Polite Dissent

Med Blogs Grand Rounds XXIII is up at Intueri. Grand Rounds is the weekly compilation of the best of medical blogging. As always, there’s some excellent articles (and a very clever set up), so check it out!

I knew it was going to be a bad episode when they pulled out the Ouija board in the first five minutes.

The patient is a twelve-year old boy who presented to the hospital with a week-long history of a fever, respiratory symptoms and a rash. Various kinds of the atypical pneumonia were considered, including Legionnaires’ disease and chlamydial pneumonia. Several jokes are bandied about concerning twelve year-old boys and sex, and the patient gets a sexual history taken. But wait a minute! Chlamydia pneumoniae, a common cause of atypical pneumonia, is a completely different from the sexually transmitted form of chlamydia (C. trachomatis). Any infectious disease expert, and even a medical student, should know that simple fact.

The team discovers that the patient has developed anthrax, which they claim would explain both his rash and respiratory symptoms — except that cutaneous (skin) anthrax and inhalational anthrax are two different and distinct forms of the disease that don’t cross over. The skin infection makes sense considering the opening scene of the episode where he fell on an infected piece of insulation, but suggesting he somehow breathed in enough spores at the same time to cause the lung infection is hard to believe. Furthermore, ciprofloxaxin (Cipro) is still the preferred drug for anthrax, not Levaquin (although Levaquin is suspected to work against anthrax).

The patient begins to develop symptoms that go beyond anthrax. The team looks at a variety of additional diagnoses including various autoimmune diseases and neurofibromatosis. They obtain manyfancy tests (which they run themselves, with no help from people who are actually trained in the procedures), but they tell nothing. As usual, they place him on some particularly powerful and risky treatments based on little evidence. The treatments seem to help a tiny bit at first, but then he begins to lose control of his hand. Ultimately the true diagnosis is made: leprosy. Apparently the patient had dormant leprosy which made him more susceptible to the anthrax which in turn reactivated the leprosy.

There is also an underlying theme of father/son relationships in this episode, contrasting the relationship of the patient and his father to Dr. Chase and his father.

One last question: How did Dr. Chase’s father, an Australian rheumatologist, get credentialed to act as a physician in the hospital that quickly? Does he have a New Jersey medical license? How did the California doctor get similar privileges so quickly in that Episode 9?

The medical mystery this episode earns a C, but the leprosy solution brings the score up to a B. The actual medicine is pretty poor with too many freshmen mistakes and earns a C-. The side plots earn a C, they were just average.

Reading through the Hawkman Archives, Volume 2 last night, I was amazed by how often the writer used alliterative nicknames to refer to the character. Hawkman was described severel times each issue as the winged warrior, the aerial ace, and (my favorite) the pinioned paladin.

I know comics have gotten away from captions, but I miss the days of those great names.

Firestorm #55 and #56 occur during the “Legends” cross-over event. These are the only Legend books I’ve read, and it doen’t appear that I’ve missed much. When even the talented John Ostrander can’t make the comics exciting, the crossover couldn’t have been that good.

As the story starts, Firestorm is battling the atomic monster Brimstone, and doing a very bad job of it. The monster drops a building on the Justice League (the Vibe and Gypsy League, so no great loss), shrugs off everything Firestorm throws at it and flies off into space, but not before flattening a city block, killing thousands of people. Flying home, Firestorm discovers that Pittsburgh is full of protestors and the President has ordered all superheroes to stand down. Professor Stein is happy to oblige, but Ronnie isn’t going to give up being Firestorm that easily.

The next day, a group of fanatics are burning super-hero books outside the Vandemeer library. Ronnie wants to change into Firestorm and stop them, but the Professor refuses. Ronnie changes into Firestorm anyway and finds that while he may be Firestorm, he doesn’t have access to most of his powers. He falls into the bonfire and becomes an easy target of the rioters.

Luckily , Hank Hall just happens to be inside the library. According to the story, he’s at Vandemeer University with the Eldon University football team to play a football game. Sure, Eldon University is in Oregon and Vandemeer is in Pennsylvania, but that doesn’t matter when you’re a member of the FCAC*. Still, Hank in a library, voluntarily…the mind boggles**.

Hank changes into Hawk and rushes out, dispersing the fanatics and giving Firestorm the chance to save himself. Professor Stein is incensed and vows never to become Firestorm again.

That evening, Hawk breaks into the ROTC building and helps himself to a bunch of guns and live ammunition. A group of pro-hero fanatics is there with the same idea, so they join up with Hawk and head out to the library.

The anti-hero fanatics are attacking the library, but Hawk and his fanatics are defending it. Both groups are well armed. The police move in as well and a deadly gun battle is just minutes away. Across campus, Ronnie apologizes to the Professor and they agree to become Firestorm once again, but only for passive activities. Firestorm uses his powers to change the guns into water pistols and the bullets into flowers. Next he uses his powers to turn the standoff into one giant slapstick pie fight. No, really; I’m not making this up. The police arrest the anti-hero fanatics and Hawk stalks off, furious at being embarrassed. Firestorm retires for the evening, a job well-done.

A good use of Hawk, showing his fanatacism without beating the reader over the head with it. The pie fight was pure genius, but I keep coming back to the scene of Hawk in a library — that part just seems out of character for Hank.

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*FCAC…The Fictional College Athletic Conferece, featuring such athletic powerhouses as Empire State, Metropolis University, Faber, Vandemeer, Eldon University and Knox State College (UC Sunnydale was dropped from the conference due to a precipitous decline in enrollment).

**Hank makes up for it in the Hawk & Dove mini-series (1988) when he blows up the Georgetown University library and no one bats an eye.

I have no idea what’s going on with my archives. Trying to fix the problem as you read this. Keep your fingers crossed.

UPDATE: Somehow, my .htaccess file had been rewritten (undoubtedly my fault as I was messing around with hotlink protection today and that probably threw it off), so I fixed it. I also took the opportunity to upgrade to WordPress 1.5. As you can see (and Tangognat warned me), the stylesheet’s been thrown off, but I’ll fix that later tonight. I’m just happy that the archives are working.

UPDATE: Restored the classic “Polite Dissent style”…more or less. I’ll probably try out some style changes over the weekend.

It’s time to take a look at the various searches that brought people to Polite Dissent in the month of February. The bizarre things that people search for never cease to amaze me — and it’s even more amazing that these searches somehow brought them here.

the ifle tower in paris - I’m not surprised that Eiffel was spelled wrong (I had to look it up myself), but that so many people spelled it wrong. Was it the same person searching multiple times? Or many people without a dictionary?

busty women - Well, comic books are certainly full of them. Which is strange when you really think about it. Professional athletes are all “non-busty” and one would think super-heroines would follow the same body patterns. The way most of them are drawn, they’ll put out an eye before they ever apprehend a crook.

kitty pryde agent of shield review - It’s bad.

wkrp dvd - Tom explains it better than I ever could.

rattlesnake bite symptoms - First, there’s a very angry legless reptile attached to your leg. Then there’s the bite marks, swelling, pain. Oh just go here to look it up!

superman leprosy x - I actually haven’t covered this topic yet, but don’t worry, it’s coming up. Look for Virus X and Kryprtonian Leprosy during my All Superman Week (which should be the last week of March).

best neurosurgeon in the world - Hush, of course.

echinacea enzite - “What are ‘alternative medicine treatments’ that don’t work, Alex.”

gregory house medical ethics - I don’t think he has any.

gor parody - Is this what you are looking for?

time travel conundrum - For short stories, I prefer Heinlein’s “By His Bootstraps”. For novels, The Anubis Gates /strong>, by Tim Powers, is best.

acronym for brat - Bananas, Rice, Apples/applesauce, Toast. It’s a good diet to help recover from diarrhea.

worst science fiction movie - I vote for Robinson Crusoe on Mars

bruce wayne hairdresser - One of the more underappreciated Elseworlds specials. I particularly like the scene in the beginning when a wig flies in through the window of Wayne Manor and Bruce announces, “I shall become…a hairdresser.”

kim possible voice talent senior junior - Señor Senior Junior is voiced by Nestor Carbonell. He also played the father on this week’s episode of House.

249 - Why is somebody just searching for a number. There have got to be hundreds of results.

dana delaney naked - I recommend renting Exit to Eden. It’s a horrible movie from a horrible Anne Rice book, but at least it’s got Dana Delaney naked.

spaghetti and meatballs skin disease - Tinea versicolor. “Spaghetti and Meatballs” is how skin scrapings from a person with TV looks under a microscope.

(And of course, there were the usual searches for Dave Trampier, Wormy, Yamara, Delusional Parasitosis, Pica, Bwana Beast and Zatanna porn.)

• “I’m on that little white pill, you know which one I mean.”
  There are hundreds of little white pills, and that’s not even counting all the generics out there. In our clinic, we ask patients to bring their prescriptions (and non-prescription medications) in with them at every visit. It’s amazing how often they’re taking meds we don’t know about, especially when they’re seeing specialists.
• “I was running a fever of 99° last night.” Or its close cousin: “I know my daughter was running a fever because she felt warm.”
  Please get a thermometer (there are many easy-to-read and inexpensive thermometers out there now), and let me know if the temperature is over 101°, or 99°-100° daily for several days. I don’t care how low you think your body temperature is normally, nothing else is a fever.
• “Oh, by the way Doctor, I’ve been having some chest pain.”
  This is always said as the patient is halfway out the door at the end of the appointment.
  (As an aside, I’ve noticed that the patients coming in explicitly for chest pain rarely have a cardiac condition; it’s the patients that that are reluctant to admit they have chest pain who have the bad hearts.)
• “I was taking some antibiotics I had left-over…”
  This is wrong, wrong, wrong. First, taking antibiotics willy-nilly is never a good idea, and is a perfect way of causing antibiotic resistance. Second, there should never be “left-over” antibiotics. This shows that the patient didn’t follow the instructions last time they were put on antibiotics (which is another excellent cause of resistance).
• “I need a note for work excusing me for the past week.”
  The patient’s been sick and off work (or school) for a week and now needs a note to excuse all those days. How can I honestly say this patient was sick that whole time if I didn’t see them? I’ll sign a note saying they were in that day and cleared to go back to work, but that’s it unless I know them very well or there’s been some telephone communication.
  (Bear in mind, I’m not asking patients to come in with every little cough or cold, but if it’s severe enough to need a note for school or work, then the person need to be seen)
• “Can you fill out this paperwork right now?”
  There are so many reasons patients need letters or forms filled out: disability, worker’s comp, insurance, and FMLA just to name a few. All of these take time. I need to get the chart, look through it for the pertinent information and then fill out the form/write the letter. It will take at least a day or two to find the time to do this; don’t expect it immediately. If it’s vitally important, bring it in several days early; don’t tell me, “I need this for court tomorrow.”
  And please don’t bring in a letter you’ve written for me to sign. While I appreciate the fact that you’re trying to help, I am very particular about what my name is on.
• “My son needs a sports physical, the doctor saw him last week for a cold, so he should just be able to fill out the form.”
  In a word, no. When someone is in for a sick visit, the focus is on the acute illness. Physicals require an entirely different mind set. In addition, most of our sports and school physicals also require lab work, a visual acuity exam, and resting and post-exercise heart rates – tests we don’t perform on routine visits.
  If a parent is real aggressive about this, I tell them that I’ll be happy to fill out the form, but it’ll reflect exactly what I saw on the exam and as a result the patient may not be cleared for sports. This usually solves the problem.
• “I need the drug that I saw on TV.”
  The only thing harder than trying to persuade someone they need a drug is trying to persuade them that they don’t need a drug. Unfortunately, drug ads are too effective and patients come in demanding drugs for a problem they don’t have (or a problem where cheaper drugs will work just as well). A long frank talk is the best way to correct this problem, but it is time consuming and very draining. Alternately, I find that telling the patients the actual cost for their “wonder drug” work pretty well much of the time too.
• “But Doctor, I do exercise; I walk at work.”
  While it’s true that every little bit of exercise helps, if someone is truly concerned about losing weight or increasing their cardiovascular health they need sustained exercise. That means 20-30 minutes in a row of aerobic exercise at least three days a week.
• “I know the appointment is just for me, but my son is sick as well…”
  I admit it; I’m a sucker for this one and fall for it almost every time. There are some patients that do this at every appointment, so I set aside extra “family” time when I see their name on my schedule.

Today’s Lois Lane Friday is actually going to focus on Lana Lang with the imaginary* story “The Day Superman Married Lana Lang” from Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #26 (July 1961). Kurt Schaffenberger pencils the story, but it’s not clear who scripted it, possibly Jerry Siegel. The story is also reprinted in 80-Page Giant #3.

Lana Lang spies Clark Kent changing into Superman and deduces once and for all that Clark is Superman. She confesses the truth to him and asks him to use his super-hypnotism to erase the secret from her mind. With that request, Superman realizes how generous Lana is and discovers that he is in love with her.

They get married soon after and Superman flies Lana to his Fortress of Solitude. While there, he gives her a special serum to drink. This serum “containing a speck of the rare element, korium-66-beta, will give you super-powers because you have blood-type A! It wouldn’t work for Lois because she has blood-type O!”

To my knowledge, this is the first mention of Lana’s blood-type. Lois’s type O blood was also mentioned in Lois Lane #106 . However, Superman #125 mentions that Lois has a “rare blood type” which doesn’t make sense because type O blood is the most common type (in the U.S., anyway). Continuity was never much of a sticking point in the Silver Age.

Lana and Superman move to a floating estate and have adventures as Mr. and Mrs. Superman. As luck would have it, Lana is immune to kryptonite because she got her powers from the serum. She rescues Superman several times from crooks that have the green element, and he falls into a depression because no man like his wife to save him, right? Right?

An exposure to red kryptonite drives Superman mad and it takes all of Super-Lana’s abilities to stop him from destroying Metropolis. After that, she packs her bags and flies off into space forever, knowing that he’ll never be able to live with his lack of self-respect and her pity.

Sniff, sniff. Thank goodness it’s just an imaginary tale. I’ve never seen Superman look this pathetic before. Swallow your pride, man! And Lana pities him because he can’t handle Kryptonite? He never could in the first place, and you loved him then! Good grief!! Where’s a good marriage counselor when you need one?

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*not “imaginary” as in I made it up, but “imaginary” as in what DC called its Elseworlds and “What If” style stories during the Silver Age.

Ultimate Iron Man #1
Orson Scott Card, writer
Andy Kubert, penciler

Goaded by Gordon’s post, I decided to take a stab at Ultimate Iron Man #1 earlier than I had originally planned. After reading through the issue (and enjoying the art), I found it an interesting premise. Premise, you’ll note, not story. Tony Stark, the main character of the series, doesn’t even show up, unless en utero counts, so I hesitate in calling it an actual “story”.

The two main medical/biological aspects of the plot I found far-fetched, but not impossible.

First, there is the bacterial armor that can block low speed impacts and oxidize metal. Unfortunately, it starts eating away at the wearer’s skin in an hour or two and would work only in very short wars. (So why doesn’t the person wear a wetsuit and spray the armor on top of that?)

In regards to this armor, a couple of related thoughts occurred to me:
1) The armor can’t affect gold, because the comic tells us that gold can’t be oxidized (although it can, just very inefficiently). So the armor is powerless against aome aspects of the color yellow… just like the Silver Age Green Lantern.
2) While the armor could block a blunt attack from a baseball bat, it wouldn’t block a quick stabbing attack from a stake. So the armor is susceptible to wood…just like the Golden Age Green Lantern (and probably susceptible to errant vampire slayers too).

Second, Dr. Maria Stark develops a regeneration virus that causes the growth of nerve tissue. In adults, this causes problems because there is nowhere for this tissue to grow. However, she states that the virus affects fetuses differently and that this neural tissue will grow throughout their body, not just the in the brain itself.

I can understand how this growth would lead to problems in adults, causing the brain to enlarge when there’s no room in the skull for it to expand. Pain and neurological problems would occur, and probably psychiatric ones too, just like the script shows.

However, in fetuses and infants, the skull has not sealed shut and the brain would have room to grow. I find it more likely that you’d have a kid with a giant brain and misshapen skull than a child with extra brain scattered throughout their body.

Running with that thought, having more brain doesn’t necessarily make you smarter. Humans are — arguably, to some — the smartest creatures on the planet, but we don’t have the largest brains. Additionally, the brains of certain geniuses have been weighed (after their death, of course) and found to be no larger than normal brains*. I don’t think the size of the brain would change the speed much either — a nerve impulse travels the same speed in any individual. People who are quicker on their feet are probably just wired more efficiently.

As a final point, I have some concerns about Maria choosing not to take pain medication because of the drug’s affects on her unborn child. This is certainly a valid concern, and pain medications administered to the mother definitely affect the fetus. Depending on how far along she is, and what drugs are used, the affects may be temporary or permanent. On the other hand, the severe pain she is experiencing is raising her blood pressure which can compromise the blood flow to the placenta and child. Which is the bigger risk? It depends on the situation, so I just throw this out there as food for thought.

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*I know this is anecdotal evidence and not a well-designed prospective study, but it’s the best we’re going to get in this area.

It seems that many words have been lost during the evolution of the English language. Remains of these words are still around, as roots for suffixes and prefixes. However, outside of a few linguists and English majors, nobody remembers the main word let alone ever uses it in a sentence.

• We all know the word impervious, but what about pervious? As in, “Gee Bob, your cheesecloth armor sure was pervious.”
• There are many ruthless people, but are there any people with ruth? (No, not people named Ruth.)
• Best summed up in a line from Private Benjamin: “Beware … there are mine fields out there. Most of them are inert. However, some of them are [pause , with a confused look] ert.”
• I’ve been overwhelmed (and even underwhelmed), but I’ve never been just plain whelmed.

What others are out there?

This one is fairly straight-forward and is mostly for the non-physician readers — just to see if they’ve been paying attention.

A 17 year-old male comes into the clinic Friday afternoon complaining of pain and swelling along the outer aspect of his right hand. It seems that early the week before he had gotten into an argument with his girlfriend and, out of frustration, punched the wall.

X-rays were obtained (sorry for the poor quality of the scan, this is my first time trying to scan an x-ray).

What is the diagnosis?

Hint: Read the review of Birds of Prey #78

Answer: (highlight with mouse to read) Boxer’s Fracture Here’s an annotated version of the x-ray. Here’s a brief article on the injury.

Flipping through the channels yesterday, I came across one of the great science fiction movies of the early seventies: Westworld. Its combination of evil robots, western gunfighters, and Yul Brynner make it a perfect “guilty pleasure movie.”

For those of you not familiar with the movie, in the not too distant future, a large corporation owns a private island with three exclusive theme parks: Romanworld, Medievalworld and Westworld. Vacationers, paying $1000 dollars per day, take on the role of heroes in these theme parks, interacting with lifelike robots. Special safety protocols are in place to make the parks as realistic as possible, but safe for visitors.

Peter Martin (Richard Benjamin) and his friend (James Brolin) travel to Westworld for a Wild West vacation. At first, everything is going great. Martin is challenged to a duel and manages to gun down the robotic town bully (played by Yul Brynner). Unfortunately, things go wrong and the safety protocols break down. The robots go renegade and Martin finds himself being hunted by Brynner’s robot.

Exclusive theme park on a private island where things go from bad to worse – sound familiar? Sound like Jurassic Park? Well that’s no surprise as Michael Crichton wrote and directed Westworld twenty years before he got around to writing Jurassic Park. (And it’s also the basis of a Simpsons episode – the one in Itchy & Scratchy land where the robot mice and cats go berserk.)

Med Blogs Grand Rounds XXIV is up over at Hospice Blog! Check it out to see the best in medical blogging and reporting over the past week.

This week’s episode of House was “Occam’s Razor,” a repeat of the third episode. It’s one of the better episodes and it’s the first episode when the Young Guns’ personalities start showing through.

My original review can be found here.

I also note the Hugh Laurie, the eponymous Dr. House, is set to play Perry White inthe new Superman movie. Bryan Singer, the director of the new Superman flick is one of the producers of House, so it makes sense. House has shown that Laurie has a good dramatic range; still, I have a hard time looking at him and not thinking of Black Adder…

Best ad on TV currently: This one’s actually been on for a while — the GE Healthcare where the neurosurgeon states, “We have to get back to the ship” and the rest of the OR team just stares at him. Any ad that references the classic sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage get my attention. Now if someone would just make an ad with the line, “Gort, Klaatu barada nikto”*

A close second is the new Burger King ad with Darius Rucker singing about the Bacon Cheddar Ranch to the tune of Big Rock Candy Mountain. It’s cheesy as hell, but it never fails to crack me up (especially the full version, with the dancing “Ranch Dressing Girls”).

Worst ad on TV currently: Obscure, unless you watch NASCAR. It’s the animated Coca-Cola spot. The characters are so generic you can’t tell which driver each character is supposed to represent. I suspect that this is purposeful; when the ad was drawn, Coke probably didn’t know which drivers they would sponsor. It makes for a very tedious thirty seconds.

A close second and a perpetual “least favorite” of mine are those ads for Total cereal. You know the ones I’m talking about: “You would have to eat fourteen bowls of Wholewheat Captain Crisp to equal the nutrition of one bowl of Total.” Breakfast is only one meal. No one says your breakfast cereal has to contain every essential vitamin and mineral — there’s still lunch and dinner (and snacks. Mmmm…snacks). It’s called a “balanced diet” for a reason.

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*What’s sad is that I actually knew the line and didn’t even have to look it up

The Question #4 “Devils’s in the Details, part 4: Inside Out”
Rick Veitch, writer
Tommy Lee Edwards, penciler

The Question #4 brings up two interesting medical situations in just the first few pages. Organs are being sold on the Black Market in the first scene, and just a few pages later, Superman himself talks to the Question about heart beats.

Unethical Doctor: Caucasian. Twenty-two years old. Blood type AB. Deceased four hours and 16 minutes ago.

Organ transplantation requires more than just identical blood types. The donor and recipient need to match in several additional genetic markers. Having the same blood type is not nearly enough.

Once removed from the body, organs are very fragile. That’s one of the reasons they are not removed until the last minute and are transported very carefully. It’s also one of the reason transplant organizations are based regionally, not nationally: to cut back on transport time. It is doubtful that organs sitting in a morgue for 4 hours would be viable.

Superman: To me, every human pulse is as individual as a fingerprint.

I suspect that Superman means heartbeat, since the “lub dub” of the beating heart tells a great deal more information than the beat of the pulse (and the pulse varies depending on which artery you measure it in).

Even with that caveat, I doubt that heart beats are unique to each individual. There’s no science here, just gut instinct.

Still, let’s go with the story and say that heart beats are unique. Even with that, it is still doubtful that Superman would be able to pick a particular person out of a crowd by their heartbeat. Fingerprints don’t change over time, but heart beats certainly do. They not only change from year to year, but from minute to minute. The heart rate speeds up and slows down based on hundreds of factors including the time of day, how awake the person is, medications, hormones, fluid status (dehydration, for example) and variety of other stresses. Heart beats also change over the years – heart valves get tighter or get floppier and murmurs can come and go, improve or worsen. A heart attack can knock out part of the heart, changing the beat. As another example, it is my experience that nearly every pregnant woman at nine-months along has a heart murmur. (Pregnancy is a fluid-overload state, so it makes it easier to hear subtle murmurs that may have been hidden before.) It’s reasons like this that I doubt Superman could find a person based on their “unique” heart beat because it wouldn’t be consistent enough from moment to moment to find.

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about drug reps. Last time, I discussed some of their common sales techniques, techniques that I took exception to. Today, I’d like to mention four more tricks of the trade I’ve noticed.

Previously, the techniques I mentioned were industry-wide and many of them could be blamed on the sales information provided by the pharmaceutical home office. This time, I’m looking at techniques used by certain individual reps.

Now, I like drug reps as people, I’m just not fond of them as a profession. You know that unctuous salesman at Circuit City who won’t take no for an answer and follows you around? Now imagine that salesman coming into your office and interrupting you while you’re trying to work. That’s what it’s like.

• False agreements – “Doctor, the last time we talked you agreed to try Gorillastatin on half of your patients with high cholesterol.”
  No, no I didn’t. I would never make such a bone-headed agreement. My patients are not guinea pigs. I will prescribe what I believe to be best for them, not randomly put them on some drug the rep claims is “better.”
  Every day, some rep tries to convince me that I made such an agreement. Each time they do this, they shoot their credibility lower and lower.
• Fake Thanks – “Doctor, I’d like to thank you for increasing your prescribing of Gorillastatin.” As the rep says this, he looks in my eye and gives my hand a good shake.
  I very rarely prescribe the drug in question and certainly haven’t started prescribing it more. Does he think I don’t know my own prescribing habits? Is he trying to convince me that I prescribe it more than I do?
  Back in college, a friend of mine worked as a car dealer. He would tell us about some of the techniques used by dealers to increase sales. One of these techniques was to compliment the condition of the trade-in car, no matter how bad it really was. This seems an awfully lot like that.
• Bring the Boss – Drug reps will often bring their supervisor into the office with them. Human nature being what it is, we want to help people look better in front of their boss, so we pay more attention to what they’re saying. I get a little suspicious when half of the drug reps have their boss with them at any given time.
• Appeal to Authority — “Dr. BigCardiologist uses this cholesterol drug exclusively.” Assuming this statement is true (which it probably isn’t), Dr. BigCardiologist has a much different patient population than mine and different prescribing habits. And haven’t I seen his name listed as a speaker on at some of your dinners? This is no more than a blatant appeal to authority.
  This is often combined with anecdotal evidence on a patient from that office. Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal evidence, no matter whose office it comes from.

In Teen Titans Spotlight #7 and #8, Hawk gets his first solo adventures courtesy of writer Mike Baron and penciler Jackson Guice. They also take a superficial stab at environmental and nuclear issues. While the comics are readable, they show some fundamental misunderstandings about the characters of Hank Hall and Hawk.

As Teen Titans Spotlight #7 begins, Hank Hall arrives in Denver, Colorado to attend an anti-terrorism conference at a local think tank. While at the airport, he is approached by an anti-nuclear protestor who he promptly punches. Talking to the police after the fracas, he explains who he is and why he’s in town. They sternly advise him to refrain from punching people in the future, and conveniently drop the news that there has been a terrorist threat against the local nuclear plant.

At the conference, Hank quickly grows weary of opinions different from his own. He takes a hike in the nearby hills for some fresh air. A National Guard helicopter flies over, warning the people at the conference that terrorists have taken over the nuclear plant. Hank changes into costume, puts together the never-before-seen custom Hawk-glider and flies down into the yard of the power plant.

Scouting around, Hawk discovers an incredible number of insects buzzing around and all the plant personnel dead or unconscious – apparently from insect stings. He also finds one other living person — one of the nuclear protestors he encountered the day before. She explains that she was protesting outside when the terrorists took over, and in all the confusion, she snuck inside to see if she could help (the authorities presumably, but she may have meant the terrorists. It’s not exactly clear). She also explains that she’s wearing insect repellant and that’s why she hasn’t been bitten by the bugs.

Hawk and the girl explore the plant and discover that a giant four-legged insect calling itself “Arachnid” has taken over the plant. Arachnid is a hive mind composed of thousands and thousands of insects living in a symbiotic mass. Arachnid instructs plastic-eating termites to start chewing through the control panels of the plant. Hawk tries to tackle Arachnid, but it just dissolves into its constituent insects and escapes. Luckily, Hawk discovers an electric keyboard in the plant director’s office and manages to find a tone that drives the insects away when played over the PA system.

Hawk and the girl are questioned by the cops, but released when thousands of dead insects are discovered in the plant’s controls. Hawk heads to the hills again to contemplate the recent events. Without warning, Arachnid appears in front of him. The insect-beast explains that while Hawk may have won their first encounter, he believes that the two of them should be able to reach some kind of compromise. He invites Hawk down to South America to meet his “Queen.” Hawk agrees and this sets the plot for the following issue, Teen Titans Spotlight #8.

The art by Guice is quite good. He draws an imposing Hawk, towering above the other characters. The action scenes are well choreographed, and unlike many other artists, he does an excellent job with backgrounds. Guice is ably inked by Larry Mahlstedt who gives him a nice clean line, not the muddy mess that often results when Guice inks himself (Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme anyone?).

The story is an entertaining enough read, but it is clear that Baron does not have a good grasp of Hawk. At several points in the story, Hank is shown physically putting on and taking off the Hawk costume. In another scene he is shown talking to police, his mask and hood off and hanging around his neck. Hawk’s costume does not work this way; it is a magical construct that appears when danger is present and Hank yells “Hawk.” As shown in The Hawk and The Dove #1, the costumes cannot be removed by conventional means. This is a misunderstanding of one of the most basic premises of the character. As a side note, this is also the first (and only) time that Hank is ever shown wearing glasses.

Hank is quite free with his secret identity in this comic. He tells the police who he is, and the other members of the conference know him both as Hank Hall and Hawk. When exploring the nuclear plant he refers to himself as “Judge Hall’s little boy.” This is not consistent with past and future adventures when he is very concerned with is secret identity, particularly where his father is concerned.

Hawk compromising with a terrorist? Never. Gonna. Happen.

Finally, do I even have to say it? A four-legged insect named Arachnid. That is wrong in so many ways.

It’s Friday, so that means it is Lois Lane Day here at Polite DissentThe last day of the workweek can only mean one thing here at Polite Dissent (and I’m not talking about Happy Hour) – Lois Lane Friday! Today’s tale is the first story in Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #27 (and reprinted more affordably in Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #95) titled “Lois Lane’s Super-Brain”. It’s not clear who wrote the script, but the art is by Kurt Schaffenberger.

Lois is interviewing Professor Holt who has invented a Brain Bank. This is a machine that “collects the wisdom and knowledge of great people! It has already absorbed the intelligence of hundreds of famous people.” Lois spends the afternoon interviewing famous scientists and mathematicians and watching them get their knowledge stored in the machine. After the professor leaves, Lois puts the machine on her head to pose for a picture. Unfortunately, she hits the reverse switch and all the knowledge stored in the machine is crammed into Lois’s brain.

The next morning, she wakes up startled to discover that her head has tripled in size and all her hair has fallen out. Even though the effect is only supposed to last for a few days, Lois doesn’t want anyone to know what has happened so she comes up with a series of schemes to hide her gigantic head. Most of her plans are actually quite clever and fun to read.

She decides to hide out in Las Vegas until the effect wears off. While there she helps an unlucky newlywed couple win their money back at the roulette table. To her great dismay, she finds that she has accidentally won the grand prize at the local science fiction convention’s costume contest. To add insult to injury, Bizarro Superman shows up and asks Lois to marry her, since he thinks she is the most beautiful girl on Earth (oops, “he think she am the most beautiful girl”).

Superman shows up a few moments later and reveals that he has known her secret all along. Her head will soon return to normal size, but her hair won’t grow back. Luckily, Superman has a special machine that will allow Lois to regrow her hair. The next morning, Bizarro Superman shows up again but is repulsed by her restored beauty. Lois hugs her picture of Superman now that all is right with the world again .

Assuming for a moment that a greater intelligence results in a larger brain, Lois’s head would still not be able to expand like it did. The skull is actually made up of several different bones. The joints between these bones are known as “sutures”. Early in life, these bones fit together loosely. This is because babies need a flexible skull to fit through the birth canal and to allow for the tremendous growth of the brain in the first two years of life. Adults don’t need as flexible a skull so the sutures begin to fuse and harden starting about age 2. By the time a person reaches adulthood, almost all the sutures have hardened and there is little (if any) ability for the skull to expand in size. If Lois’s brain really did triple in size overnight, her skull would either explode or she’d develop the world’s worst headache followed by a coma and death due to brainstem herniation.

• Lois’s situation is nearly the opposite of Tony Stark in Ultimate Iron Man #1. His neural tissue is increased in size, but unlike Lois his skull is not fixed in size yet. That’s why I suspect he would end up with an enormous head and brain, despite what his mother Maria maintains.
• I don’t accept that smarter people necessarily have bigger brain, as I noted in my Ultimate Iron Man #1 review. Make sure to check out the comments as well, as this issue is addressed by people more knowledgeable than me in this area.
• And before you ask about the Leader, remember the gamma rays! I’m not sure I can explain Hector Hammond, Blockbuster or MODOK.

What I am most amazed by is Superman’s hair growing machine. Surely this wondrous machine would have solved the Lex Luthor problem from the very beginning. I have got to get one of those for my office.

Yet another server problem at the Hosting Company last night that caused this site to be unavailable for several hours. It also caused the loss of some recent data, including yesterday’s Lois Lane post (luckily, I kept a copy).

Some comments may have been lost as well, so if you don’t see yours it doesn’t mean I deleted it, it was probably just lost in the netherworlds of the internet. Please try again.

The same goes for anyone who sent me any e-mail yesterday evening.

When last we left Hank Hall (a.k.a. Hawk) he was heading down to South America to meet the mysterious “Queen of Hives.” Teen Titans Spotlight #8 picks up the action where the previous issue left off. On a remote airfield in an undisclosed South American country, a small plane lands. Hank Hall emerges and meets up with Lupe, a scantily clad teenager who is to guide him to the Queen. Hank and Lupe are accosted by two local soldiers, but Hank easily knocks them both out. He and Lupe then hop in a Land Rover and head deep into the jungle.

Once in the jungle, Hank and Lupe meet up with Arachnid who provides them with a giant beetle to ride deeper into the foliage. The beetle deposits them at the Hive, an ancient Incan ruin. Lupe feeds Hank some hallucinogenic mead that allows him to talk to the insects. She also comes clean and admits that she is the Queen of Hives. Several years before, her village was attacked by soldiers who wanted to burn down her village for the farmland. The only survivor, she ran deep into the jungle. Arriving at the Hive, she met Arachnid and he taught her to talk to the insects. She became the caretaker of the Hive and their Queen.

Lupe tells Hank that the jungle is under attack by developers. They are cutting more of it down every year to make farmland; farmland that is abandoned the following year. She and her insects had been attacking the developers’ men and were able to beat them back, but now the developers have brought in a new weapon, a man who calls himself “The Toxicator” (because — apparently — all the good names were taken).

After a leisurely night with Lupe, Hank changes into Hawk. He straps into the Hawk-Glider and flies to the nearest developer camp. He smashes things up in the camp, but then encounters the Toxicator. The two tussle and the Toxicator sprays Hawk with an extremely poisonous pesticide. Badly wounded, Hawk makes it into the jungle where a giant beetle returns him to the Hive.

After several days of recovery, Hank comes up with a new plan. With Lupe’s help, he collects a swarm of angry bees with a potent hallucinogenic sting. The bees attack the developers’ camp and sting everyone in sight. While everyone is tripping from the hallucinogen, Hawk and Arachnid appear and scare them away, never to return. No really, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried: Hawk, the kill-all-drug-dealers arch-conservative defeats a lame villain and his lackeys with hallucinogenic bees.

He and Lupe then head back into the jungle, presumably to live happily ever after (or at least until Hawk’s next appearance in Booster Gold #16).

When I can on the weekends I tune to my local PBS station to catch “Master Carpenter” Norm Abrams on The New Yankee Workshop. On this show, Norm showcases his incredible talent for carpentry by building some absolutely beautiful wood furniture. Usually, he creates a reprodruction of an antique that has caught his eye, but sometimes he builds something more practical like a workbench or gardening equipment.

The show features everything from glued pieces to wood pieces to turned pieces. Norm clearly knows his stuff. Still, I wish I had half the equipment he does. He has this incredibly large workshop filled with table saws, band saws, jointers, planers, lathes and drill presses. Someday, I aspire to owning just a small fraction of the equipment he uses every week. I wonder how many people can actually build the same furniture he does, even with the plans he provides.

His sense of color worries me too. He’ll build this wonderful wardrobe or china cabinet and then paint it a godawful green or red. Why paint over wood at all?

Still, it’s worth watching just to see how much effort can go into a single piece of furniture.

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.

Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene ii

SOOTHSAYER: Beware the ides of March. CAESAR: What man is that? BRUTUS: A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March. CAESAR: Set him before me; let me see his face. CASSIUS: Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar. CAESAR: What say’st thou to me now? speak once again. SOOTHSAYER: Beware the ides of March. CAESAR: He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass.

Tags: ides of march julius caesar shakespeare

The Twenty-Fifth MedBlogs Grand Rounds is up today over at Orac Knows. He takes an entertaining approach this week, so swing by and check it out. (FYI, yours truly is listed under the “Scrubs” section).

Another week, another episode of House. Though I pick on it every week, never doubt that I enjoy the show. The characters and actors are excellent and the mysteries are clever (even if the medicine isn’t).

A young female CEO comes in with a sudden paralysis of her right leg. A variety of labs and radiological studies are all normal. While on the table for a second angiogram, the patient develops sudden pulmonary edema (which the show confuses with pulmonary effusion. While both can be result from heart failure, the presentation and animation were consistent with pulmonary edema. Sadly, the doctors treated pulmonary effusion – chest tubes and thoracentesis won’t help for pulmonary edema). It turns out that the patient is bulimic and has been abusing ipecac for years. This overuse of ipecac has damaged her muscles (hence the leg pain and paralysis), especially her heart. Dr. House goes before the transplant committee in an attempt to get his patient moved to the top of the list and lies to the committee, telling them that she has no psychiatric issues (when bulimia is a big one).

While there is some medicine, it takes a back seat this episode to the soap opera. Dr. Cameron begins subtly manipulating people to do things her way. Meanwhile, the hospital’s new chief (played ably by Chi McBride) starts unsubtly doing things his way. As usual Drs. House and Wilson debate ethics and one wonders why they stay friends at all.

I’m amazed how fast transplant organs become available on the show. This is the second episode where a transplant organ was available almost immediately after the patient was placed on the list. All I can say if that you’ve signed your organ donor card, I wouldn’t go driving in New Jersey.

For once, the doctors didn’t perform every procedure on their own. Dr. Chase is helped on the first angiogram by a pretty blonde assistant – of course he screws up and scans the wrong leg.

Like many shows, House is full of plot clichés. The first cliché on House was that the standard diagnostic tests could not be used, so the team had to discover some new way of doing the test. Patients had convenient gadolinium allergies and spinal fluid that could only be tested once. Next, there was the cliché that the treatment would either kill the patient or save them. That’s it; all or nothing. This one has been used in almost every episode. The latest plot cliché on House is “Dr. House is the only one to notice blatantly obvious things that no competent physician should have missed.” For instance, Dr. House is the only one to notice the slash marks on the patient? He’s the only one to notice that the mute patient has paralyzed vocal cords? Give me a break.

This episode earns a B for the mystery and another B for the solution. The medicine earns a C (thanks to the pulmonary edema/effusion confusion). The non-medical side plots earn a B+.

Flash #219 “Truth or Dare, part 1”
Geoff Johns, writer
Justiniano, penciler

Ashley Zolomon is discussing the Turtle, a villain who has the power to “steal speed” from people and objects and slow things down:

He put three guards in a coma, caused another’s heart to burst when he slowed the blood flow down.

Could the Turtle cause a coma?
Sure. If he caused the blood entering a person’s brain to slow down enough, toxins would build up and not enough oxygen would be delivered to the tissue. The brain would starve and be poisoned by its own byproducts. This is enough to cause a coma.

Could he cause a heart to explode?
Maybe.

1. Slowing the blood down throughout the body would cause less oxygen to get to organs and tissues, and a corresponding increase in the toxins in these areas. It would definitely be dangerous, but it wouldn’t cause a bursting heart.
2. If the Turtle slowed down the heart itself, the blood pressure throughout the body would actually drop (this is one of the ways the drugs known as beta blockers work). If the pressure dropped too low or the blood was too slow, you’d end up with the same situation described above. Potentially lethal, but not explosive.
3. What if the Turtle slowed down the blood just as it was leaving the heart — basically setting up a roadblock in the aorta? In this situation, the amount of blood in the heart would start to build up as blood was returned to the heart from the body. Could enough blood build up to burst the heart like a balloon? It’s unlikely. With no blood leaving the heart, there would be a drop in the blood pressure throughout the body, and this includes the pressure that is needed to return blood to the heart. There is probably not enough pressure to fill the heart to bursting, particularly since it would take an increasing amount pressure to force more fluid into an already overloaded heart.

   Of course, this is assuming that the guard in question had a healthy heart. If he had a weak heart, particularly one with the heart walls weakened with scarring from an old heart attack, then all bets are off.

We’ve all seen the WWJD bracelets; they’re everywhere. No longer limited to jewelry, there are also WWJD t-shirts and bumper stickers (because if there’s any place I want to get my religion from, it’s the rusted bumper of a Honda accord).

For many people, this isn’t enough. An entirely different role model is needed. Therefore, we here at Polite Dissent have come up with an alternative:
WWDD – What Would Doom Do?

Next time something bad happens to you, take a minute to reflect on what a tyrannical egotistical genius absolute-ruler of a small European nation would do. Just remember: WWDD.

Test your WWDD quotient:

1. You are riding driving in your car when a yuppie driving an SUV abruptly cuts in front of you.
   A) Ignore the peon; yuppies aren’t worth your time.
   B) Speed up, pass him and force him into a ditch.
   C) Follow him until he stops, then get out and patiently explain why cutting you off was not a good idea. Use violence if necessary.
   D) Destroy his vehicle with the heat-seeking missiles you keep hidden under your hood. If the police try to arrest you, claim diplomatic immunity.
2. You get your grande latte and you discover that Starbucks clerk has totally screwed up your order.
   A) Throw the latte in the clerk’s face and complain to the manager.
   B) Buy the franchise and fire every single employee.
   C) Invent a time machine and travel back in time to prevent the clerk from ever having been born.
   D) Team-up with a rogue Atlantean and attack Seattle, submerging it, thus destroying Starbucks forever!
3. The co-worker in the next cubicle is always stealing your stapler and never returning it.
   A) Calmly explain to him the error of his ways. Use violence as appropriate.
   B) Hire a group of grade-B supervillains to retrieve your stapler.
   C) Build a dimensional transporter and send your thieving workmate to the Negative Zone.
   D) Build a technologically superior stapler that always returns to your desk (and delivers a 10,000 volt shock to unauthorized users).
4. Your son flunks his history final and will have to retake the class.
   A) Disinherit your son and exile him from your domain.
   B) Take the time machine from question #2 and go back in time to change history so that your son’s answers are correct.
   C) Your family doesn’t study history…they make history! Send a squad of rampaging robots to destroy the school, and, for good measure, the history teacher’s house.
   D) Threaten the teacher with utter annihilation if he doesn’t let your son retake the test…and pass this time.
5. Every fall, your neighbor dumps his leaves in your yard.
   A) Destroy his trees with missiles from your orbital satellite.
   B) Using an eldritch magic tome best discussed only in whispers, damn the neighbor and his family to the nether regions.
   C) Conveniently “find” some long-lost paperwork proving that you own the land his house is built on.
   D) Kidnap his wife and hold her hostage until he picks up every last leaf in your yard.

Ready to score your WWDD Quotient Quiz?

It’s simple. Find your score for each question, add all 5 scores together and then check the chart to see how you rate.

Question #1 A) 3 points B) 2 points C) 1 point D) 4 points Question #2 A) 1 point B) 2 points C) 4 points D) 3 points Question #3 A) 1 point B) 2 points C) 4 points D) 3 points Question #4 A) 1 point B) 3 points C) 4 points D) 2 points Question #5 A) 3 points B) 4 points C) 2 points D) 1 point

Score 6 or Less You are Doc Samson. A gifted man, but way too touchy-feely. To raise your WWDD quotient, stop caring so much what others think and quit trying to help them “find themselves.” Lose the green hair too.
Score 7-10 You are Hank Pym. A brilliant scientist, but too unstable to become a real hero (or villain). Find a plan and stick to it, stop changing ideas (and identities) and the drop of a hat.
Score 11-15 You are the Wizard. You can almost accomplish what Dr. Doom can, but it takes the help of three others. You rely too much on underlings and need to do more yourself to understand what it is to be Doom.
Score 16-18 You are the Mad Thinker You are almost equal to Doom in genius, but fall short in accomplishments and goals. Keep trying, you’ll get your own country someday.
Score 19 or 20 You are Dr. Doom. You perfectly understand what it takes to be a megalomaniac genius dictator. You have obtained the highest WWDD quotient obtainable following the laws of physics as we know them. Congratulations.
Score Greater than 20 To achieve a score this high, you have either cheated or altered the space-time continuum. Both are perfectly acceptable actions to Dr. Doom. Congratulations, your WWDD quotient is unbeatable.

The second story from Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #50 (July 1964), “Lois Lane’s Luckiest Day,” is the focus of today’s Lois Lane Friday. The art is by Kurt Schaffenberger, but it is not clear who wrote the script. There’s a secret in store for all of you Legion of Super-Hero fans, too.

At a meeting of the Lois Lane Fan Club, three teenage girls approach Lois about becoming new members. She invites them to shadow her in her shift at the hospital and write it up as a news story. As usual, it appears the Lois – even though she’s only a volunteer nurse – is the only nurse in the hospital at all.

First she visits a little boy who is happy to show her that he can walk again. Second, she visits a research scientist who asks her to work with him full time. “Thanks, Doctor,” she replies. “But my patients would miss me! Besides, I’d never leave the Daily Planet!”

Next she is going to assist the “dreamy” surgeon Dr. Sloan in the operating room. She scrubs in and then realizes that she left her earrings on. Aghast, she quickly removes them, but one of her prized earrings bounces down into the drain. She goes back to surgery, but her mind is on the jewelry and not her job, so the doctor scolds her. After the surgery is over, she is relieved to discover that her earring did not fall down the drain after all, and is in fact sitting in the sink. She decides this must be her lucky day.

Doctor Sloane scolded Lois for handing him a hemostat instead of a forceps. He should be more worried about her poor sterile technique. She removes her earring after scrubbing in (thus contaminating herself), but neglects to scrub in again. Of course, Doctor Sloane is resting his scrubbed-in hands on the doorframe, so his technique isn’t any better.

After that, it’s Lois’s job to give a tranquilizer pill to a “psychopathic patient” in a locked room. She walks in alone and the patient slams the door, locking her in. He then picks up a stool and advances toward her with it. Suddenly, his madness vanishes completely. The doctors test him and state: “Amazing! Every test shows he has been cured of his mania! He can go home to his family! It’s a medical miracle Miss Lane!”

It’s folly for a petite nurse to be sent in alone to give a patient with known violent tendencies his medicine. That’s just plain stupid; there are people specially trained to deal with situations like this. Then Lois commits the biggest sin in psychiatry: never let the patient get between you and the door. Of course, the doctors clearly aren’t particularly talented because they are dressed as ear-nose-and-throat specialists, confuse mania and other mental illnesse,s and decide after a few minutes of cursory testing (using some sort of machine) that his mental illness is gone forever.

Finally, Lois is giving the elderly patients sunning in the hospital garden their fruit juice. One patient’s prize collection of flags blows away, but since Lois knows this is her “lucky day” she is confident that all the flags will be recovered. Sure enough, one of the new fan club members brings all the flags to her.

It is then that Lois is able to put all the clues together and deduce what is going on. Her new fan club members are actually Triplicate Girl, Phantom Girl and Shrinking Violet from the Legion of Super-Heroes. When Lois lost her ring, Violet was able to shrink down and find it down the drain. Phantom Girl phased through the locked door and was able to remove the blood clot that was causing the patient’s mental illness by pressing on a nerve in his neck. Finally, Triplicate Girl was able to split into three and catch all the flags.

There are certainly situations where physical injury to the brain can cause mental illness, but a blood clot pressing on a nerve in the neck is not one of them.

Sadly, when the girls hand in their news stories to Lois, she has to turn down their membership in her fan club. Their stories, while containing all the facts, missed the human elements that make a good story. “Choke We’re sorry too! Goodbye, Lois,” say the Legionnaires as they return to their own club in the future.

Tags: comics lois lane superman