Polite Dissent

Matthew Clark and the gang from the forums over at Broken Frontier had some questions about The Phantom #1408. He was kind enough to send me a scan of the pages in question, so here we go…

The Phantom has been shot! The doctor has managed to remove two bullets from the Phantom’s chest, but one remains in his neck, compressing the spinal cord.

Doctor: [The bullet] sits in the back of his neck, embedded in his spinal column and is pressing against the nerves in his spine! That’s why I’ve dared not remove it….!
…Which means he remains in a coma – and the bullet will affect his central nervous system!

Doctor: The bullet in his neck is not lodged firmly! Which means it could move and press even harder on the nerves in his spine! If the bullet isn’t removed he could die within a few days!

The brain and brainstem control the basic functions of life (heartbeat, breathing, level of consciousness, etc.), not the spinal cord. Thus a bullet impinging upon the spinal cord would not cause a coma – it would take an injury to the brain for that to happen*. An injured spinal cord may cause paraplegia** or quadriplegia – depending on how much of the spinal cord is compromised. Additionally, the bullet further impacting the spinal cord would not cause death “within a few days,” but instead a more severe paralysis.

A few other thoughts:

1. Admittedly, I missed precisely how the Phantom got shot, but it seems strange that he was shot twice in the front (the chest), and once in the back (the neck). Hopefully the story explains this.
2. Comic book medicine seems to occur at 90 angles. Look at the beautiful right angle the bullet makes with the spine in the x-ray (or for another example, consider the perfect footprints in Sue Dibny’s brain in Identity Crisis). In real life, medicine rarely happens at right angles.
3. Looking at the x-ray, it amazes me that the bullet has pierced the vertebra to injure the spinal cord, yet no bone fractures or fragments are seen on the x-ray.
4. If the Phantom has an unstable spinal injury in the neck, why isn’t he in a cervical collar?
5. Unless my eyes deceive me, they’ve placed the chest leads on top of his costume.

*A coma can be caused by other things besides injuries including shock, blood loss, stroke, chemical imbalances, poisons and so on — but all of these cause comas by exerting their effect on the brain.

**”The Ghost who Wheels” just doesn’t have the same ring.***

***Apologies for the tacky un-PC humor, it just slipped out.