on the cover for larger view

22 Days until Christmas!

This year’s Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar (so far).
One year ago, the cover was Calling All Kids #22.
Two years ago, the cover was The Best of DC #22.
Three years ago, the cover was New Adventure Comics #22.
Four years ago, the cover was Hitman #22
Don’t miss Yet Another Comic Blog’s annual advent calendar

It all starts when Captain America receives a note from Keith, a member of his Teen Brigade. Keith plays on his high school baseball team and is concerned about the team’s star pitcher Mitch. Recently, Mitch has started performing poorly, wheezing, and acting very anxious. Keith also tells Cap that he saw a strange man on a street corner giving something to Mitch, but Mitch wouldn’t tell him what it was. Keith is worried about Mitch and asks Captain America to check it out, especially with the big state championship game coming up.

After getting the note, Captain America decides to head down to the championship game. Mitch is pitching, but he’s not doing well. The opponents are getting hit after hit. Shaken up, Mitch loses control and beans the next batter, knocking him out. This nearly starts a riot, but Captain America is there to sort things out. After it becomes evident that Mitch has been using illegal drugs, Captain America decides that he needs to talk to him. Scared, Mitch flees from the scene, and while running through town encounters the dealer who sold him the drugs in the first place. The dealer offers him more, but Mitch slugs him. Of course, he then runs into a bunch of guys from the other team and the obligatory fight-scene-that-needs-to-be-broken-up-by-the-starring-hero occurs. In the end, Mitch learns his lesson and swears never to do drugs again.

All in all, a decent PSA comics, not even counting the aliens. Didn’t I mention the aliens? See, the whole thing was actually a plot by aliens who want to overthrow the Earth. These aliens have been watching us for some time and are concerned that humans have too much spirit and determination and would put up too much of a resistance to invasion. The alien leader thinks drug addiction might be a good way to subdue the humans, and to test his theory he chooses four random people and tries to get them addicted to drugs. Mitch was the first of these four. And Mitch’s drug dealer — an alien in disguise. So you see that Mitch’s rejection of drugs not only saved his own life, but the lives of everyone else on Earth as well (though the other three experimental subjects are never mentioned — I guess they were saving them for the sequels).

Captain America Goes to War Against Drugs was published by Marvel Comics in 1990, with cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was written by Peter David, with interior pencils by Sal Velluto and cover pencils by Jazzy John himself.

More PSAs

Some interesting points in a couple of throwaway lines by Dr Mid-Nite in the recent Terra #1.

I. “Regular physicians don’t know how to store and maintain metahuman blood.”
I had not realized that metahuman blood required any different storage than normal blood, and I don’t recall this little tidbit having been mentioned before (so I guess that makes me just a “regular doctor”).
It raises some questions:

• Does metahuman blood require special care because it’s more fragile?
• By metahuman, does Mid-Nite mean any super-hero’s blood (including aliens, magical beings, etc), or specifically those with the metagene?
• Can metahumans donate blood to other metahumans? Or only to themselves? Or maybe to other metahumans with a similar power set*?

II. Dr. Mid-Nite then makes a somewhat wordy and not-entirely clear statement about transfusions, which seems to imply that metahumans essentially have a different blood type than non-metahumans.

There are over two-dozen different human blood type proteins. Most of these are minor proteins and don’t have much, if any, affect on medical care. However, there are two that are very important: the ABO and Rhesus (Rh) proteins; these are the two that make up the commonly understood definition of blood type (e.g. A+, O-, AB-, etc.). If there is a transfusion reaction due to blood cell compatibility, it will be because of a mismatch in one of these proteins.

It could be that the “blood type” that Dr. Mid-Nite refers to is one of the minor blood type proteins. In that case, the “blood type” is more of academic interest, and doesn’t affect medical care. On the other hand, Mid-Nite’s specifically mentions transfusions, which makes me think it is more similar to the ABO or Rh system, and that makes me wonder why it has never been mentioned before.

• Wouldn’t it be relatively easy to test for these blood cell proteins to determine if someone is metahuman, as opposed to testing for the gene, which seems to be the current technique?

*This similar-powers-required-for-transfusion idea has surfaced the most often in Jay Faerber’s corner of the Image universe. First, there was Firebird-lite donating blood to Firebird, (though admittedly they’re related), and then more recently in Noble Causes, when the team went looking for individuals with ice powers to provide blood for the injured Frost.

Internet stalwarts Kevin and Mike have made clear their opposition to Marvel’s use of the term “Rulk” for the new Red Hulk. But I, on the other hand, enthusiastically welcome the idea. No longer do we have to go through the arduous task of memorizing two words when one word will do. And forget about having to pronounce all those extra syllables, now you don’t have to!

 

I like the idea so much, I think Marvel should extend it to all their color-themed heroes and villains:

Groblin	Blat	Silurfer
Rull	Blidow	Crynamo

 

In fact, I think DC should copy the idea and use it themselves:

Bleetle	Grantern	Grarrow and Blanary
Blevil	Crox	Rornado

Not to mention Kirby’s own Blacer, just to name a few. Think of all the saving in time, effort, and lettering!

Cardochine is one of those drugs that instantly causes a fatal heart attack. Like all the drugs in this class, it shares two characteristics:

When aging stage actor Namus Shane tires of his current leading lady, he kills her with a dose of Cardochine and replaces her with a younger actress. He’s done this many times, and nobody seems to have any suspicions, even though Shane seems to be killing actresses left and right, sometimes two or three in the same week.

Luckily, the boyfriend of Kitty Martin — the young actress who Shane has his eye on as his next conquest — has appropriated some of the drugged wine that Shane uses and given it to his friend Bob Benton to evaluate. Bob Benton is not just the secret identity of the super-hero Black Terror, but he is also a super-pharmacist, able to dispense pharmaceutical knowledge faster than a speeding bullet.

Bob detects the deadly drug in the wine and suspects that Kitty will be its next victim. He changes into costume and confronts Shane at the theater. Trying to escape, Shane flees across the catwalk high over the stage, but slips and falls all the way to the ground. He manages to survive the fall, suffering just a mild concussion. A well-meaning stage hand rushes to his side and gives him a drink to revive him. Unfortunately, the drink he offers is the poisoned wine meant for Kitty, and Shane dies of a heart attack, a victim of his own drug (or maybe a victim of fatal irony, in comic books it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference).

Take Home Message: Don’t date younger actresses then try to kill them. Look both ways before crossing the catwalk. Don’t mess with drugs that cause instant fatal heart attacks because you’ll die of irony.

Storyline and images are from Exciting Comics #65 (January 1949), “Death at 8:30″

By day, Bob Benton is a seemingly normal — and incredibly brilliant — pharmacist who runs his own small drug store. However, whenever evil or danger appears, he becomes the costumed crime-fighter known as the Black Terror. Thanks to “formic ethers” he invented, he has gained heightened strength, speed, agility, and endurance. But even more than that, he has the power of pharmacy.

This is impressive detective work on the Terror’s part. He is able to recognize the exact drug in the pill, despite the fact that it was a specially compounded pill. In other words, this was no mass-produced pill, but instead one that was created from the constituent chemicals by a local pharmacist — no easy to read manufacturer’s markings! That’s why it’s so impressive that the Terror was able to identify the medication just by looking at it and without having to run any tests at all.

Dilantin sodium (more commonly known as just “Dilantin“, or by its generic name “phenytoin“) is a potent anti-seizure drug. It was first discovered in the early 1900s, but it wasn’t until 1938 that its ability to treat seizures was recognized. It was approved by the FDA for epilepsy in 1953, and quickly became one of the main seizure medications because it lacked the severe sedative side effects of previous medications. It is still a common medication for epilepsy today. (This story appeared in 1947, several years before Dilantin was FDA approved, so the Terror is probably correct in referring to it as a “rare drug” — at that point it was, for a few more years anyway).

There has been some evidence over the years to suggest that Dilantin has a role as a psychiatric medication as well; it seems to show both anti-anxiety and mood stabilization properties. It is these anti-anxiety properties that the Terror is referring to, implying that one of the crooks was using it to treat his anxious tic. (For the record, Dilantin has never been FDA approved for these psychiatric conditions.)

Bob Benton tracks down the local pharmacy that made the pills, and the pharmacist helpfully tells him exactly who the pills were for. So much for patient confidentiality. (This may have been before HIPAA, but I suspect sharing such information so freely was at the very least a breach of pharmacist ethics, if not state law). Thanks to the helpful pharmacist, the Black Terror shows up the crooks’ front door step, apprehends them, return the stolen jewelry, and gives the antique chair to the old man. Just another day in the life of a super-pharmacist.

In this scene from Adventure Comics #325, Brainiac 5 spouts some pure Grade-A technobabble. Seriously, this is some of the best (or worst) technobabble that I’ve come across. It rivals anything from acknowledged technobabble master Bob Haney.

While reading this scene, it occurred to me that despite Brainiac 5 being one of the preeminent scientists of the DC universe, this is the first time I can remember him spouting technobabble. I suspect that’s because Brainy never explains why he’s doing things, he just does them — thus no need for explanations or technobabble.

As noted, the panels are from Adventure Comics #325. The artist is John Forte. According to the Grand Comic Database, the writer is Edmond Hamilton; however, the Showcase Presents the Legion of Super-Heroes, Vol 2 (where I scanned it from), lists Jerry Siegel as the author. Regardless, in this scene, Brainiac 5 is trying to help the young Luthor avoid a life of evil — though Brainy doesn’t realize that he is really dealing with an already evil Luthor who has cleverly disguised himself with…a wig.

Before going on a long space voyage or traveling to the 30th century, make sure that you are familiar with the stages of Space Fatigue:

The treatment is positively medieval: trepanation. Basically, the doctors are drilling a hole in the skull to let the bad influences out. Sure, they coach it in terms like “scalpel rays” and “remove the pressure”, but don’t let that fool you — the doctors of this “great medical foundation” of the future are proposing a treatment for Sun Boy right out of prehistoric times.

Of course it could be worse, Sun Boy could be space crazy..

After World War II ended and the Invaders disbanded, Spitfire retired and resumed her normal life as Jacqueline Falsworth. Her super-speed powers slowly faded, and over time she became a wife, mother, and then a widow. She appeared in the occasional comic book, generally as an elderly woman recalling her lost hero days. Her most notable cameo was probably in Captain American #253-254 which introduced the third, and current, Union Jack. Then John Byrne’s Namor the Sub-Mariner series came along, and in it, he revisited some of the foes the Invaders fought.

In issues #11 and 12, Master Man and Warrior Woman (the Nazi versions of Captain America) were reborn using some of the Human Torch’s blood (good stuff, that android blood). Namor, who was visiting Germany at the time, tried to stop them but was captured. His cousin Namorita flew off to get help and, ending up in England, encountered Jacqueline Crichton (nee Falsworth). She recruited Union Jack and the three of them headed off to Germany to rescue Namor and the Human Torch.

In the end, Master Man, Warrior Woman, their neo-Nazi gang, and the German scientist who had resurrected them were all defeated, but Jacqueline was gravely wounded in the battle. To save her life, the Human Torch hooked her and himself up to the German transfusion machine, and once more, transfused his blood into Jacqueline. Just like before, the Torch’s blood saved her life and (re-)awakened her speed powers. But it did more this time: it de-aged her back to age 16. (I don’t know if Spitfire has continued to age from 16, as she certainly appears older than that in recent comics, or if the powers-that-be decided that a 16 year-old Spitfire was a little too Lolita, so decided she was just better off as a twenty-something). Some technobabble (courtesy of John Byrne and Hank Pym) was used to explain this all away, but it wasn’t even very good technobabble as the writer seems to give up halfway through.

Spitfire was a super-speedster who first appeared in the pages of The Invaders, a 1970s comic that chronicled the adventures of a team of super-heroes during World War II. In the past few years, she has been seen in Captain America and the Union Jack mini-series. More recently, she has been appearing in Captain Britain and M.I. 13. Her origin story takes place in 1942.

During the events of The Invaders #9, Jacqueline Falsworth was attacked by the vampire Baron Blood — who also just happened to be her uncle, long thought deceased. He drained her blood in order to turn her into a vampire, in part to get revenge on the Falsworth family, but also because he wanted an undead consort¹. The Invaders arrived in time to stop Baron Blood, but Jacqueline had lost a tremendous amount of blood and was in grave danger. She was rushed to the nearest hospital in Invaders #11 ².

The doctors hurried Jacqueline to surgery and were amazed that she sustained that much blood loss from such tiny wounds³. Testing reveals that she has a strange substance in her blood that constantly changed her blood type. This makes transfusion a challenge, and the head doctor laments that Jacqueline cannot receive blood transfusions of any type, even type O⁴.

The Human Torch⁵ enters the operating room and volunteers his own blood; he tells the doctors that he is a true universal donor⁶. The doctors immediately agree⁷ and hook the Torch up to the transfusion equipment.

Jacqueline survives despite her tremendous blood loss, thanks to the incredible amount of blood donated by the Human Torch⁸. Other than merely saving her life, the Human Torch’s android blood somehow combined with the vampire proteins of Baron Blood that were already in her system to grant her super speed⁹, powers she used to become the super-heroine Spitfire.

NOTES:
1. I know vampire stories are supposed to represent some “forbidden” component of sexuality, but your own niece as a consort? That’s just creepy.
2. It didn’t really take 2 issues for the Invaders to find a hospital — there was an intervening fill-in reprint issue.
3. If I were a vampire, I would bite the neck vertically, along the blood vessels, not horizontally where you’re guaranteed to miss with at least one of your fangs.
4. Blood type is based on which proteins are present on the membrane of person’s red blood cells. Type A has A proteins, Type B has B proteins, Type AB has A and B proteins, and Type O has neither A nor B proteins. For Jacqueline’s blood to keep switching blood types would mean that these proteins must be constantly changing, and the body simply does not work that fast. Even if her blood type were constantly switching, she should still be able to receive a transfusion of Type O blood . It could be that there is some vampire antibody in her system that reacts against any human blood type — that makes the most sense, though it doesn’t really “change” her blood type.

5. This is the original Human Torch, an android. Not the Human Torch who is a member of the Fantastic Four.
6. The last time the Human Torch gave blood, it was described as “live fire” and required asbestos tubing. I guess he’s mellowed out since then.
7. Apparently, the doctors just take his word for it since they don’t run any tests on him.
8. If the Human Torch’s blood is that good, and he can produce so much of it, surely he could save more lives by donating it to blood blanks than by acting as a super-hero. There are other super-heroes to fill in on the Invaders, but only one blood producing android.
9. For those keeping track at home, like all previous super power giving transfusions, this was a whole blood transfusion (as much as androids have “whole blood”).

All images are from Invaders #11 by Roy Thomas and Frank Robbins

Other Comic Book Transfusions

Here’s Vance Astrovik, then known as Marvel Boy, now known as Justice, showing that he’s got a problem with the psychic nosebleeds as well — not to mention a little psychic otorrhagia as well. (These panels are all from New Warriors #3 (first series), by Nicieza and Bagley.)

Justice has got to be one of the most milquetoast and boring of all superheroes. He’s the Chevy Cavalier of the super-hero set. Even Kurt Busiek couldn’t make him interesting.

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

How good a diagnostician are you? Using the provided history and physical exam details, will you be able to provide the correct diagnosis for these three patients?

(Case studies #1 and 2, along with a brief explanation, can be found in the previous post “The Art of Differential Diagnosis in a Super-Hero World“)

In the early 1990s, Captain America writer Mark Gruenwald announced that wanted to examine the world of drug addiction through the eyes of Captain America, a super-hero who required a drug to gain his powers. This became the Streets of Poison storyline and ran in issues 372-378 of the title.

In the first issue of the storyline, Captain America was caught in a drug lab explosion. Somehow, the methamphetamine from the explosion bonded to the Super Soldier Serum already in his blood to create a dangerous new drug. This drug made Cap extremely savage and violent. He became paranoid and ultimately started to hallucinate; he became unable to differentiate friend and foe. In the end, it took direct blast from Black Widow to his skull to bring him down.

Hank Pym was called in to assess the situation and he realized that if Captain America weren’t treated quickly, he would die. The only solution he could devise was an exchange transfusion — drain all of Cap’s contaminated blood and replace it with fresh donated blood. It would remove the toxins, but it would also remove the Super Soldier Serum. In other words, it would save Captain America’s life, but remove all his super powers. After suffering repeated nightmares and hallucinations about his drug use, Captain American agrees to the plan.

Streets of Poison was a good storyline for the first two-thirds of its run. The last third came on a little too strong with the anti-drug message, to the point of suggesting that any drug was bad. For instance, in the final issue when Hank Pym tells Cap that he has successfully cleaned all the toxin out of his blood and can transfuse it back into him again — the Super Soldier Serum intact — Cap refuses, telling Pym that he doesn’t need a drug to be a hero. The storyline then ends on a “Just Say No” joke.

It actually all ends up being a moot point. A few issues later, it is quietly explained the Super Soldier Serum and other treatments Captain America endured have permanently changed his DNA and his body now produces its own supply of the serum. And thus Captain America’s powers, and drug use, softly slipped back into the comic.

A previous post on Streets of Poison and other comic book exchange transfusions

In Nightwing, the Mother of Champions (a Chinese super-hero who gives birth to “litters” of super-powered children every few days) has been kidnapped by Talia Al Ghul so that she can raise her own super-powered army. To make the process even more efficient, one of Talia’s (mad) scientists explains the the plan.

Chemicals that induce labor? We have them now: Pitocin (oxytocin) — it’s commonly used by obstetricians for induction of labor. It induces labor by stimulating contractions, which brings me around to the point that you can’t have labor without having contractions.

How can a chemical “mimic” contractions? And even if it could, what good would it do? The muscular contractions of the uterus are what propels the baby along and through the birth canal. If you mimicked contractions there would be no real pushing (just “mimicking”), and thus no delivery. I’m pretty sure that this would actually slow the process down.

Of course, we’re talking about a woman who gives birth to dozens of children every few days, which means that any legitimate obstetrics and medicine is out the window. I really think that this is one of those concepts that was better left unexplained.

Scene from Nightwing #145 (script by Tomasi, pencils by Morales)

One by one, all the female members of the Legion of Super-Heroes fall ill and collapse. Even Night Girl, who goes to help them, succumbs to the same malady. Mon-El announces that they all have a mysterious “Crimson Virus” and that there is no known cure¹. Worried that the infection may spread, the male legionnaires ship all their female members off to “Quarantine World” — but not before doing their best to cheer them up:

A short time later, a masked woman calling herself Satan Girl shows up and offers to join the Legion. When she is turned down, she announces that she is the one who made all the women sick, and now — out of spite — she’s going to kill them. She heads off to Quarantine World to finish the job. Luckily, Supergirl arrives at that moment, discovers what has been happening, and heads off to stop Satan Girl. She arrives just in time and a vicious battle erupts. Surprisingly, Satan Girl is am equal match for Super Girl and manages to escape, but not before swearing to return:

The sick Legionnaires are moved to another planet³ and then another to hide them from Satan Girl, but she always manages to find them. Supergirl sets traps for her nemesis, but they are always avoided or ineffectual. In the end, Satan Girl manages to defeat Supergirl by burying her under green kryptonite.

Overconfident, she turns on the male Legionnaires but is defeated by the Legion of Super-Pets⁴ — and then the truth is revealed. Satan Girl is really an evil double of Supergirl that split off when Supergirl unknowing collided with a red kryptonite meteor. The evil double knew she only had 48 hours to live unless she could somehow rid herself of the red kryptonite radiation. She was able to project the radiation into the female super-heroes, causing their illness. But now her 48 hours are up and she fades away to be absorbed by the original Supergirl. With Satan Girl gone, the “Crimson Virus” vanishes and all the Legionnaires are instantaneously cured⁵.

Notes:
1. There is never any actual virus in this storyline, so why is Mon-el so adamant that the disease was caused by the Crimson Virus? In fact, it turns out not to be an infectious disease at all.

2. It would have been a better story if she had brought Doom, and then they played video games all night long. But then Jack Thompson would have blamed them for the rising violence among Khund children and it would have all gone downhill from there.

3. One of the planets seems to be inhabited entirely by Madballs.

4. That would be Krypto (the Super-Dog), Streaky (the Super-Cat), Comet (the Super-Horse), and Beppo (the Super-Chimp).

5. Despite being 1000 years in the future, the Legionnaires sure have some dismal medical care. Sure they have fourth dimensional surgery, but when you get down to it, that’s actually pretty backwards. An earlier issue showed that they keep a powerful healing urn stored in a museum — why not actually use it? This is what happens when you have a Coluan who thinks that he’s a doctor.

Source: Adventure Comics #313, “The Condemned Legionnaires,” by Edmond Hamilton and Curt Swan

Other colorful comic book diseases: Black Flu, Green Plague (1), Green Plague (2), Purple Plague, Red Rain, and Scarlet Jungle Fever.

The Differential Diagnosis is one of the key aspects of good medicine. To make a differential diagnosis, the physician takes the patient’s chief complaint and comes up with a list of the possible causes of that problem. This list is then narrowed down by considering the patient’s other symptoms, physical exam findings and lab and radiology results. Eventually, the correct diagnosis is uncovered.

When House and his team try to determine what their patient has by looking at the whiteboard with all the symptoms listed, they are performing a differential diagnosis (a bastardized version actually, since they seem to focus on rare conditions — “zebras” — rather than more likely causes).

For a real world example, if a patient presents complaining of a sore throat, there are at least fifty to sixty possible diagnoses, the most common of which (in my practice, anyway) would be viral infection, allergies, Strep throat, or sinusitis. If the patient also complains of a fever, this makes it likely to be an infection. A cough would make Strep less likely and allergies and sinusitis more likely. Headaches are common with Strep and sinusitis. Chronic symptoms are more likely to be allergies. Symptoms presenting in the dead of winter are more likely infectious. Taking all the symptoms into account, along with a good patient history and a thorough physical exam, would allow the physician to come up with the likely cause of the sore throat (this time of year in the Midwest, probably allergies).

Differential diagnosis can be very challenging in the real world, but imagine how incredibly difficult it must be in a fantasy world where literally anything is possible. Take one of my favorite examples: a nosebleed. In the real world, this probably represents an irritated nose (from an infection or allergies), trauma (including “finger trauma”), or a bleeding problem. In the super-hero world, you also need to add psychic powers, magic powers, possession, and alien abduction, just to name a few. How do you test for those?

Another example comes from this week’s JSA Classified. Wildcat visits one of his old-time boxing opponents and finds him slumped in a wheelchair, virtually comatose. The family tells him that this happened suddenly, on a recent trip to New York. If this were my patient, I would be worried about a stroke, aneurysm, encephalitis, or dementia pugilistica. But not Wildcat, he immediately deduces that his friend was the victim of memory draining villains. That would never cross my mind, but it was the first thing he thought of.

As boring and conventional as it may sometimes be, I think I prefer the practice of medicine in the real world.

When last we saw Batman (in this blog, at least), he was smacking around a criminal lowlife who just happened to have a retained bullet that was too near his heart, and Batman inadvertently killed him with a punch.

Now the tables have turned and Batman’s in the same situation.

As The Brave and the Bold #100 opens, Batman is shot by a sniper. He survives, but the bullet has lodged inside his chest, right next to the heart. It’s one of those Tony Stark wounds that exist only in comic books: the bullet will kill him in less than a week, but it is too dangerous for any ordinary surgeon to remove. There is one doctor in the entire world who can save him, but that doctor is in Zurich and it will take him several days to get to Gotham City. In the meantime, Batman is bandaged up, placed in a wheelchair, and told not to move because even the slightest movement could dislodge the bullet and kill him!

A near fatal injury and confinement in a wheelchair might stop an ordinary super-hero, but not Batman. He is determined to capture the drug lord who had him shot. Using Green Arrow, Green Lantern, and Black Canary as his street operatives, Batman is able to foil the all of the drug lord’s schemes to import heroin into the country. Until the final confrontation that is, which takes place in the operating room with the Batman under anesthesia and the drug lord masquerading as the surgeon. You’ll have to figure out for yourself how that one ended (but as a hint, The Brave and the Bold continues for another 100 issues).

Notes:
For all you ballistics experts, the bullet is identified as a .30-06.
The doctor is saying that the bullet penetrated the pericardium — a fibrous membrane that surrounds the heart — and stopped just before it hit the left auricle, which is part of the left ventricle atrium.
Interesting x-ray machine that shows a perfect image of the heart and diaphragm, but no other organs (like the lungs or bones), and only the silhouette of the bullet.
Batman’s bandages are placed over his costume.
Much like the young Tony Stark, every four of five panels Batman makes a point to mention how much his chest his hurting.
Black Canary doesn’t come off very well in this issue. In one particularly memorable scene, she is unable to hear the Batman’s comm signal because she is in a beauty shop getting her hair done after it got ruined in the rain (which is ridiculous because her blond hair is a wig). Come to think of it, Canary didn’t come off too well in any of her appearances in The Brave and the Bold.
The Brave and the Bold #100 is by Bob Haney and Jim Aparo.

With a couple of big auto races coming up this weekend, I thought it would be a good time to take a look at NASCAR Heroes #3, the final part of the “origin” story of the eponymous NASCAR Heroes.

First, be warned: this is a bad comic — even worse than the first issue. Admittedly, the second issue was a little better, but with the third issue the quality slips and the publisher has finally reached that elusive goal: the car crash comic — a comic so bad, you just have to read it.

For those of you coming in late, the villainous Jack Diesel (NASCAR’s top driver — who also just happens to be an evil scientist) was running secret experiments when a lab explosion took place, exposing himself — as well as his rival team next door — to a mysterious purple radiation. Thanks to the physics of comic book radiation, everyone involved gained a super-power of one sort or another, and our hero James Dashiell, once a lowly janitor, becomes the mysterious masked racer “Dash” and savior of the previously last place Team Flatstock Racing (actually, it’s the “Team Kung Fu Grip” this time around, but I can’t type that with a straight face).

The first two issues showcased various races between Dash and Diesel as they competed for the NASCAR title. At each race, Diesel would pull some underhanded trick in an attempt to win, and each and every time, Dash would still manage to triumph. Not unexpectedly — given Diesel’s overly melodramatic personality — these losses did not sit well and at the end of issue #2 he decided to take revenge by trapping Team Flatstock in an old junkyard, kidnapping their boss Astor, and throwing their race car into orbit.

Through judicious use of their super-powers, Team Flatstock manages to cage the giant radioactive junkyard dog (seriously), escape the trap, and make it back to the race track just in time to compete in the final and deciding race of the season. Meanwhile, Diesel has stashed Astor in his car’s trunk, and taunts Dash as the race progresses. Luckily, Astor uses her powers to escape (apparently Diesel failed Super-Villains 101: Hostages With Super-Powers Can Easily Escape. Also, race cars don’t have trunks). This doesn’t stop Diesel: he uses a special magnet (conveniently labeled “Diesel Industries Magnetic Disruptor”) to rip the tire off Dash’s car. Of course, he hadn’t counted on Zip, Dash’s super-fast team-mate, who runs out on the track to fix the tire (without anyone noticing, of course. Or without any tools). Frustrated, Diesel informs Dash that he’s hidden a bomb in the stands. Dash and his teammates stop to look for the bomb only to discover it was just a trick to lure Dash out of his car so that Diesel can win the race. No such luck, however. Astor has climbed into the car and passes Diesel on the last lap, taking delight in informing him that not only has he lost the race and the championship, but that he was beaten by a girl.

Later, as Team Kung-Fu Grip is relaxing, savoring their success, and lamenting the loss of their orbiting race car, a strange and futuristic-looking scientist suddenly appears and returns their missing car. And with this abrupt and unexplained entrance, the story ends.

As before, the story is an uncomfortable mix of super-hero cliches and racing action that is sure to satisfy fans of neither. The super-hero aspect takes the worst excesses of the Silver Age (Giant animals! Power-giving radiation! Mad scientists!) and the ’90s (facial tattoos) but does nothing new or interesting with them. The racing scenes are so far removed from reality that one suspects the writers have never actually watched a NASCAR race. The art shows a noticeable decline in quality this issue, most likely because the publisher was hurrying to get the comic out the door in time for this years 50th anniversary of the Daytona 500 (and to be fair, they succeeded; I’m just late in reviewing it).

The last few pages of the comic is a surprisingly well done and nicely illustrated history of the inaugural running of the Daytona 500, famous for a photo finish that took officials three days to decide on a winner (Lee Petty, by the way).

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

Tags: comics nascar nascar heroes daytona

This week’s episode of House had a great set-up and a clever medical mystery. The medicine itself was only so-so, but the rest of the episode mostly made up for it.

The episode starts with House getting a lap dance at a strip club. He soon realizes that he has no recollection of how he got there. Seeing blood on his fingers, he has the stripper look at his head and she sees a scalp laceration. From this, he deduces that he has suffered a concussion with retrograde amnesia (unable to remember what happened before the concussion). Leaving the strip club, he comes across the remnants of a tremendous bus crash and realizes that he must have been on the bus and was injured in the crash. He also has a fleeting memory that he saw something important while on the bus. He remembers that he noticed a symptom in one of the other passengers signifying that he or she had a fatal disease. The trouble is, he can’t remember who it was or the symptom that he saw

He stalks around the emergency room, looking over the other patients, and spots some bruising on the bus driver’s shoulder. He declares it a sign of leukemia, but in reality it is only the bruise left from the seatbelt. Another patient complains of a stiff neck and House immediately announces that he has meningitis and no one is to leave the emergency room (he doesn’t really think the patient has meningitis, he’s just trying to keep all the crash victims where he can find them. 22 of the 30 victims are at Princeton Plainsboro, 8 are across town).

Kutner suggests that House undergo “medical hypnosis” to improve his focus and assist with memory retrieval. Chase just happens to be trained in hypnosis, so he puts House under. Remembering the bus ride, House recalls a punk rocker (or “emo Guitar Hero wannabe”) with a cough and a bad nose picking habit. House figures this must be nasal pruritis (an itchy nose), a sign of a tumor — but the exam is normal.

A short time later, the bus driver discovers that he cannot move his legs. The differential diagnosis of this sudden onset of paralysis includes subdural hematoma, stroke, and subarachnoid hemorrhage — but all were ruled out by CT scan. Guillain Barre is suggested, as is tranverse myelitis based on the patient’s increased white count. Foreman starts him on antibiotics for the tranverse myelitis.

House now begins smelling the clothes of the patients who were involved in the bus accident, reasoning that smell is powerful at evoking memories. He hallucinates that he is back on the bus, talking to the driver, but the driver seems more focused on House than himself. Wilson and the team break his hallucination and order him to undergo an MRI to evaluate his brain. Edema and swelling in the temporal lobe are noted, as well as a fracture of the temporal bone.

The bus driver is able to walk again, but now is now suffering from acute abdominal pain. A peptic ulcer is a possible cause, but House wonders if it might be Addison’s Disease (a condition where the adrenal glands do not make enough steroid hormones) caused by a tumor.

House places himself in a sensory deprivation tank to better remember what he saw on the bus. This time, Cuddy is there with him. They conjecture that he saw something in the bus driver that caught his attention, but it could only be something he saw from behind, possibly a bobbing head or wiggling ear lobes. The differential they concoct includes aortic insufficiency (a leaky aoritc valce in the heart), Marfan’s syndrome (an inherited disease of the connective tissues), syphilis, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (another inherited connective tissue disease), and Cutis Laxa (still another inherited disease of the connective tissues). There are also suggestions of early Huntington’s or Parkinson’s Disease. House decides it is the latter. He comes out of the deprivation tank and immediately vomits and passes out. When he comes to, he is in his apartment with a nurse to look over him and a security guard to keep him from leaving.

The bus driver is not doing well. He has developed liver failure, jaundice, and has a low albumin. The team suggests Wilson’s Disease (a disease of copper metabolism affecting the liver), hepatitis, hepatic fibrosis, and Thyrotoxic Periodic Paralysis. To rule out the latter, they carbohydrate-load the patient and put him on a treadmill. This should induce the paralysis, but since it doesn’t, the team concludes that the patient does not have the condition. He does become acutely short of breath and hypoxic, however. The team believes the patient has suffered a pulmonary embolus (a clot blocking one of the blood vessels of the lungs), but House deduces that the bus driver developed an air embolism from some recent dental work and as this air bubble has moved throughout his body, it has caused all his symptoms. He positions the patient in such a way that the air is trapped in the heart and has Dr. Thirteen remove it with a syringe. The patient immediately improves.

At home that night, House has a dream featuring a striking woman with a red scarf. The dream convinces him that the bus driver was not the patient he remembered. He reenacts the bus ride, with co-workers playing the role of passengers. He also downs a handful of phisostygmine to help him remember. He flashes back to riding on the bus, and realizes that it was Amber who was on the bus with him, and she is the patient in question. She was critically injured in the crash and hauled off to another hospital as “Jane Doe.” (And we’ll have to wait until next week for the conclusion of the story.)

The medicine was more haphazard than usual tonight, and it’s been very haphazard recently. Of course, part of that could be blamed on House’s own haphazard state tonight.

Hypnosis, even “medical hypnosis” simply doesn’t work like that. If it were that miraculous, it would be used by every police department in the country.

Stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage, and subdural hematoma aren’t going to cause bilateral leg paralysis and shouldn’t have been so high on the list of possible diagnoses.

Tranverse myelitis is not a bacterial infection, and is not treated with antibiotics. It can be caused by certain viral infections or systemic conditions, but is most often caused by an overactive immune system attacking the spinal cord. Steroids are the treatment of choice.

While physostigmine has been used in cases of Alzheimer’s and other dementias, it has shown at best only minimal improvement. Several decades ago it was tested as a memory aid, but with lackluster results. It is also not available commercially in the U.S. as an oral formulation, unless House has access to a researcher’s stash.

For someone with an open fracture of the skull — indicated by House’s bleeding ear — submerging in a tub full of water is a great way to get an infection straight to the brain.

Nasal pruritis can suggest many things. Seasonal allergies would be at the top of my list. A tumor is a possibility, but a very very remote one. If the concern is that high for a tumor, a quick look up the nose is not going to be enough.

The air embolism from a dental procedure would have been tiny — too tiny to cause all the patient’s symptoms. Once an air embolus gets into the blood vessels, it either rises (going to the brain, since it started in the mouth) or is pushed along the circulation until it reaches the heart and then the lungs (where small ones are absorbed; large ones cause a pulmonary embolus). The air embolus wouldn’t travel elsewhere in the body unless the patient had a severe heart defect with a left-to-right right-to-left shunt.

The medical mystery was very good — one of the best ones yet and easily earns an A. The medicine was very haphazrd, but even so, it was better than it has been the last two weeks so deserves a B-. The final solution (bus driver) didn’t really fit the patient (or the anatomy or the scenario), so is knocked back down to a C. The final solution (Amber), will have to wait until next week, but come on — “resin?” House would have figured it out then and there. The soap opera was minimal, but intriguing, especially the hallucinatory and remembered parts. I give it a B.

The previous House review
A list of all prior House reviews

Challenge scores from the past two weeks are in the post immediately beneath this one (or click here). This week’s scores are posted here.

A second episode of House in a row that felt shallow and superficial. There were two potentially great concepts in this episode: House kidnapping a soap opera star, and the hospital’s accreditation inspection, but both were essentially squandered in this disjointed episode.

House is convinced that Evan Greer, the star of his favorite soap opera, has brain cancer. House has noticed that Evan’s line readings are slower and he is pausing more which leads him to believe that Evan has bad peripheral vision from an occipital lobe brain tumor. So House does what any other self-respecting doctor would do: he kidnaps his patient by pretending to be a chauffeur.

Arriving at the hospital, House convinces Evan to let him run one test on him — a test of his visual fields to look for blind spots. House informs him that the test showed upper right quadrant blind spot and that he’ll need an MRI. Foreman picks this moment to show up and point out that House is lying and the test is normal. Frustrated, Greer leaves the room; House pauses a minute to grab something from Pyxis, then follows Greer onto the elevator. While having a conversation with Wilson, House reaches over and injects Greer with a sedative, knocking him out, so that the MRI can be performed. Surprisingly (to House at least), the MRI is normal and shows no tumor. Greer wakes up at the end of the test and is furious. He storms off to find Cuddy to complain when his right foot suddenly goes completely numb and he finds himself unable to walk. He is admitted to the hospital — officially, this time.

At this point the differential diagnosis consists of vitamin deficiency or a toxic exposure. Cameron suggests that Greer may have injured a nerve in his foot when he fell after House knocked him out and suggests an EMG. House order Kutner to pretend to perform the EMG (Electromyogram — a test that checks the conductivity of muscles and nerves), but Kutner decides to go ahead and runs the test for real. Meanwhile, House has the rest of the team watching old episodes of the soap opera for subtle diagnostic clues. Taub and Foreman think that there might be some slight neurological symptoms and suggest myxedema or demyelination. The EMG is negative, and Kutner adds atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) to the possible diagnoses.

House checks out Greer’s dressing room and talks to his female costar. He learns that even though Greer’s character likes his gin and tonics, Greer himself does not drink — in fact, he’s kind of a health nut. Housee also learns enough to suspect that Greer may be suffering from erectile dysfunction. House suggests that Greer has B6 toxicity and the resultant autonomic dysregulation from eating too many sunflower seeds. The team decides to test whether the impotence is physical or psychological by testing heart rate, blood pressure, and tumescence after giving Greer some pornography. He is able to have an erection, but he also develops a dangerously rapid heart rate that requires defibrillation.

The differential now includes sepsis, paraneoplastic syndrome, and Graves Disease (an autoimmune disease which leads to too much thyroid hormone), with the latter being the most likely. House wants to “nuke” Greer’s thyroid to stop the Graves, but the rest of the team actually wants to test for Graves first by performing a radioactive iodine uptake test. The test shows that his thyroid is normal, but that he is starting to develop kidney failure. Autoimmune diseases are now added to the differential. A short time later, House is talking to Greer and he finds him repeating old lines from the show and discovers that he actually believes himself to be his soap opera character. He is also running an extremely high temperature and has slipped into delirium.

The team now suspects that Greer is septic, in other words he has an overwhelming infection. They are just not sure what infection it is. Pneumococcus, Tetanus, Lyme Disease are suggested, as are fungal infections. House also mentions rat bite fever and listeria. Greer is started on broad spectrum antibiotics, but is not improving.

While helping Wilson shop for a bed, House had an epiphany. Greer is not septic, instead he a rare type of allergic reaction known as allergic vasculitis and he is allergic to the chrysanthemums in his dressing room. House wants to start him on high dose steroids, but Foreman points out that high dose steroids would kill him if her were septic. Cuddy eventually steps in and allows House to start the steroids, but runs some confirmatory allergy tests. After these tests are complete she informs House of the results — negative: Greer has no floral allergies. They return to the patient’s room ready to restart the antibiotics only to find that Greer has greatly improved; the steroids worked. Later, House realized that Greer is allergic to quinine, the chemical in the tonic water his soap opera character drinks.

I can understand why House thought Greer had a brain tumor — that makes at least a little sense (though I think a frontal lobe tumor would fit the suspected symptoms better than an occipital lobe tumor). The rest of the medicine in tonight’s episode barely made sense, and the team basically haphazardly stumbled from one unsupported diagnosis to another to another. Here’s what caught my eye tonight:

The final solution of allergic vasculitis doesn’t really fit the case well. The symptoms Greer had are rarely, if ever, seen in allergic vasculitis and he was missing the common symptoms such as the distinctive rash. I would also like to point out that the team dismissed an autoimmune cause because he had a fever, but no one batted an eye at a fever being caused by allergic vasculitis — another type of overly aggressive immune response (in truth, both autoimmune diseases and allergic vasculitis can cause fever. Just give me a little consistency in logic, please). And why was House convinced that chrysanthemums were the cause — where did that come from? On a daily basis, people are exposed to hundreds if not thousands of allergens, it could have been any of them.

B6 toxicity doesn’t match his symptoms either. It can cause nerve toxicity, but not like Greer had. Sunflower seeds do contain a large amount of B6, but he would have to eat a hell of a lot of them to develop toxicity. An ounce of sunflower seeds contains 0.23mg B6. Toxic doses start around 500mg/day, or over 2000 ounces of seeds per day.

Giving someone porn and then watching them to see if they get an erection is not the way to differentiate physical from psychological causes. That situation is enough to cause psychological impotence in anyone.

Graves disease is an autoimmune disease. An ANA is not the definitive test for autoimmune — there really isn’t any one single test. ESR (”sed rate”) is probably one of the most common, but if the team had run that, they would have figured out the vasculitis much sooner.

100mg of IV methylprednisolone (”Solu-Medrol”) is not that uncommon a dose. When high doses are needed, it’s generally an emergency (acute asthma attack, for instance) and having to wait for Cuddy to sign off on it is a delay in treatment and a lawsuit waiting to happen. And you’d think the pharmacist would learn to lock his door by now.

Ampicillin is not an appropriate drug for sepsis, particularly sepsis of an unknown cause.

Accreditation inspections involve a team of inspectors, not just one, and are not usually carried out on an annual basis unless there is a known problem.

I give the medical mystery a B+ because it was a clever idea: House deducing something is wrong just by watching an actor on television. Unfortunately, neither the final solution nor the medicine leading up to it were all that good; I give them both a C-. The soap opera was fairly average. There were a couple brief glimmers of cleverness, but nothing really memorable, so it deserves no more than a C.

The previous House review
A list of all prior House reviews

I’ve decided it was finally time to get around to blogging about Armageddon 2001, and what ended up being the coda on Karl and Barbara Kesel’s run on Hawk and Dove. For those of you who may not remember, Armageddon 2001 was the “big event” comic series of 1991. It started off promising, but whimpered to an end — and took Hawk and Dove down with it.

Armageddon 2001 #1
In the future — the year 2030 to be precise — Matthew Rider is one of the world’s top physicists. He is an unhappy man, though. The future of 2030 is a dystopian fascist state, ruled over by the all powerful despot Monarch. Not much is known of Monarch’s past because he’s done his best to wipe out all historical records. All that Ryder knows is that Monarch was once a super-hero, but something happened in the year 1991 that caused him to become Monarch. By the year 2001, Monarch had destroyed all his fellow heroes and taken over as the unquestioned ruler of the world. It is clear that Ryder longs for the world before Monarch, when all the other heroes were still alive, and free thought and expression were allowed. As a young child, he was rescued by one of those heroes on that fateful day in 1991, but he cannot recall who, and the thought has haunted him for the past forty years.

Other scientists working for Monarch have discovered the secret of time travel, but their human test subjects have not survived the experience. Ryder volunteers for the program, but he is turned down because of his anti-state tendencies. Undaunted, Ryder is able to meet and convince Monarch that he has the will to survive that the other test subjects lacked, which Ryder argues will allow him to survive the time travel. Monarch is intrigued, but concerned about sending such an obvious malcontent back in time. However, he believes that Ryder’s love for his family will keep on the straight and narrow, so he agrees for Ryder to become a test subject. What Ryder has kept hidden is that the love of his family is overshadowed by the possibility of destroying Monarch once and for all, and that is the real reason he wants to travel into the past.

Ryder enters the machine and is sent back through the time stream to the year 1991 (coincidentally the same year these comics were published). Along the way, Matthew Ryder becomes the super-hero Waverider, who has the ability to see the events of someone’s future just by touching them. He resolves to use his power to find out which hero will become Monarch so that he can put an end to him before it happens.

The Armageddon 2001 Annuals
The DC Comics annuals published in the summer of 1991 all started the same way: Waverider shows up and touches the hero, revealing their future ten or more years down the line, searching to see if they will become Monarch (and none of them do). Most of these comics were surprisingly good, far better than most other themed annuals (Atlantis Attacks **cough cough** Days of Future Present). I covered the Hawk and Dove Armageddon 2001 Annual in more depth previously.

Armageddon 2001 #2
The second and final issue of Armageddon 2001 starts with Waverider touching Captain Atom and revealing his future. It is a dim and dark future that ends unhappily for pretty much the entire world. Captain Atom does not become Monarch, but he is just as much a threat to his own future. The shock of seeing what might happen causes Atom to briefly lose control of his quantum field. It’s just a momentary lapse, but it’s enough for Monarch to slip through into the present (well, the present of 1991). It seems he had followed Ryder into the past, but was prevented from entering by Atom’s quantum field.

Once Monarch has appeared, he wastes little time in attacking the Justice League. In the middle of the battle, he teleports away, but later informs the heroes that they must all meet him in Metropolis at 3PM the following day, or he will destroy the world.

In the meantime, Monarch puts his plan into motion. He shows up at the remote campsite where Dawn Granger (Dove) and her boyfriend Brian Arsala are having a romantic weekend. Without batting an eye, Monarch slaughters Brian and them immobilizes and kidnaps Dawn once she turns into Dove. Next, Monarch confronts Hank Hall (Hawk). He goads Hank into becoming Hawk, then immobilizes and kidnaps him as well. Monarch then snatches a variety of scientific equipment from around the world to build a specialized Neutron Bomb designed to kill every super-hero.

Before putting his plan into action, Monarch announces to Hawk and Dove that he still has two things to take care of. He grabs Dove and kills her, right before Hawk’s eyes. The sight of his partner’s murder and the loss of her “balance” is enough to drive Hawk mad. He attacks and kills Monarch only to discover that Monarch is actually the future Hank Hall. This knowledge sends him even farther over the edge, and he decides to become Monarch so that he can create his own balance in the world. He dons Monarch’s armor, takes his plans and weapons, and teleports off to fight all the heroes in Metropolis.

It’s an epic battle, but Monarch seems to have the edge. Then Captain Atom unleashes his full powers and they interact with Monarch’s, sending them both tumbling into the distant reaches of time stream. Meanwhile, Matthew Ryder discovers that the hero who saved his life on this day was none other than himself, as Waverider (and who didn’t see this coming?).

The Controversy
Did the ending of the series seem nonsensical, out of character, and cobbled together at the last minute? Well, it was.

In the original story, Captain Atom was to become Monarch. Clues were planted throughout the series and annuals pointing to him. But then somebody prematurely gave it away, and DC decided to rewrite the ending. That’s why it makes little sense — it was never supposed to be Hawk in the first place (for instance, you’ll notice Monarch has bright blue eyes in issue #1 — just like Captain Atom — but in issue #2, they’re suddenly brown like Hank Hall’s).
Wikipedia has a concise explanation of the controversy, and here’s a page I scanned in from Wizard #179 that interviews some of the key players.

The End?
So is this the end of Hawk and Dove? Yes and no. The Hawk and Dove redesigned by Karl and Barbara Kesel — based on the works of Ditko and Skeates — are gone. Hank Hall and Dawn Granger still make a few more appearances in one way or another, and I’ll cover that soon in an epilogue post. In the past few years, Dawn has taken up the mantle of Dove again, but with a heretofore unmentioned sister as Hawk (and there was the Mike Baron penned Hawk and Dove series in 1997 that bore no relation to the original at all, but the less said about that, the better). Then there is Infinite Crisis and its aftermath. Continuity seems to have been re-written (or corrected) so that Captain Atom is once again Monarch. But then, what happened to Hank Hall? Was he ever Monarch in this new continuity, or was it Captain Atom all along?

All Previous Hawk and Dove Reviews

Tags: comics hawk dove armageddon 2001 monarch waverider captain atom

This week’s Booster Gold #8 features the return of the one of the classic psychic nosebleeders: Max Lord. By rescuing Ted Kord, Booster has shifted the time stream so that Max Lord no longer died and the OMACs were never defeated. It’s not a pretty picture.

Mind control and nosebleeds seem to be Max’s defining characteristics now — not that he was ever that complex a character to begin with. Regardless, in celebration of his return to his psychic power abusing ways, here are some Max Lord haiku:

manipulator
likes to play with other minds
needs a red hanky

ran the Justice League
more or less a hero…once
always wears black now

drove Superman mad
psychic skills have a down side
nose goes drip drip drip

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

“The Green Plague”
Sure sounds impressive. What does it do?
It turns your skin green…but only temporarily.
Anything else?
Nope, that’s all it does: turns your skin green for a few days.
I changed my mind. That’s not impressive at all.
True, but it was still enough to base a Golden Age story on:

Patrons of the most expensive restaurants in Washington D.C. are mysteriously turning green. Lawsuits have been filed. Customers are actually choosing to eat at home. Senators and lobbyists have nowhere to go. It’s nothing sort of pandemonium.

It turns out the Green Plague is nothing but a plot by one of the local mobs. It’s all part of a classic protection scheme: the mob demands a restaurant pay them $500 to provide “protection.” If the restaurant owner refuses to pay, his customers mysteriously develop the Green Plague. Well, it’s not so mysterious really: one of his mobsters — who just happens to be wearing a chef’s out — knocks out the real chef and then dumps a chemical in the soup. Anyone who eats the soup turns green.

Luckily, the Enchanted Dagger is there to save the day. The Enchanted Dagger, as his name suggests, got his powers from an enchanted dagger. Thanks to his magic cutlery, he could fly, make pithy comments, hypnotize criminals, and smoothly slice a tomato even after cutting through a concrete block. The Enchanted Dagger appeared just four times in the Golden Age (in Yankee Comics #1-4, 1941-2) and then disappeared, never to be seen again (except in the occasional black and white reprint like this one). He was drawn by George Tuska, so at least he had that going for him.

Thanks to his amazing powers, the Enchanted Dagger is able to stop the evil chef, locate the mob boss, escape a Rube Goldberg-ian deathtrap, and finally capture the entire mob, making the Washington D.C restaurant scene safe for all once again.

The Green Plague: a lame disease, but not too lame for a fourth-string Golden Age hero!
(Tomorrow, a different plague, a different color…and in color!)

Tags: comics medicine plague golden age enchanted dagger yankee comics george tuska

In the past years, it’s been the Avengers, the Justice League, and even the Legion of Super-Heroes. This year…

Happy Easter from the Uncanny X-Peeps

from The Marvel Heroes Activity Book

Which Hulk is different?

(There’s been Green Hulk, Grey Hulk, Blue Hulk, and now red Hulk. I guess this is Albino Hulk. What really catches my eye is that all the Hulks seem to have a fabric hole in their left leg, below the level of their shorts — or maybe they just have glowing kneecaps).

There’s something charming about seeing “futuristic” 30th century medicine as imagined by writers in the 1960s. Here’s a good example from Adventure Comics #303: 4th Dimensional Surgery.

The doctor takes the “healing capsule” and, using special equipment (which pretty much looks like a pair of needle nose pliers wired up to a 9-volt battery), becomes immaterial by entering the 4th Dimension. Once the capsule is immaterial, it is inserted into the body near the injury and within just a few days, the patient is entirely healed.

The doctor in me wonders:
Doesn’t having such a large foreign body cause an immune reaction? Or cause any pain of its own?
Is the capsule taken out or does it stay there forever (or does it break down over time?)
How do you know the capsules in the right place and not bisecting an important nerve or artery?
Lightning Lad and Sun Boy both have pretty mild injuries — probably just sprains. Wouldn’t a few days’ rest work just as well?
What if you accidentally implant a fourth dimensional Junior Mint?

On the other hand, the writers did show some medical prescience. While modern medicine has yet to master the fourth dimension, there are times surgeons implant our own versions of “healing capsules.” Antibiotic infused beads can be surgically implanted to treat deep tissue or bone infections, such as diabetic foot infections. Radioactive beads can be implanted to assist in the treatment of certain cancers. I’m still hoping for a pair of those fancy needle-nose pliers.

(Anybody remember the Made-for-TV movie White Dwarf on Fox about 12 years ago? It was a fascinating and surreal sci-fi/medical movie, and it’s a shame nothing ever came of it. It featured a similar trick: special gloves that made the surgeon’s hands immaterial so he could reach inside the patient. Of course, it still shares a big problem with the 4th dimensional pliers — you can’t see what you’re doing and where you’re going. Ask any surgeon — operating blind is never a good idea).

Adventure #303 (DC Comics, 1962). Script by Jerry Siegel, pencils by John Forte.

Tags: comics medicine legion of super heroes surgery fourth dimension white dwarf

Birds of Prey #115 “Underneath the Skin”
Sean McKeever, writer
Nicola Scott, penciler

On the one hand, it’s nice to see a comic book character doing CPR properly.
But on the other hand, I have to ask — was it the right thing to do? Helena (the Huntress) is a drowning (or at least a near-drowning) victim. She is not breathing. We know this because Zinda keep yelling at her to breathe. So then why is Zinda performing chest compressions? She needs to be focusing on rescue breathing. Remember the ABCs – Airway then Breathing and then Circulation. Zinda’s done A (briefly), barely touched on B, then skipped straight to C (all the while yelling “Breathe!” — which really should give her a clue.)

That’s not to say that drowning and near-drowning victims don’t have heart problems — they do. Cardiac arrest is not uncommon in these situations. But there’s no point in worrying about the heartbeat if the patient isn’t breathing. ABC, not ACB (or CAB or any other anagram).

On a side note, why is Zinda unzipping Helena’s outfit? Did it shrink so much in the water that it wasn’t allowing her to breathe? What’s the point of exposing her neck and possibly upper chest in this situation?

Finally some statistics:
50% of all drownings occur in pools.
98% of all drownings occur in freshwater.
0.0005% of all drownings occur when sneaking into an enemy lair in what is clearly a trap (unless you’re a super-hero, then that number jumps to 67%).

Tags: comics medicine birds of prey cpr rescue brathing huntress zinda

A nice PSA parody from Scott Kurtz and PvP featuring “The Chessmaster”, Brent Sienna’s character from the super-hero RPG “Ubermensch”. Click on the image for the full version of the PSA As much as I enjoy the day to day PvP strip, I’ve always felt that Kurtz’s best work are his longer-form stories. These were originally published in the Dork Storm edition of the PvP comic, and I believe they have been since reprinted in at least one trade paperback (PvP: The Dork Ages). The Christmas story is classic, and the super-hero story this PSA is taken from is equally clever, especially Skull as the most succesful super-villain ever. This PSA is from PvP #2 (May 2001, Dork Storm). Art and words by Scott Kurtz. More PSAs Tags: comics psa pvp scott kurtz

The official start of the 2008 NASCAR season, the Daytona 500, is this weekend, so I thought it would be a good idea to look at issue #2 of the NASCAR Heroes comic book.

I believe this second issue of NASCAR Heroes is actually slightly better than the first one, but that’s not really saying much. The story picks up right where the first issue left off. Dashiell James, a lowly janitor, and his friends of Team Flatrock were caught in a mysterious explosion caused by the evil rocket scientist and top NASCAR racer Jack Diesel (yes you read that right, not only is Diesel NASCAR’s #1 driver, but he’s also a rocket scientist). The mysterious radiation from this explosion gave everyone involved super-powers. Dashiell uses his powers to become the mysterious masked racer “Jimmy Dash” and he and Team Flatrock have become Diesel’s biggest competition.

Most of the book is taken up by various races between Diesel and Dash which all follow the same pattern: Diesel uses his super-powers in an underhanded way to attack Dash and his car, yet Dash somehow manages to beat him in the end. For instance, Diesel — while driving at competition speeds — leans his entire upper body out of his car window and physically tears a chunk of Dash’s car away and rips through an oil line, or maybe it’s a brake line. Regardless, Dash is able to bring his car down pit lane and stop it with feet through the floor board, a la Fred Flintstone. His team manages to fix his car with some bodywork and a new belt for the water pump (how that fixes brakes or an oil line, I don’t know). Dash and his car race back to front but this time Diesel shoots a laser beam from his eyes at them. Luckily, Dash is ready and raises a mirror he has prepared for such an occasion and reflects the laser back at Diesel (yes, his reflexes are apparently faster than light). Using this distraction, he is able to win the race.

I’m beginning to think that the poor logic in the book’s storytelling may actually cause brain damage. As far as you can tell by the story, there are only two cars at each race. Never mind the other 41 cars, drivers, teams, track personnel, NASCAR officials, reporters or sponsor representatives that should be there. Somehow the NASCAR officials never seem to notice such minor things as laser beams, spurting oil, or drivers leaning out the window and never ever call a caution. The most spectacular display of illogic occurs toward the end of the comic when Diesel holds Team Flatrock’s owner Astor hostage at a local auto salvage yard; he tells Jimmy Dash to meet him there alone. To his credit, Jimmy comes with the other members of the team. On the other hand, they all come in the team’s single race car: a not-road-legal race car that can barely manage to hold one person yet somehow manages to carry the entire team. Plus, you know, it’s an auto salvage yard — bringing a race car there is just asking for trouble.

The art tries, but is mostly amateurish (one problem may be the fact that the credits list one main artist plus four additional “guest artists”). It’s not bad, but it needs to be a lot better in what is supposed to be a professional comic. The layout and blocking are good and show an understanding of the comics medium, but the colors need a lot of work and always come off looking flat.

On the plus side, there are imaginative use of sound effects. In this issue, we get a Bzannnnng, a bunch of Krimps, several Ftashes, a Zavf, plus the ever reliable Wump, Klang, and Klunk. The paper quality is nice, too.

The main problem with this comic is the same thing that I mentioned after reading the first issue: it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it a NASCAR comic for comic fans, or a comic book for NASCAR fans? It tries to be both, and succeeds at neither. The story is too over the top and too cliché to appeal to modern comic readers (and it’s probably even too much for Silver Age readers — and that says a lot). On the flip side, the racing scenes and background are too far removed from the reality of the sport to appeal to the NASCAR fan.

Tags: comics nascar nascar heroes

Don’t worry Infectious Lass, you won’t spend Valentine’s Day alone! All you need to do is use one of these Legion of Super-Heroes Valentine’s Card, and any man will be yours, guaranteed*!

*Guarantee valid only in the 30th and 31st centuries. Void where prohibited by law or retcon.

Previous Legion of Super-Heroes Valentines:
♥2007
♥2006

Other Valentines Cards:
♥The Legion of Doom
♥The X-Men

Coming soon: Entirely inappropriate Spider-Man Valentine’s Day Cards!

While sitting in the ER waiting room and exam room last night, I managed to read through the entire Showcase Presents The Flash. (This is not an indictment of the ER — it’s flu season and there is a nasty flu bug going around town so the ER was packed. My injury was relatively minor and I knew there’d be a wait. Scott’s First Rule of the ER: Bring the thickest book you can find — quickly — to read while you wait).

Silver Age Flash stories are always a great read, but there were more than a few stories inside that sent my medical and scientific senses a-twitching:

First, Flash #105 (by John Broome and Carmine Infantino).

I’m sorry Mirror Master, but the speed of thought is not faster than the Flash. “Thought” is a biochemical process and as such is subject to the laws of science. Nerve conduction along and between neurons is not faster than the speed of light, in fact according to this neuroscience page (mainly about transmission of pain and touch sensations, but the same principles apply), nerve conduction tops out at a few hundred miles per hour, much slower than the speed of light (roughly 186,000 miles per second hour). Flash, on the other hand, can run faster than the speed of light — much faster than any nerve or thought.

Now if you want to get all philosophical in your definition of “thought” and claim that it is not subject to the laws of science, remember that thought must be put into action, and muscles do obey the laws of science.

Next, let’s take a look at Flash #115, particularly the story “The Day the Flash Weighed 1,000 Pounds” (again by John Broome and Carmine Infantino):

Barry Allen, who is 6′1″ according the statistics I could find, weighs 195 pounds. This gives him a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 25.7 (which on a side note, technically makes him overweight, and other than this issue of the Flash, Barry has never been drawn as anything but skinny).

Now how about this 1,000 pound Flash? He has a BMI of 131.9. Remember that anything over 30 is considered obese and over 40 morbidly obese. Personally, I’ve never seen anyone this heavy. Superhero or not, I don’t think he’d be able to move with that much weight on his frame. (According to a quick Google search, the world’s heaviest man weights 1234 pounds and is barely able to move).

How did the Flash lose all this weight by the end of the story? He climbed into a commercial-sized potato dehydrator and sweated out all that extra weight. Seriously. File this under “do not try this at home” (it’s dangerous and anyway, it wouldn’t work).

Finally, here’s some technobabble from Captain Cold:

Quite likely the final episode of House in this strike-shortened season. Overall, it was a good episode even if it was another exploring the House-versus-religion theme. While the medical mystery was just moderately interesting (at least initially), the solution was clever, and the medicine mostly correct. Good soap opera too.

Roz is a Hasidic Jew, recently converted, and even more recently married. At her wedding ceremony, she loses control of her bladder, and a large stain of bloody urine appears. She collapses and falls, breaking her leg. She is admitted to House’s team for the evaluation of her condition. Dr. Thirteen reports that Roz’s urine culture was negative (meaning no urinary tract infection) and there is no history of trauma or sexually transmitted diseases. A CT scan was negative for cancer and kidney stones. She reports that Roz’s sodium was low, however, and suggests that Roz may have endometriosis of the bladder. Taub counters that the low sodium may be related to Roz fasting before the wedding, while House posits that Roz may have been exposed to a toxin, carboxylic acid in particular. House agrees to let Thirteen start Roz on treatment for the possible endometriosis (with AIs, i.e. Aromatase Inhibitors) and get a cystoscopy . Meanwhile, he sends Taub and Foreman to search Roz’s apartment where they find no carboxylic acid, but discover that prior to her conversion, she had been a heavy metal record producer. She admits to a history of heroin use, but not for some time. A hair sample is obtained, but the tests are negative. Additionally, the treatment for endometriosis has been unsuccessful and the cystoscopy clean.

Taub suggests Roz may have cryoglubulinemia (abnormal proteins in the blood that thicken with cold temperatures), but House feels she has porphyria (problems in the synthesis of hemoglobin), and her sudden conversion to Judaism suggests the mental problems commonly seen in certain types of porphyria. Roz’s husband considers this an insult, and requests a new doctor. Cuddy agrees with the cryoglobulinemia diagnosis and wants to start her on Indomethacin (a potent non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, the same class as Motrin). Meanwhile, Roz has become hypoxic with her oxygen saturation dropping to 85%. This argues against both cryoglobulinemia and porphyria. She is kept on oxygen and her saturation improves. Foreman mentions Wegener’s Granulomatosis, but House now believes it to be Lupus with a hidden heart problem. He orders a stress test. Roz makes it through the test well and has no evidence of heart problems. After the test, she develops sudden leg pain and the team believes that she might have a blood clot. An MRI is obtained, which shows no clot, and an fMRI (functional MRI, which works by detecting increases in blood flow within the brain, and these are believed to represent area of brain activity) is ordered as well, ostensibly to look for subtle signs of a stroke. The fMRI shows activity in her limbic system (one of the emotion centers of the brain) when Foreman is placing an IV (a painful situation) which House believes shows that Roz has masochistic tendencies, but Thirteen discovers she was praying during the IV placement, so that might explain the limbic activity.

As Roz stands up after the test, her blood pressure and heart rate come crashing down. When she sits or lies down, she is fine — she only has a problem when standing (orthostatic hypotension — low blood pressure when standing). She is started on fludrocortisone and ephedrine (two drugs that can be used to treat extreme cases of orthostasis). The differential now includes pheochromocytoma (a tumor that releases high levels of adrenalin and similar compounds), systemic sclerosis (better known as scleroderma, an autoimmune disease), and a heart arrhythmia. An EP study (”electrophysiology study”, which looks for abnormal rhythms in the heart) is ordered, but the results are normal. The suspicion now turns to an autonomic nerve disorder such as Riley Day Syndrome. A thermoregulatory sweat test is ordered, but instead of becoming overheated, Roz becomes hypothermic (an abnormally low temperature) and has a seizure.

Infection is now considered as a possible diagnosis, as is Addison’s Disease (a condition where the adrenal glands do not make enough steroid hormones). Roz is started on Cortisol to test for Addison’s and she starts to feel better (cortisol is a steroid hormone). As Thirteen examine her though, she notices a swollen abdomen and Roz reports that she is starting to feel dizzy. Thirteen quickly realizes that Roz has internal bleeding. Chase (apparently the only surgeon in the hospital this season) wants to perform an exploratory surgery to locate the source of bleeding, but Roz decides to delay the surgery until after she has had a chance to celebrate Shabbat with her new husband, even though it might cost her her life. The differential diagnosis now includes DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulation), hydatid cyst (a tapeworm cyst), volvulus of the small intestine (a twisting of an intestinal loop), polycythemia vera (too many red blood cells in the blood), thrombocytopenia (low platelet count) and even Parkinson’s Disease. During the brainstorming session with the team, House has a sudden revelation and realizes that Roz has a nephroptosis, also known as a floating kidney. Instead of being firmly secured to the underlying tissue, her right kidney is hanging loosely, just supported by a few blood vessels. This explains the blood in the urine, the internal bleeding, and the orthostatic hypotension. The strain this is putting on the right adrenal gland (located on top of the kidney) likely explains most of her other symptoms. The floating kidney was not noticed on the scans because they were all performed with her laying down and it only shows up when she is standing up. Surgery should be able to fix her problem and stop the bleeding.

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I really don’t have too many medical complaints this episode, other than my usual litany of untrained people doing potentially dangerous tests and results comic back to quickly. Now, you’ll notice I didn’t say I had no complaints, just not as many as usual:

Roz didn’t just have a slight bit of blood in her urine, that was gross hematuria. In my mind, that should have necessitated a full bladder and kidney work-up from the very beginning that should have caught the nephroptosis.

Was it just me, or did they seem to keep forgetting about her broken leg? It never seemed to be splinted or cast. She did get to do the arm stress test, instead of the treadmill one, but that seemed to be the only acknowledgment of the broken leg.

I’m not clear on what caused her shortness of breath (that improved overnight) or her sudden leg pain (other than, you know, that fracture thing). Maybe blood loss and anemia led to her shortness of breath, but that much anemia should have been easily noticed on her labs.

They sure like to jump to the big guns early, don’t they? Aromatase Inhibitors. Fludrocortisone. Ephedrine. I’m not saying these drugs don’t have their places, just not first thing.

From what I read, there is some debate in the medical community over how significant a “floating kidney” actually is. All of Roz’s autonomic symptoms (hypotension, low sodium, low temperature, etc) are quite a stretch, especially when you remember that she was lying down when many of them happened.

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The medical mystery was moderately interesting, frankly not something that would I would expect to pique House’s curiositu — I give it a weak B. The medicine was better than it has been recently, though still not without mistakes or unexplained symptoms — another B. I thought the solution was clever and elegant, though the severity of her autonomic symptoms were straining credibility. Still, I give the solution an A-. The soap opera was good and almost — almost – had me liking Amber. It was nice to see Cuddy back to her normal acerbic self, especially when she was talking to Wilson. I also give this aspect an A-.

All in all, not a bad quasi-Season Finale. Not a grand slam, but at least a solid triple.

The previous House review
A list of all prior House reviews

Challenge scores can be found at the post immediately beneath this one (or click here).
I’ve also posted information about next season’s Challenge, for all who are interested…

Tags: television medicine house hematuria endometriosis cryoglobulinemia porphyria autonomic dysfunction nephroptosis

House lands the prime post-Super Bowl slot, and it was a strong episode overall. The medical mystery was intriguing, as were the logistical difficulties involved in solving it. There were some strong character moments, and a surprise reveal at the end that I did not see coming.

The medicine? Eh, it was OK. The rest of the show was good though.

Cate is a psychiatrist working at the South Pole on a psychological research project, as well as serving as the physician for the team stationed there. Just after treating another staffer with an injured femoral artery, she develops sudden intense right-sided flank pain, vomiting, and begins gasping for breath. No other physicians are available at the South Pole and evacuation is not an option. Since Cate is an adjunct faculty member at Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, the Psychiatry Department asks House to treat her. Given her location, all the diagnosis and treatment must be done over webcam, and the medical supplies and tests available at the South Pole are minimal.

The initial differential diagnosis includes appendicitis, gallstone, or kidney stone. House in particular feels she has a struvite kidney stone due to recurrent urinary tract infections (large and jagged kidney stones that form due to urinary infections). She denies any history of urinary tract infections. Her Chem 7 (also known as a Basic Metabolic Panel, or BMP) shows declining kidney function, which House believes proves the existence of a kidney stone. He wants her to take a dose of intravenous Cefuroxime (a broad spectrum antibiotic) to cover any infection. She declines, telling House that there are other people who may need their limited supply more. Her kidney function continues to decline. House continues to believe this is a kidney stone, but she believes it is because of dehydration from the vomiting (and dehydration can certainly alter kidney function tests, though it usually has a very specific pattern); she wants to repeat the test after she’s rehydrated. In the middle of the conversation, she becomes tachypneic (rapid breathing) and develops chest pain. House notices that her trachea is deviated to the left which means that she has a tension pneumothorax, a life threatening emergency. Under his direction, she is able to relieve the tension by performing a needle thoracostomy (basically inserting a needle into her chest to relieve the pressure and allow the lung to re-inflate).

The differential now includes tuberculosis — but her PPD was negative, as was everyone else’s at the South Pole — and cancer in the kidney or lungs. An x-ray of her body shows an enlarged mediastinal node which could be a sign of lymphoma. Unfortunately, it is too deep for anything but a surgical biopsy, and that’s not an option. No other lymph nodes show up on x-ray (but then, x-rays aren’t very good at showing lymph nodes), so House has her perform a detailed physical exam on herself to look for other nodes, closer to the surface. She finds an enlarged node just above the belly button. Under Wilson’s direction, Cate plunges a syringe into it and withdraws about 2cc of a straw-colored fluid. No cancer cells show up in the fluid, but there are signs of inflammation. Unfortunately, Cate now begins having severe left flank pain, identical to what she had earlier on the right.

House suspects an autoimmune disease such as SLE (lupus) or vasculitis. He wants to start her on Prednisone, but she doesn’t want to use the medication unless she knows for sure that it’s an autoimmune condition. Foreman states that the normal test, an ANA, is not available, nor is an older test looking at C3. They can perform an improvised LE Prep (Lupus Erythematosus Cell Preparation). The test result is negative, arguing against an autoimmune condition, but House is still suspicious. Reluctantly, he agrees to Foreman’s plan to have Cate go outside, on the theory that the extreme cold will reduce the inflammation of the autoimmune disease and reduce her symptoms. She is about to comply when she passes out and then slips into a coma.

House, Foreman, and Wilson are now dealing with the station mechanic, as Cate is in a coma. They have him taste her urine to see whether it is concentrated (suggesting a kidney problem) or dilute (suggesting a brain problem). The urine is watery, so the cause of Cate’s coma is likely in her brain, they suspect an elevated intracranial pressure (ICP) or a hypothalamic problem. Under the team’s instructions, the mechanic drills a burr hole into Cate’s skull. This is to relieve any increased ICP. Sure enough, she comes out of her coma shortly after the hole is drilled.

House’s team now considers what condition could cause kidney problems, lung problems, and increased intracranial pressure. The differential includes tumor (already ruled out), bacterial endocarditis, deep vein clots, atherosclerotic emboli or fat emboli. House is intrigued by this last suggestion. Cate was cold during the exam and had left her socks on. When they are removed a broken toe is revealed. This broken bone has been throwing off clots of fat to the kidney, lungs, and heart, causing her problems. The bone is reset and splinted and she should be fine.

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Fat emboli can definitely cause lung problems in the form of pulmonary embolism (clots to the lungs), but I don’t see any way it cause a tension pneumothorax. In terms of the treatment of Cate’s tension pneumothorax, the needle thoracostomy relieves the tension aspect of the pneumothorax, but a simple pneumothorax still remains. Cate needs a chest tube (or if it’s small enough, 100% oxygen — all the time, not just an occasional breath).

That’s not how a percutaneous needle biopsy is performed, and that’s an incredible amount of fluid to get back — it’s a solid tissue structure they’re biopsying, not a cyst. PLus, I find it hard to believe the medical kit wouldn’t contain a local anesthetic such as Lidocaine.

Sending someone with an autoimmune disease or vasculitis out in the cold is not a clever idea. It may reduce their symptoms, possibly, if the moon is right. Or it could cause a bad case of Raynaud’s Disease (a cold-induced spasm of the blood vessels in the fingers and toes. It is common in people with autoimmune diseases and vasculitis).

I can see how a fat embolism in the brain could cause a coma (from causing a stroke), but I don’t know that it would increase the intracranial pressure and cause a coma that way.

How did fat embolism lead to enlarged lymph nodes?

It’s fractures of the long bones (femur, most commonly) that lead to fat emboli. I don’t think there’s enough fat in a toe bone to cause a fat embolism.

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I give the medical mystery an A because it was the best mystery they’ve had in a while. The limitations imposed by the patient being at the South Pole were well done. The final solution fit the big picture (lung, kidney, and brain damage), but missed the specifics (how did clots do all that? And from the toe?) so gets a merely mediocre C-. The medicine was for the most part appropriate, especially given the limitations already mentioned. The final answer is where the medicine fell apart. Still, I’ll give it a B- overall. The Three Musketeers didn’t add much this week, but Wilson and special guest patient Cate more than made up for them. That Wilson-is-dating-who? ending is worth some points as well. A for the soap opera.

The previous House review
A list of all prior House reviews

Challenge scores can be found at the post immediately beneath this one (or click here)

Tags: television medicine house kidney stone cancer autoimmune

Daredevil: Father #4
writer, Joe Quesada
penciler, Joe Quesada

I finally got around to reading Daredevil: Father the other night, and I never should have bothered. It was the epitome of padding out a story to “write for the trade.” In the six issues of the mini-series, there is at best one-and-a-half issues of plot. Daredevil’s origin is retold in detail on at least three separate occasions, but don’t think this is a comic for new readers as Quesada throws in without explanation characters you wouldn’t recognize unless you follow the Daredevil mythos pretty closely (Jessica Jone, Melvin Potter). The “mystery” of the series requires Daredevil to miss a clue so blatantly obvious that no competent super-hero, let alone one who’s a top flight lawyer by day, could possibly overlook it. The story might have worked as an issue or two of the regular series, but not as a stand alone six issue mini-series.

In issue #4, the villain of the series, a serial killer, is shown playing with two prescription bottles: one marked Ketamine, one marked Rohypnol. The implication is pretty clear: these are both infamous date rape drugs, and this is how the killer incapacitates their victims. Unfortunately, Quesada gets every detail of the prescriptions wrong.

Ketamine is a potent dissociative drug and is not available in neighborhood pharmacies. It is only available directly to physicians, medical facilities, researchers, and veterinarians. Furthermore, it only comes in liquid and powder forms; no pills. The “160/25 MG” label makes no sense. That notation is used for medications that contain 2 drugs, most commonly pain medications such as Vicodin (5/500, for 5MG Oxycodone Hydrocodone + 500MG acetaminophen) or blood pressure medications such as Diovan-HCT (160/12.5, 160MG Diovan + 12.5MG hydrochlorothiazide) — it would not apply to a single drug such as Ketamine.

While there is a bizarre warning label on the bottle, there is no quantity of pills dispensed or directions of how to take the pills, two key parts of an actual prescription.

Rohypnol is powerful benzodiazepine, the class of sedative drugs that also contains Valium and Xanax. It is illegal to prescribe Rohypnol in the United States, so there’s no way to get a prescription. This bottle also shows the 160/25 MG notation, but once again that would not apply to Rohypnol, which only comes in strengths of 1, 2, and 5MG (but again, is not legally available in the U.S.) As before, the prescription is missing the quantity and the directions but contains a bizarre and redundant warning (all prescriptions should be taken under the supervision of a doctor — that’s why they’re called prescription drugs, not over the counter drugs).

Both drugs are listed on the label as tablets, yet the killer is shown emptying capsules into the victim’s drinks. Normally I’d complain about lack of communication between the artist and writer, but there’s nothing I can really say about that this time as they’re both the same person.

Tags: comics medicine daredevil ketamine rohypnol joe quesada

So there’s a rumor going around that Tony Stark may be a Skrull. Original idea, right?

Not so much, it turns out. Here’s a page from Iron Man (Volume 2) #13:

Admittedly, this is from the horribly screwed up “Heroes Reborn” universe — and on top of that, it’s from the “let’s take a bad idea and make it even worse” issue where the Heroes Reborn universe is amalgamated with the Wildstorm universe (hence the Daemonite reference) — so it’s not a particularly well-remembered (or even well liked) storyline.

So if Tony Stark winds up being a Skrull, remember you heard it here second — and in Iron Man #13 first, ten years ago.

Of course, now that I look at the scene again in the light of day, I notice that the Skrull brags about how Iron Man’s armor protects him from detection from humans, but when he reverts back to Skrull form — his “armor” reverts as well — which means he wasn’t even wearing the armor he was bragging about in the first place.

Tags: comics iron man tony stark skrull heroes reborn skrull wildstorm

Click on the image above for the full ad.

It turns out that Marvel wasn’t the only comic book company running the “Verb – It’s What You Do” public service campaign — DC had their own versions of the PSA, and — hard as it is to believe — they make the Marvel ads (starring Wolverine and Nightcrawler) look good by comparison. This ad is one of the lamest PSAs I’ve come across yet.

All they did was take a stock Justice League pose and add a few captions. And not a caption for every hero either, just a few. Apparently only Green Lantern, Batman, and Flash care if you get off your duff, the other four really couldn’t care less. Way to phone in the public service message, DC.

More PSAs

Tags: comics psa justice league verb

If the embedded video doesn’t appear, check it out here.

A change of pace today: a super-hero video PSA. From 1972, here is Yvonne Craig as Batgirl in a public service announcement for equal pay for women. It should come as no surprise that the U.S. Department of Labor (Wage & Hour Division) sponsored this ad. What may come as a surprise is that this PSA was produced 4 years after the Batman television show ended.

There is a slightly different, shorter version of the PSA also available on YouTube (thankfully, the picture quality is much better in this one).

In addition to Yvonne Craig as Batgirl, Burt Ward reprises his role as Robin and William Dozier narrates. Batman is played not by Adam West but by Dick Gautier (probably best known for playing Hymie the Robot on Get Smart, and — for all my Transformers loving readers — the voice of Rodimus Prime from the third season of Transformers).

More PSAs

Tags: comics psa batgirl batman robin yvonne craig burt ward dick gautier adam west

Every year, I take a handful of the Free Comic Book Day comics — the all ages ones I can get my hands on — and bring them in to the clinic. I can usually sweet talk the local comic shop into giving me some extras, and this past year each of my three exam room got a matching set of eight FCBD comics.

In general, the comics last about six months before they’re worn to pieces. Some comics are so popular they wear out in no time, while others stay pristine for months. This year, three of the comic were by far the most popular, four moderately popular, and one barely touched:

Most popular (by a long shot): The Simpsons
A distant second and third (tie): Spider-Man and Justice League of America.
Moderate Interest: Legion of Super-Heroes, Peanuts, Sonic, Marvel Adventures
Dead Last: The Little Archies

Kids of all ages love the Simpsons comic, though not many adults. Older kids liked Spider-Man and Justice League (and many adults too), though Justice League was so cryptic and continuity heavy that I doubt it won many converts. Kids liked Legion, Sonic, and Marvel Adventures and more (ahem) “mature” adults seemed to gravitate towards Peanuts. No one seemed interested in the Little Archie comic. I’m guessing the kids didn’t recognize him, and the adults who might have known him weren’t interested in “Little” Archie.

It’s Christmas Eve! Just one more day until Christmas, and the penultimate cover of this year’s Advent Calendar is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer #1.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer #1 (DC, December 1950)
Just 1 Day until Christmas!
click on image for larger view

The entire 2007 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar (so far) in traditional calendar format.
One year ago, the cover was Jingle Belle #1.
Two years ago, the cover was Santa Claus Funnies #1.
Three years ago, the cover was Christmas with the Super-Heroes #1
Previous Comic Book Cover Advent Calendars: 2006 2005 2004
David Carter always has another good comic book advent calendar over at Yet Another Comics Blog

Tags: comics advent calendar christmas rudolph santa reindeer

A change of pace for today’s Advent Calendar cover — no super-heroes, no Golden Age funnies. Instead, just a couple of cats. Oh, and geeks too, apparently.

Geeksville #3 (Three Finger Prints, 1999)
3 Days until Christmas!
click on image for larger view

The entire 2007 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar (so far) in traditional calendar format.
One year ago, the cover was Archie’s Christmas Stocking #3.
Two years ago, the cover was Batman: The Long Halloween #3.
Three years ago, the cover was The Goon #3
Previous Comic Book Cover Advent Calendars: 2006 2005 2004
David Carter always has another good comic book advent calendar over at Yet Another Comics Blog

Tags: comics advent calendar christmas geeksville

A DC comics super-hero Christmas cover! For the second day in a row! And just 4 days until Christmas! Anyway, here is Batman Family #4 which, in addition to stars Robin and Batgirl, features such luminaries as Fatman and the Phantom General. At least it’s got the Elongated Man in it, too.

Batman Family #4 (DC, 1976)
4 Days until Christmas!
click on image for larger view

The entire 2007 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar (so far) in traditional calendar format.
One year ago, the cover was Fantastic Four #4 (creepy variant cover).
Two years ago, the cover was Jingle Belle #4.
Three years ago, the cover was Street Fighter #4 (also a variant cover)
Previous Comic Book Cover Advent Calendars: 2006 2005 2004
David Carter always has another good comic book advent calendar over at Yet Another Comics Blog

Tags: comics advent calendar christmas batman robin batgirl elongated man

With only 5 days remaining until Christmas, it’s time to turn our attention once again to the Golden Age, though this time for a visit by some super-heroes. Today’s Countdown Cover is Comic Cavalcade #6, starring the Golden Age Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern.

Comic Cavalcade #5 (DC, 1943)
5 Days until Christmas!
click on image for larger view

The entire 2007 Comic Book Cover Advent Calendar (so far) in traditional calendar format.
One year ago, the cover was Holiday Comics #5.
Two years ago, the cover was Bugs Bunny’s Christmas Funnies #5.
Three years ago, the cover was Dennis the Menace #5
Previous Comic Book Cover Advent Calendars: 2006 2005 2004
David Carter always has another good comic book advent calendar over at Yet Another Comics Blog

Tags: comics advent calendar christmas comic cavalcade golden age wonder woman flash green lantern santa

One of my favorite aspects of reading Wildstorm’s Welcome to Tranquility has been the “classic” back-up comics and ads the writer and artist throw in. They are always drawn in the style of the time, so the Western comic that is supposed to be from the 1960s is drawn, inked, and colored to look just like a 1960s Western comic — and the psychedelically pastel colored Scooby Doo pastiche is uncannily similar to the real thing. These stories are thrown in mostly for fun, but also to fill the readers in on the characters’ back stories, as well as to give the characters a palpable sense of history, as Tranquility is a town populated by retired super-heroes and villains.

The recent Welcome to Tranquility #11 throws in a cartoon style PSA starring Minxy Millions, at the time “America’s Youngest Flyer,” an all but senile aviatrix in the comic’s current time line.

Click on the image for a larger version of the ad

Welcome to Tranquility #11 is written by Gail Simone with art by Neil Googe. All those Ks are driving me krazy and giving me konniptions, not to mention a kluster headak.

More PSAs

Tags: comics psa welcome to tranquility kite gail simone neil googe

Back in 1994, one of DC Comic’s house ads reimagined their upcoming releases as television shows and presented them in a TV Guide style format. The best part was that they supplied casting information for the characters using popular actors and actresses of the day including Grant Show (Cosmic Boy), Jason Patric (Blue Beetle), Madeline Stowe (Nightshade), Christian Slater (Guy Gardner), and others. Looking through the listing, the only show that I absolutely have to see would be Green Lantern #50 just to see Paul Williams as Ganthet (though John Goodman as Killowog is tempting as well).

Click on the Legion of Super-Heroes listing for the full schedule, or click here

Found in Supergirl (1994 mini-series) #3.

Tags: comics televison dc supergirl

One of my favorite comic book clichés has got to be the traitorous hero who’s really a villain — but whose name makes it so obvious that they’re evil it’s a wonder the heroes never figured it out.

How about Nemesis Kid, who was accepted into the Legion of Super-Heroes but turned out to be a villain?

Then there is the Martian Manhunter’s brother Ma’alefa’ak. C’mon, his name means evil

Or how about Sinestro? Why did the Guardians ever think a guy named Sinestro would be a force for good?

My favorite example of this cliché is the villain from Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #91, where the gang leader named “Mr. Traitor” is — surprise, surprise — a traitor, and the entire gang is shocked at this fact.

Script by Paul Levitz, Pencils by Keith Giffen

As suggested by various commentators in the previous post, here is a perfect example of the “Surgical Precision” style of taking down an enemy from within: in this scene from Legion of Super-Heroes #294 (the concluding chapter of the Great Darkness Saga), Shrinking Violet (well, Yera really) causes a stroke in one of the Servants of Darkness by blocking blood flow in their brain.

Tags: comics medicine brain legion of super-heroes shrinking violet stroke

With all the characters with shrinking powers in comic books, it was only a matter of time before they started shrinking small enough to enter someone’s brain. Most of the time, the miniaturized character enters the brain to cause damage, but sometimes it is done to heal. While most common in the comics, this concept can also be seen in movies (Fantastic Voyage) and television (The Simpsons in their spoof of Fantastic Voyage, Futurama, Astroboy).

Once the shrunken character enters the brain, there are four basic “Styles of Attack”:

1. Crude and Deadly
This style occurs when a miniaturized character blunders haphazardly through the brain itself, doing as much damage as possible along the way. This is best exemplified by Jean Loring’s murder of Sue Dibney during Identity Crisis.
A more recent example had Micromax take out a leader of the Jihad in a similar manner in Marvel Comics Presents #1 (see the image below — that’s Micromax climbing out the ear; I’m not sure what that line is in the background – heart monitor? brain waves? biothythms?). Symptoms he caused included headache and seizure as well as the ubiquitous nose and ear bleeding (and death).

2. Surgical Precision
This style is most often utilized in a curative manner rather than as a weapon. The best example is actually a movie, not a comic book. In Fantastic Voyage, five adventurers and their submarine are shrunken so that they can remove a clot in a Soviet defector’s brain. A good comic book example would be Micronauts #30, where Acroyear, Bug, and Marionette are miniaturized and enter Commander Rann’s brain to cure his coma. They battle and defeat Nightmare and are able to physically unlock hidden areas of the commander’s brain.
Conceivably, precise strikes by a tiny character could also be used to damage specific parts of an enemy’s brain…but I can’t recall any good examples of this.

3. Vague but Effective
This is the most common style. A menacing villain looms up behind the heroes, ready to strike. Suddenly, they collapse in a heap and the Atom/Shrinking Violet/other-tiny-character jumps out of their ear. It’s never explained exactly what they did inside the villain’s brain (Squeezed the blood supply? Caused a seizure? Kicked something important?) — but it sure knocks them out quickly.

4. Haney-style
In the destined-to-be-classic Brave and the Bold #115 (written by Bob Haney, art by Jim Aparo), Batman is electrocuted and rendered brain dead but the Atom is able to enter his brain through the ear and control Batman like a puppet. Sure, it makes no sense anatomically, but then, Haney written titles always followed their own unique science. The Atom also manages somehow to kick-start Batman’s brain again after capturing his murderer and saving the day.

Other Comic Book Diagnoses:
Frozen Solid
Brains! Brains!
Hypertrichosis
Xenografting
De-Aging

Tags: comics medicine brain identity crisis micromax fantastic voyage micronauts atom batman baob haney

Fantastic Four #549 “Reconstruction Chapter 6: So I guess You’re Saying the Honeymoon’s Over”
Dwayne McDuffie
Paul Pelletier

In a memorable and clever scene from Fantastic Four #549, Sue Richards puts the fear of God into the Wizard by threatening his life. More specifically, she threatens to use her powers to block his coronary arteries causing a massive heart attack. (Now is Sue making a real threat, or just bluffing? I leave that up to you).

Click