Polite Dissent

JSA #62 Redemption Lost, part 3
Geoff Johns, writer
Don Kramer and Tom Mandrake, pencilers

After a battle with the Spirit King, Mr. Terrific collapses and stops breathing. Dr. Mid-Nite and Hourman rush him into the nearby medical clinic.

Hourman: Is he–?
Dr. Mid-Nite: Breathing again. His pulse is fluttering. He’s having a heart attack.

There appears to be a common misconception here. Heart attacks and cardiac arrhythmias (bad heart rhythms) are two entirely different things. A heart attack is caused by the death of part of the heart muscle, and an arrhythmia is caused by a problem in the conduction of the heartbeat itself. Both can be fatal. Bad heart rhythms don’t cause heart attacks, but heart attacks can sometimes cause bad rhythms.

Dr. Mid-Nite pulls out the defibrillator and shocks Mr. Terrific’s heart back into a normal rhythm, but this does nothing for the underlying heart attack. Other than placing Mr. Terrific on oxygen, Dr. Mid-Nite never treats the heart attack itself (no aspirin, no nitrates, no beta-blockers, and no “clot-buster” drugs). Ideally, Dr. Mid-Nite should be treating both the arrhythmia and the heart attack.

Lingering concerns:

1. If his “pulse is fluttering”, why is the heart monitor showing a flatline? Any rhythm strong enough to create a pulse would be visible on the monitor.
2. The nasal cannula is drawn much better than normal (almost correctly).
3. I’m unclear on why Mr. Terrific was having a heart attack in the first place. He was attacked by the Spirit King (using the Flash’s body), but he managed to get his own licks in at the end of the fight. The Spectre intervenes, and suddenly Mr. Terrific is unconscious in Hourman’s arms. Was there a clot? Was it the trauma? He did receive a solid blow to the upper chest, could this have ruptured some coronary arteries? Or was it John’s incorrect assertion that a cardiac arrhythmia (most likely caused by trauma) caused aheart attack?
4. I hope the JSA has good health insurance. Mr. Terrific is the second member to suffer a heart attack. Dr. Mid-Nite himself experienced one in JSA #19 after looking into Johnny Sorrow’s face. At least they both healed quickly.

On the non-medical side, I felt this issue was a bit of a let down. The two issues leading up this had been strong, and the zombie attack was (of course) great. Having the Spirit King possess Jay Garrick again and then attacking the new Mr. Terrific was a stroke of genius. Then the issue ends with a deus ex machina courtesy of the Spectre. I’m not fond of deus ex machina in my comics, but if it’s going to happen, it should be because of someone on the team, not a visiting player. Ultimately, the JSA served no purpose in the story arc other than getting themselves beat up.