Black Widow #4: A Medical Review

January 15th, 2005

Filed under: Comics, Medicine

cover, Black Widow #4Black Widow #4 “Part 4: No Place Like Home”
Richard K. Morgan, witer
Gorlan Parlov and Bill Sienkiewicz, artists

After the previous issue, I found myself enjoying the mystery and flavor of this mini-series. I was looking forward to learning more about the hormone Medusagen as the story progressed. Sadly, the plot stalls in issue #3 and all momentum is lost.

I also wonder how Black Widow fans will take the news that she is not the Black Widow, but instead a Black Widow, only one of many. You’d think that Natasha, with all her vaunted investigative skills, would have figured out this basic fact by now.

bottle of pillsMy biggest problem with Black Widow #4 was the return on the “Military Strength Pain Killer” from issue #2. As I noted last time, the entire notion is absurd. Soldiers do not suffer more pain than everyone else. If anyone suffers the most severe pain, it’s cancer patients, not military members. The military pharmacy is also much more restrictive than a civilian pharmacy; fewer drugs are available and side effects are closely monitored. (Think about if from the capitalist point of view as well. If I’m a drug company and I’ve developed a super pain killer, I’ll make billions more on the open market than in a restrictive deal with the government.)

This issue, we actually get to see the bottle of pills. “Phenoany-,” the label reads. “Military Grade Extreme High Potency Pain Killer. Caution! Use as Directed.” It then goes on to list side effects: “[liv]er damage, headache, insomnia, [bl]urred vision, nerve damage, [???] hands and feet, nausea, [??? unintelligible], [bl]oody nose, thyroid damage.”

So the military is going to give its soldiers a pain killer that causes headaches (which kind of defeats the whole purpose of a pain killer) and blurred vision? The last thing the military wants is a soldier who can’t see (and has a headache and bloody nose).

I’m also interested to know where she got the bottle. It doesn’t resemble a pharmacy stock bottle or label. It looks more like an over the counter drug bottle, but no over the counter medication would be that dangerous. Maybe she picked it up in Moscow pharmacy…in the drugs-written-in-English section.

6 Responses to “ Black Widow #4: A Medical Review ”

  1. matthew rossi
    January 16th, 2005 at 2:13 pm

    Out of curiosity, how is the military likely to unethically act, medically speaking? What are the things that the military would be most likely to want to use drugs for? I remember being part of a trial being run in DC (at Walter Reed, I believe) when I lived there testing the effects of anti-anesthetic drugs on sleep deprivation, and I know that was being done by the Army, right around the time I first heard of the Air Force giving pilots amphetamines… if writers are going to concoct these kinds of plots, what would be most credible?

  2. Scott
    January 16th, 2005 at 2:38 pm

    Good question. Here’s a quick answer (let me see if I can come up with a better one later): The military is most likely to push the envelopeon known drugs. They’ll take drugs that are common and whose side-effects are known and push the dose or duration (for instance amphetamines). The most common areas the military would be involved in these activities would be “go pills” (amphetamines again), immunizations, and bio-terror (i.e. nerve gas and biological agent) treatment.

  3. Johnny Bacardi
    January 16th, 2005 at 6:20 pm

    Unless I’m mistaken, and that’s hardly a given with Marvel’s gnarly continuity these days, Natasha should be aware that she’s one of many Black Widows. She’s probably the best, and one of the few to defect. In fact, one of her successors (the blonde Yelena Belova) has had three miniseries devoted to her, two of which guest starred Ms. Romanov. I’m a bit of a fan of the Yelena Widow, and she doesn’t seem to be in this, which is why I didn’t buy it…

  4. Scott
    January 16th, 2005 at 10:51 pm

    I thought Yelena was supposed to be a “replacement” for Natasha after she defected to the West. This mini-series is the first I’ve heard that there were more Widows than just the two of them…a “Black Widow Corps”, if you will.

  5. Johnny Bacardi
    January 17th, 2005 at 3:01 pm

    Hm. Perhaps I commented too soon! I remembered that Yelena was a replacement, but I seemed to recall that she was part of a training program and perhaps my mind led me to think that she was one of several aspirants. Oh well, guess I should dig those older books out one of these days.

  6. Closp
    October 15th, 2006 at 7:10 am

    Hi,

    The concept of military issue stuff is dear to Morgan; uses it a lot in his SF books.
    Concerning supposedly special and highly effective painkillers, the idea is to keep
    the wounded and suffering soldier going, so that he can accomplish his mission. Side effects,
    even deadly in the long term, are not to be taken into account in such conditions provided
    they don’t cripple the soldier further more - ,which would indeed be in that cas pointless -
    in mission time. A wounded, much suffering soldier is close to useless, and probably doomed.
    So there is nothing to loose in having him take medication that can keep him going a little bit
    even if it kills him ultimately. It may gain him a few hours, enough time to reach target
    and accomplish mission - or help others do it.
    “headeaches” is indeed a little bit upsetting…but a bullet would in the bowels
    is extremely painful and crippling, and I guess the soldier concerned would rather experience a nasty
    headache rather that feel the bullet wound…
    Again, the whole idea is that the guy has nothing to loose at that stage if he wants to stay operational a liitle longer.
    Why shouldn’t they try and market it? Oh, come on, is the American DAF such a bunch of
    bad people as to authorize such a drug the purpose of which is to keep teh patient going for
    a few hours at most - without taking into account the side effects ? There are plenty of drugs
    that could help you in teh short term and kill you dreadfully in the long term. That cannot
    be prescribed by your physician, can it? ;-)
    Sorry if I tend to say that soldiers are considered … dispensable by their hierarchy
    because that’s exactly what they are in mission time. Success is the only factor taken into account.
    Well, that may be cynicism…;-))

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