Polite Dissent

A hat trick of great New Year’s covers for you today.

Click on any of the covers for a larger image of that cover

First is Daredevil #120 with “…And a HYDRA New Year.” Second is Batman #247, “And a Deadly New Year!” And third, on a more hopeful note, is Action Comics #810 “Leaping into the New Year.”

Superman #675 “Camelot Falls”
Kurt Busiek, writer
Carlos Pacheco, penciler

It’s the future in the DC universe. Not far in the future: just seven years, but sometime in these seven years a massive disaster has occurred. Tidal waves, volcanoes, floods, and resulting “nuclear winter” have killed millions if not billions.
Among the survivors are a band of resistance fighters that includes Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Lex Luthor. As the book begins, Jimmy is returning from a foray into what’s left of Metropolis.

Let’s take a minute to look at the medications Jimmy collected, and how useful they may or may not be in a post-apocalyptic world:

Amoxicillin — A broad spectrum antibiotic. This definitely would be useful. With fewer people around and fewer doctors over-prescribing medications, bacterial drug resistance should wane over the years and Amoxicillin would probably be more useful in this future world than it is now. (Background reading: MedlinePlus information on amoxicillin)

Prednisone – A corticosteroid. Used most commonly in the treatment of inflammatory disorders (asthma, certain types of arthritis, lupus, etc.). Also used for immune suppression, both long term (transplants) and short term (poison ivy dermatitis). I can see how this would be useful to have on hand. (Background reading: MedlinePlus information on prednisone)

Macrodantin (generic name: Nitrofurantoin) — Another antibiotic. This one is more specific than Amoxicillin and is used almost exclusively for the treatment of urinary tract infections. Another useful medication. (Background reading: MedlinePlus information on nitrofurantoin)

Dilantin (generic name: Phenytoin) – Used to prevent seizures. Like many of the older seizure medications, Dilantin has a specific blood concentration where it is most effective and requires fairly regular monitoring of these levels. In an ordinary post-apocalyptic scenario (if there is such a thing), you would think that blood levels would be impossible to monitor, but with Lex Luthor involved here, he’s probably worked something out. This would be a useful drug to have on hand if there are patients with a seizure disorder; a way to check blood levels would be nice. (Background reading: MedlinePlus information on phenytoin)

Coumadin (generic name: Coumadin) – A blood thinner. Used in patients where blood clots are present or may develop. Like Dilantin, Coumadin needs regular blood tests. It requires testing more regularly than Dilantin because too many things can affect the level of blood thinner including other medication and diet (and a regular diet is probably pretty rare in a post-apocalyptic situation). Levels of Coumadin that are too high greatly increase the risk of bleeding from regular activities such as brushing the teeth or going to the bathroom.
Even at correct levels, Coumadin is not always a safe drug and the risk of serious bleeding is always present. There is a definite risk/benefit ratio we watch closely when prescribing Coumadin and I suspect that in a post-apocalyptic world this would be skewed far to the risk side, particularly if there is no way of checking the level of blood thinning. (Background reading: MedlinePlus information on warfarin)

Tags: comics medicine superman kurt busiek amoxicillin prednisone macrodantin dilantin coumadin

I’ll admit up front that this is probably a nitpick, but a key one (from a medical perspective, at least).

Despite having all the latest and greatest in technological wonders, Alfred still makes a beginner’s error in this surgery scene from Batman #658. Look at the two panels and see if you can spot the mistake. (And for those of you who are really eagle-eyed — or the “World’s Greatest Detective” — there are a couple of other nit-picks in the first panel.)

This is not a criticism of Kubert’s art — as usual, it looks great, and I like the care he takes such as adding the dinosaur and Joker’s card. It’s just about fine tuning the medical details.

Scenes from Batman #658. Script by Grant Morrison, pencils by Andy Kubert

Previous picture quizzes

Tags: comics medicine batman alfred grant morrison andy kubert

Good answers. The keys were sterility and contamination. In the first panel, Alfred is putting on his sterile gloves; his mask is down and his goggles are off. In the second panel, his mask is up and his goggles are on. This means that he had to have touched his non-sterile mask and goggles with his sterile gloves, contaminating them. The proper order is: gloves mask, cap, and eyewear on. Scrub hands at scrub sink. Enter operating room. Put gown on. Put gloves on. Do it wrong and the scrub nurse and/or operating room technician will quickly (and unpleasantly) point out your error to everyone present, and you’ll never, ever do it wrong again.

The other things that caught my eye were the coffee cup next to the sterile instrument, and the bizarre waveform on what looks like an EKG monitor. Acutally, given that it’s Alfred we’re dealing with, it’s probably a teacup.

Personally, I was willing to give Alfred some credit and figured some special electrodeless Waynetech EKG was used and some fancy clear Bat-skin-sterilizer was used on Robin — he’s got these fancy IVs in place after all — but go ahead and give yourself credit if you caught either one of those.

The instrument handles will be facing correctly when Alfred stands next to Robin to operate, it’s just hard to see in the scan I made (and what you think are butter knife blades are actually scalpel handles).

The bat guano is a good call. I didn’t think of that. I can’t imagine that would be beneficial in a wound.

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Speaking of doctors and Gotham City, I forgot to mention in my look at Superman #657 that the medical officer of the resistance was named “Tompkins.” Dr. Leslie Tompkins*, perhaps?

*As for the spelling, I’ve seen it spelled both Thompkins and Tompkins. Hell, I have it both ways on this very blog. I choose to believe it’s her.

Using her recently discovered abilities, Susan Storm pushes her powers to the limit by encasing the entire ship in a protective force field in this scene from the latest 1602 mini-series.

Sometimes I wonder if the psychic/super-power nosebleed is specified by the writer, or just something the artist added. In this case, I think we can safely assume it was directed by the writer as another character refers to the nosebleed a few panel later.

Scene from 1602: Fantastik Four, script by Peter David, pencils by Pascal Alixe

This episode of psychic nosebleed zen was suggested by David Oakes.

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed sue storm

Mayor of New York Mitchell Hundred in a moment of raw emotion and power.

Actually, of all the psychic/super-power nosebleeds, Hundred’s is probably the easiest to explain. It has been implied that the explosion of the alien device somehow “rewired” his brain, granting him his powers. This rewiring might have also led to his power-using nosebleeds.

Scene from Ex Machina #23, script by Brian K. Vaughan, pencils by Tony Harris

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed ex machina

A recent PSA comic this week: last month’s Robin #156. As the cover suggests, this issue is about suicide. No scene resembling the cover actually takes place inside the book, and frankly, the story is better for it. This is not a “heroic-rescue-the-jumper-from-midair” story. Instead, it is a well scripted story consisting of two lonely people talking and working things out.

After the end of the hostage storyline last issue, Tim Drake returns to high school and then, as Robin, visits wannabe teen-hero Dodge in the hospital. On his way home from the hospital, he spots a lone man standing at the edge of the roof of a tall building. Robin swings down to sit down next to him and talk. And that’s it. The rest of the comic is pretty much the two of them talking. It’s not hard to see that the young man is clinically depressed. Robin, for all his skills and accomplishments, has his own failings and is able to be a good listener. Robin makes some good points, particularly when he talks about how everyone’s problems are the worst, because they’re their problems. But mostly he just let’s the other guy talk. When he comes down off the edge at the end, it’s a believable scene.

Full credit to writer Adam Beechen and penciler Freddie Williams for producing a well done PSA comic, and managing to fit it in continuity.

The only problem I have with this issue has nothing to do with the script or art, but with the packaging. First, those stupid HeroScape 3-D glasses were inserted in the comic. It’s a poorly thought out ad for many reasons, but mainly because of the glasses and the fact that it makes HeroScape look dark and cluttered — everything the game is not. Then, in the center of the comic is an 8 page television Teen Titans comic/ad for Spark Top. This was particularly jarring this comic because you go from the middle of a serious conversation with a somber Robin to the overly cheerful and too-brightly colored Teen Titans Robin. Not a good place for the ad.

Tags: comics medicine psa robin suicide

In this week’s episode of House, the mystery is good, but the medical treatment is not. There are some good character moments, but this doesn’t stop the Tritter storyline from limping to a weak ending. Spoilers follow!

Derek, a firefighter, becomes short of breath and disoriented while at the scene of a fire. He tells his partner Amy that he is feeling chills. He is brought to the hospital and admitted to House’s service. Cameron notes that he has a fluctuating temperature as well as skin grafts over half his body from bad third-degree burns suffered on the job a year ago. She also discovers that he has had several episodes of disorientation in the past few weeks. Cameron reports that Derek’s tests for hepatitis C, HIV, TB (tuberculosis), Lyme disease are all negative, as is his drug screen. The EKG is said to show an “arrhythmia” (an abnormal rhythm) but House blows it off. Foreman suggests a hypothalamic tumor, while the other doctors are suspicious of a hospital acquired infection — one he picked up when he had his skin graft surgery and which has smoldered since then. They are concerned about MRSA (methacillin-resistant Staph. aureus), a particularly nasty germ.

Because of concern about MRSA, Derek is placed in isolation. He casually reveals to Cameron that everything looks blue. Foreman mentions heavy metal poisoning as a cause of this, particularly thallium. House suspects the patient has “male menopause” (low testosterone, elevated estrogen levels) brought about by burns he has suffered to his genitals. Viagra is known to cause blue color shifts, and House believes he is taking Viagra to make up for the effects of the low testosterone. The next time we see Derek, he is out of isolation (the MRSA tests came back negative) and he is receiving hormone therapy (apparently his levels were low). He suddenly starts screaming that the hormones are causing pain, then he lashes out and starts throttling Cameron. Foreman sedates him with some Lorazepam (brand name: Ativan).

The team tests, but Derek is not allergic to the hormones and they were not contaminated. Additionally, there is no evidence of a pulmonary embolism and his EKG is normal. Foreman, true to form, suspects a neurological cause, either a frontal lobe tumor or meningitis. However, a CT scan and lumbar puncture are normal. Other possible diagnoses mentioned include polyarteritis nodosa (a rare disease caused by inflammation of the arteries) and Legionnaire’s disease. Chase also believes it is unusual that Derek’s drug screen is negative as he must be taking some pain medication to treat the severe pain from his skin grafts.

The Young Guns are paged to Derek’s bedside where they discover that he has become suddenly short of breath and tachycardic (rapid heart rate). His oxygen saturation is 85%. Chase notices ST elevation on the EKG and realizes that Derek is having a heart attack. Elevated cardiac enzymes confirm this diagnosis (a heart damaged by a heart attack will release certain proteins in a predictable pattern over several days. By testing for these proteins, you can discover if a patient has had a heart attack.) The team eventually realizes that the common denominator in all of Derek’s attacks is his partner Amy. It is only when she is around that he has problems. They can find no inciting agents she carries, but Cameron recognizes that Derek is in love with Amy. He explains that she is engaged to his brother and that he can never have a relationship with her. Cameron explains to the rest of the team that Derek is literally dying of a broken heart.

The team starts Derek on beta-blockers and nitroglycerin (common medications for heart attack patients) but they don’t help. The team considers antidepressants, but discards the idea because House believes their side effects will make things worse (which is quite a stretch). Chase suggests propylthiouracil (a drug that is inhibits the thyroid gland), but House feels it would be bad for the heart as well (not to mention a bizarre and incorrect use of the drug). At the end, the team decides to use EST (electroshock therapy) to cause a permanent memory loss so Derek won’t remember Amy or his brother.

The therapy seems to be successful, but in a casual conversation with Amy, Cameron discovers that she was never engaged to Derek’s brother. It turns out that Derek had false memories (I would have first thought of House’s favorite mantra –”patients lie” — rather than jump to the diagnosis of false memories). A brain MRI (now they get an MRI) shows decreased blood flow to one part of the brain. A close look at the blood flow in the spine shows a spinal meningioma (a tumor of the membrane that covers the spinal cord) that is pressing against the blood vessels supplying blood to the brain. When this tumor is removed, Derek will be good to go (well, except for that permanent memory loss).

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Medically, the two big problems this episode were the EKGs and the ECT.
In the beginning, House ignores an abnormal EKG. You never ignore an abnormal EKG — that’s just asking for trouble, and they would likely have made the diagnosis much sooner (but then the show would be too short). Then later in the episode, Derek had a normal EKG. If he truly had suffered multiple heart attacks, there’s no way he would have had a normal EKG.

The biggest problem was the EST. First, there’s no way EST would ever be used without a psychiatrist’s evaluation and consent, and no psychiatrist would jump straight to EST without attempting other therapies first. A thorough testing, evaluation, and history would reveal the false memories. EST is still used occasionally for depression, schizophrenia, and mania — but the patient is suffering from none of these. EST can certainly cause memory problems, and does cause temporary memory loss in most patients, but it is not a predictable effect and ECT is not used to purposefully block out memories.

For nitpicking, I will point out that the bacterial cultures came back surprisingly fast once again, and that Cameron needs to brush up on her isolation skills. She wasn’t dressed correctly for either contact isolation or drawing blood.

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On the non-medical side, I liked the scenes with House and Cuddy and House and Wilson — especially the ones with Cuddy; she showed some real teeth. I thought his interactions with Foreman and Chase were good, but wasn’t as impressed with the scenes with Cameron.

Legally, it seemed all wrong. I am certainly not a lawyer, but the show seemed to be confusing grand juries and actual trials. The judge said she was going to determine if there was enough evidence to try House, which suggests a grand jury (or something like that), but House pleaded “Not Guilty” before that. How can he plead if he hasn’t been brought to trial on charges yet?

And the resolution of the whole Tritter storyline? Let’s just say that it ended with a whimper and too much deus ex machina for my taste.

I did like that House had the last laugh after all.

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The medical mystery was good, so I give it a B+ and the ultimate solution was well-thought out and earns another B+. The actual medical treatment was bad, especially the EST aspect, and drags down the overall medical score to a D+. The character interaction/soap opera was good and earns an A-. Overall, I give the Tritter arc a C-.

The previous House review
A list of all prior House reviews

Tags: television medicine house mrsa electroshock therapy meningioma

Here is an especially well drawn hospital room scene from 52 #36. The penciller, Jamal Igle, clearly did his research into what hospital equipment looks like, particularly the all important hospital bed. While there are a few nit-picks I could make (mostly involving tubing), they’re really so minor I think I’ll just keep my mouth shut*.

*Okay, one complaint directed at the colorists. Please stop coloring every IV fluid red. Most IV fluid is clear, and blood is really not used that often (except maybe in trauma or surgical situations). In this case, the IV is specifically referred to as a morphine drip and that definitely should not be red.

I hope everyone had a chance to check out this week’s Welcome to Tranquility #2 by Gail Simone and Neil Googe. First, it’s a great comic. Second, within this issue lies another example of my contribution to the fine art of comic book dialogue. If you’ve read the comic, then I’m sure you’ll have no trouble pinpointing which character had a slight dialogue assist from me.

But if you haven’t read the issue (yet), here’s a little hint:

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And while I’m tooting my own horn, and since I failed to mention this when the comic actually came out, I’m also proud to have provided a little assistance (and two jokes) to the “swallowed-by-Giganta” scene in The All-New Atom #4.

Medicine and comics. Comics and medicine. Two great tastes that go great together…

This weekend, I’d thought I’d take a look at some of the more famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) series.

First up is Watchmen, from the final issue, where this poor gentleman — and half of New York City — happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t want to give any more away for fear of spoiling the plot for those of you who have yet to read Watchmen, but those of you who have read it know exactly what happened.

Scene from Watchmen #12, script by Alan Moore, pencils by Dave Gibbons

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed watchmen

Continuing my look at blockbuster mini-series. Today is a scene from the final issue of Kingdom Come. It shows what happens to Superman after being “shazam”-ed by Captain Marvel repeatedly. Bloody nose, bleeding ears, and burst blood vessels in the eye.

This one is a little iffy. It’s certainly not a classic “psychic” nosebleed, but is it a super-power related or magic-related nosebleed? I guess it all depends on how you interpret the damage Superman took. It wasn’t a direct blow to the face that caused the bleeding. Was it the magic of the thunderbolts? Or the sonic pressure from the thunderclap? Or a bit of both? I think it’s both, so I’m including it (the bleeding ears make me think it is barotrauma [pressure-related], but Superman’s suffered extreme pressures before without bleeding, so it must be the magic of the thunderbolts and the pressure of their thunderclaps).

Scene from Kingdom Come #4 by Mark Waid and Alex Ross

All previous Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed kingdom come

How would you like to earn $70 or more each week? Well now you can with this amazing 10-week home study course! Free swag too (including a “Simplified Nurses Dictionary” — which sounds a little condescending to me)!

Click on the ad for the full-sized image

From The Young Doctors #3 (Charlton, July 1963). Technically not a public service advertisement, but it gives a nice picture of the history of nursing (or at least this one aspect of it), so it’s close enough to count.

Tags: comics medicine psa nursing advertisement

Certain first aid courses, particularly those in the military and the scouts, teach the use of emergency patient transportation such as the “fireman’s carry.” These are quick and dirty maneuvers designed to get the patient out of harm’s way as quickly as possible. As the images show, these don’t provide the patient with any protection and little support and are best for the minimally injured patient. They shouldn’t be used for long term transport. They are ideal for the life or death situation — such as a fire or explosion — where the patient needs to be moved quickly or they will die.

From left to right, the images above show the “Two Person Arm Carry,” the “One Person Arm Carry,” the “Pack-Strap Carry,” the “Fireman’s Carry” (also a noted pro-wrestling move), and the “Two Person Carry by Arms and Legs.” These images were borrowed from the 2001 edition of the US Navy Operational Medicine Course.

So let’s see how our DC super-heroes managed during the freefall that was New Year’s Eve in Metropolis:

	First up is Captain Marvel Jr. He seems to be using a modified version of the One Person Arm Carry. As you see, it provides no spinal protection, so we’ll just have to assume that Freddy used the Wisdom of Solomon to make sure she didn’t have a spinal injury before he picked her up. I do wonder where the girl’s left arm is. I suspect that’s it draped across her chest, just miscolored.
	Hawkgirl is not doing nearly as good a job as Captain Marvel Jr. Her patient, though a snappy dresser, looks like he’s in pain — and I don’t think it’s just from his wound — that just doesn’t look comfortable. And that doesn’t look like it would be comfortable for her either to fly a long distance. We’ll call it the “Hawkgirl One Arm Two Wing Carry” Again, she is providing no spinal support, which is dangerous. Most of these victims suffered impact injuries, either falling from a great height, or being hit by something falling, so spinal injuries are a real possibility.
	Power Girl’s technique is definitely not recommended. She’s the worst of any of the heroes. We’ll just call it the “Power Girl Choke-Hold Carry” and leave it at that.
All images are from the center two-page spread of 52 #35. Breakdowns by Giffen. Pencils by Jimenez and Jurgens

Tags: comics medicine 52 captain marvel junior hawkgirl power girl

Ray contains themes common in many other popular adventure manga: a hero with a unknown past, an evil conspiracy, a mysterious benefactor, beautiful girls, beautiful boys, and scenes of all-out action. It adds a strong dose of medicine to these ideas to freshen up the storyline. It’s not great art or realistic medicine, but it doesn’t pretend to be. It’s just an enjoyable escapist manga.

Volume 2 pretty much picks up where the first volume left off. Ray was raised in a hidden “organ farm” — destined to be the source of some rich aristocrat’s transplanted organs. As a young woman, her eyes were surgically removed and transplanted into someone else. Later, she was rescued from the farm — but she doesn’t know by whom — and given a set of new eyes: special eyes with x-ray vision. With these eyes and her incredible medical skills, she has become a renegade surgeon, fighting the shadowy organization that runs the organ farm and helping the downtrodden (or at least those downtrodden in need of surgery).

In this volume, Ray learns a little more about her past. She reconnects with several other children from the farm. Blue was introduced in the first volume, and now a young girl named Red Ribbon shows up as well. But all is not as it seems, and both of Ray’s friends hold potentially devastating secrets. In addition to new friends, a new villain also appears. He is an evil scientist who actively hunts Ray down rather than just waiting for her to show up and destroy his labs. He is everything a good villain should be: handsome, clever, and evil all the way through.

And then there’s the surgery. Every chapter features some manner of amazing surgery. The most dramatic are a hand that must be amputated to save a young boy from a bomb, and a bullet that is removed during delicate surgery atop a Ferris wheel.

Each chapter is about a different patient. Some of them tie into and advance the overall storyline, but many are unconnected chapters that just tell a simple story. The best chapters in the book are two of these independent stories. The Power…To Believe tells of Chieko, a teenager who for the past year has developed sudden lacerations, bruises, and fractures for no apparent reason. They seem to be getting more severe so Ray and her friend BJ (who is a dead ringer for that other famous manga renegade surgeon, Black Jack) track down the source of Chieko’s ailment. The ending is clever, but quite twisted. Blood is about a simple small town factory manager. He just wants to design the most efficient factory possible. He suffered a small injury at work that should have been minor, but it keeps bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. Will he be able to finish his new design before he dies, and can Ray do anything about it?

Ray is an enjoyable adventure manga with strong medical overtones. If either of these appeal to you, then Ray is a good choice. It’s over the top and more than a little unrealistic, but that’s what makes it such a good read.

And it once again showcases a great martial arts fight scene. No nurses this time, just a mysterious person in a bear costume.

My review of Ray, Volume 1

Tags: comics medicine manga ray surgeon

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Click on the ad for the full-sized image

IMAGINE…A REAL DOCTOR’S STETHOSCOPE ACTUALLY USED BY THE U.S. ARMY MEDICAL CORPS…

Now you can be JUST LIKE THE FAMOUS DOCTORS AND NURSES ON TV and amaze and impress your friends.

My favorite part is the last paragraph:

THE DOCTOR’S STETHOSCOPE has a SPECIAL SECRET USE that will enable you to listen in on conversations in the next room by placing the sensitive rubber disc on the wall of any room (just like the FBI and private detectives).

Yeah, good luck with that.

(Ad scanned from The Young Doctors #3, Charlton, July 1963.)

Tags: comics medicine advertisement stethoscope

Just how much “Skrull-ness” is necessary for shape changing?

The Super-Skrull shows that extensive modifications can take place, yet the Skrull still retains their shape changing power. Hulkling from the Young Avengers — who is half Skrull, half Kree — seems to have the full Skrull shape changing abilities. More recently in Heroes for Hire, Skrull organs¹ were transplanted into human villains who then gained the shape changing ability. The comic doesn’t say if the transplants were just random Skrull organs or a specific one tied to shape changing². Just makes me wonder how much Skrull-ness is required for one to gain (or retain) shape changing powers.

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Notes:
¹Do Skrulls even have organs? I like the way Ultimate Fantastic Four has suggested that the very elastic Reed Richards no longer has specific organs. It would make sense for Skrulls to have a similar anatomy.

²If there is a specific organ for shape changing in Skrulls, I hereby officially nominate the appendix. The damn thing’s got to be good for something for someone, so it might as well be the Skrulls. It should be called the “Polymorphix” though.

Tags: comics medicine skrull fantastic four

UPDATE: Apparently even less Skrull-ness is needed that I originally posited. Commentators have pointed out the Skull Kill Krew mini-series, where meat from a Skrull-transformed-into-a-cow granted shape changing ability (to certain people anyway), and Fantastic Four Annual #17, where milk from the Skill-cows also did.

Though as Reed points out, it’s not really milk because “I doubt they would have actually been capable of lactating.” (Is it just me, or does everyone else imagine him speaking that line with a condescending chuckle). Anyway, let’s leave the explanation to Reed:

Scene from Fantastic Four Annual #17 (published in 1983). Script and Pencils by John Byrne.

Tags: comics medicine skrull fantastic four

More on Skrull-based food. Here we have a scene from Skull Kill Krew #2 (5 issue mini-series by Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, and Steve Yeowell).

It all goes back to those original Skrulls the Fantastic Four fought way back in Fantastic Four #2. After those Skrulls were defeated, Reed Richards had them shape-shift into cows and then hypnotized them into believing that they were actually cows. It was these cow’s “Skrull milk” that led to the events of Fantastic Four Annual #17 (discussed yesterday). During the events of the Kree-Skrull War, the cow-Skrulls escaped, but at then end of the war, they were captured and transformed into cows again. According to Skrull Kill Krew, these skrull-cows were then sent to a slaughterhouse and ended up being made into Skrull ground beef and then Skrull burgers.

The concept of a virus being transmitted by the Skrull burgers is fairly consistent with Reed Richard’s statement that each Skrull molecule is essentially an unstable molecule that will attack any non-Skrull tissue it encounters — except that it sounds more like a prion than a virus. A prion is an infectious particle composed entirely of protein (as opposed to a virus which is nucleic acid, or nucleic acid and protein). Prions are a fairly recent discovery and not much is known about them. They seem to be more heat stable than viruses, so they would survive cooking into a burger. They are thought to be the infectious agent behind “Mad Cow Disease” (i.e. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) as well as other rare diseases including Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease and Kuru (a degenerative brain disease found among the cannibal tribes of New Guinea that is thought to be acquired by eating infected human brain).

Tags: comics medicine skrull fantastic four grant morrison mark millar prion

For those of you wondering how those Skrulls ended up as cows in the first place, here are the last few panels from Fantastic Four #2 (by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby):

(You know, I’ve read this issue many times over the years, and this is first time I’ve ever noticed it has a typo in it.)

Tags: comics medicine skrull fantastic four

This comic was put out by Target in 2004 as a PSA comic as well as an ad for the Marvel Comic collections they were selling at the time. The kids on the cover manage to save the world from the evil machinations of Loki — but only because everyone else in the comic, including Loki — are total idiots.

As the story begins, a group of school children are at a local amusement park when Loki strikes ¹. He reads a spell from a scroll that causes everyone in the park to be instantly unable to read. This leads to mass confusion and panic as people are suddenly unable to count change or golf without hitting others ². The amusement park personnel’s inability to read makes them unable to stop the rides the kids are on ³.

Several of the students realize that the spell doesn’t really prevent people from reading as much as it turns reading material into anagrams. They also discover that the spell has no effect on words viewed through a digital camera⁴. The kids take a picture of Loki’s scroll and are able to read and cast the final spell that reverses all of Loki’s previous magic⁵. The super-heroes, who until this point have been horrendously ineffective, manage to capture the now powerless Loki.

(I certainly don’t expect PSA comics written for children to be perfect, or even particularly good — and I like the idea that the kids save the day in this story — but I suspect even a six or seven year-old child would be able to notice the plot holes in this comic. On the other hand, I guess that makes it about equal with The Civil War.)

Notes:
¹Loki must somehow know how smart those three kids are and is therefore launching a pre-emptive strike to catch them. Why else would a near-omnipotent Norse god choose a small amusement park in New York to attack?
²I’m not really sure what these have to do with reading. I guess you could argue that one reads a cash register display to arrive at the correct change — but then how is Peter Parker able to read his phone well enough to dial it? And what does any of this have to do with hitting a golf ball?
³Because apparently ride operators have to constantly read the directions to remember how to work the equipment.
⁴It seemed like a clever idea when I first read it, but then I realized that the kids still have to read the words off the camera screen.
⁵Brilliant idea to have your magic scroll in English, Loki.

Tags: comics psa target target

Once you start the clinical rotations in your third and fourth year of medical school, grand rounds become a way of life. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “grand rounds” is a weekly event where all the physicians of a particular specialty come together to hear an educational lecture. Medical students are required to attend the grand rounds of whatever specialty they’re on at the time. Some “gunners” also attend the grand rounds of the specialty they intend to go into, particularly if it a highly competitive field and they want to be “seen.” I was never one of those.

OB/Gyn grand rounds were held ins a dark little theater with comfortable seats. To an exhausted medical student, that just meant a nice place to nap. Pediatrics had the best grand rounds. They were short and sweet, just forty-five minutes, and were on useful topics. They were also held at lunch so we didn’t have to stay late or come early — plus food was provided. For a poor medical student, any meal I didn’t have to pay for or buy at the highly suspect hospital cafeteria was a definite bonus. Internal medicine also held their grand rounds at lunchtime, but we had to bring our own lunch. The topics weren’t nearly as interesting to a medical student either. Psychiatry grand rounds were Wednesday afternoon. There was an hour lecture followed by a half-hour discussion of the lecture. Since we got to go home a half-hour early on those days, we were happy. Surgery grand rounds were the worst. They were Saturday mornings at 6 AM. Even on the rare Saturdays you weren’t working, you were still expected to be there for grand rounds. Like psychiatry, the lecture was followed by a discussion of the topic. Frankly, the discussion period was much more interesting than the lecture. The head of the surgery department was set to retire at the end of the year and his replacement had not yet been named. There were two leading candidates in the department and each had their followers and detractors, and the two sides were quite vocal about their feelings. Like clockwork, the discussion after the lecture quickly degenerated into partisan bickering, and as a medical student with zero interest in surgery, I always found this much more educating and entertaining than the lecture itself.

There are two grand rounds in particular that stand out in my memory. The first was a psychiatry grand rounds. An out of state psychiatrist was brought in to speak. He had no clinical practice; instead he worked as a consultant for the FBI — primarily helping them track down sexual serial killers. This was long before Silence of the Lambs, CSI, and Law & Order: SVU, so the subject of serial killers wasn’t as common as it is now. His lecture was fairly interesting and filled with lurid and explicit crime scene photos. He finished his talk, answered a few questions, and then left. The after-lecture discussion started, and nobody talked about the lecture. Instead, they all talked about the lecturer.

“Did you see the way he was getting off showing the crime scene photos?” one staff psychiatrist asked.

“He’s clearly a reverse voyeur,” another intoned.

“He has issues with women,” the department head announced.

This went on for half an hour. I was fascinated, a little dismayed, but mostly amused to see these professionals go to such length to psychologically “dissect” another psychiatrist who had just spoken to them. For the record, there was something a little off about the speaker and I think the other psychiatrists were undoubtedly right in their analysis. I still think it was rude, though.

Then there was the surgery grand rounds where a well-known hand surgeon was brought in from Los Angeles to speak. He was talking about surgical reconstruction of hands that had been severely injured by gunshots. He was an excellent speaker and had some memorable and somewhat sickening before- and after-surgery x-rays. About halfway into the lecture, he made the point that it was difficult to get good follow-up with the injured patients because “they’re ghetto people and theyrre unreliable about making it to their follow-up appointments.”

At this point, Dr. K-, the acting head of our surgical department stood up from his seat, fixed the speaker with his steely gaze, and said, “We don’t appreciate racist talk here. Please refrain from making any more such statements.”

The speaker had that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look for a minute, and then he collected his thoughts and resumed his lecture. It went well until about five minutes later when he made another statement about “those backwards ghetto people.”

“That’s it!” Dr. K- announced as he stood up. “I told you that we do not tolerate racist comments.” He paused, took a breath and then simply said, Let’s go.” At this point, all the other surgical attendings stood and filed out of the room. Dr. K- looked over at the medical students and residents and told us we could stay or we could go at our own discretion. We all left.

Other True Tales of Medical School

Hank returns home from an evening of studying to find a mysterious woman in a wheel-chair waiting for him in his apartment. She explains that she is Barbara Gordon and she calmly informs Hank that she wants him to call Dawn because she needs to talk to both Hawk and Dove.

Once Dawn arrives, Barbara explains that she needs their help in taking down Velvet Tiger once and for all. She explains that Velvet Tiger was once one of Batgirl’s enemies, but since Batgirl has “retired,” Hawk and Dove will need to step in and apprehend Velvet Tiger. When asked how she learned their identities, Barbara plays coy at first, telling them that she got it from “an oracle.” Then she quickly explains that Oracle is a top secret government computer expert, but in the next panel she all but admits she is Oracle (”I hacked the Titan’s database”). Clearly this is before Oracle’s identity became the big secret it is now (and it is one of her first appearances outside of Suicide Squad).

Barbara tells the duo that Velvet Tiger is said to be Lani Gilbert, but she finds that hard to believe because records show that Lani is only ten years old. Barbara explains that the Tiger is trying to take out Washington D.C.’s mob bosses one by one so she can take over as top boss in the city. Barbara has been able to pinpoint who Velvet Tiger will attack next and she wants Hawk and Dove to intercept and capture her.

Across town, the Velvet Tiger and her bodyguard/lackey Sudden Death arrive at the hide out of one of the few remaining mob bosses. As the Tiger moves in for the kill, Hawk and Dove arrive. Hawk quickly subdues Sudden Death with the help of a conveniently thrown gas grenade. Dove’s battle with the Velvet Tiger is much more interesting. First, she fools the Tiger into thinking that Batgirl has returned. While Velvet Tiger is focusing on “Batgirl,” Dove tries to grab her and suddenly everything goes topsy-turvy. It turns out that Velvet Tiger has the ability to stop time and enter a special dimension that is “between the seconds.” Due to an unhappy childhood, she has spent years hiding in this dimension and the grown-up Velvet Tiger really is the ten-year-old Lani Gilbert. She now uses her powers for criminal gain and to evade capture. Since she is the only one who can survive in this dimension, her plan is to strand Dove here to slowly starve to death. Unsurprisingly, Dove is not too keen on this plan, and she deliberately strikes Lani’s already injured ribs so that the shock will cause her to bring them both back into normal time. As they suddenly appear in the hideout, Barbara shows up just in time to handcuff Lani to a pipe. She informs Lani that that while Dove may not be able to testify at a trial (because of that whole secret identity thing), Barbara will testify and make sure that the Velvet Tiger is put away for a long time.

As the issue ends, Dawn has a quiet chat with Barbara while Hank receives another message from his dead brother. This one asks him to steal a special sapphire from the Smithsonian Institute that he’ll need to bring Don back to life. Hank is unsure what action to take: he’ll do anything to bring Don back, but stealing would mean that he’d be “no better than a criminal.”

Notes:
The art by Greg Guler continues to be good. The writing by the Kesels is still good — particularly the quiet character moments — but overall the last issues of Hawk & Dove just don’t have the same zing as the earlier issues.
The Unofficial Oracle Chronology
Barbara Gordon makes a reference to the Titans Hunt storyline, the company-wide Titans crossover that was occurring at the time (and went for what, six or seven months?) This is the second reference to Titans Hunt in Hawk & Dove, but the actual crossover doesn’t occur until issue #28 and lasts for all of 2 panels before it is crushed (literally) by another company-wide crossover, War of the Gods. More about this when later.
While their children are off fighting the Velvet Tiger, Hank’s and Dawn’s parents are both attending a fancy soirée for Senator Tommy O’Neil. The parents chat for a bit and are clearly confused about who’s dating whom, but the main reason I mention this is that O’Neil will play a key role in the remaining 4 issues of the series.
I find the idea that Velvet Tiger has actually spent half her life hiding in her special between-seconds dimension and really should only be ten years old is kind of creepy, but handled well. It’s nice to see super-powers that actually have real world consequences.
All Previous Hawk and Dove Reviews

Tags: comics hawk dove batgirl oracle velvet tiger

Harley Quinn shows that she is quite the Berstein and Sondheim fan with her little song and dance number here from the justifiably classic Mad Love by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm (words in this case by Stephen Sondheim).

More Comic Book Musical Theater: Superman, Lex Luthor, and Reuben Flagg.

Tags: comics harley quinn musicals west side story

I keep seeing these television ads for the upcoming film The Bridge to Terebithia. The ads strongly play up the fantasy aspects of the story, making it seem akin to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe or The Lord of the Rings.

Now, I’ve read The Bridge to Terebithia, and the fantasy aspects make up only a tiny part of the story and aren’t really that integral to the plot.

This means that either:

1. The movie makers totally missed the entire point of the book, or

2. There’s going to be some upset parents and sobbing children who were expecting a light-hearted fantasy romp.

If you’re unfamiliar with the plot, and don’t mind it being spoiled, the wikipedia article sums up the plot well

The source of this weekend’s first psychic nosebleed zen post should come as no surprise, or at least no surprise to anyone who read 52 this week.

On the mad scientists’ remote island, Dr. Veronica Cale develops a sudden nose bleed when she comes face to face with (three of) the Four Horseman of Apokolips that she had a hand in creating.

This scene is from 52 #38, script by a multitude with pencils by Joe Bennett.

Thanks to Douglas Wolk (of 52 Pickup) and Mark Fossen (of Focused Totality), who both posted this before I did, in their always excellent weekly dissections of 52

All previous Psychic Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed 52

Apparently even Cosmic Rays can cause a nose bleed in this scene from Fantastic Four #1 (1996 series) by Brandon Choi and Jim Lee.

No one else in the spacecraft seemed to have the same problem, so maybe it was something specific to Ben Grimm — maybe the extreme concentration required for his leet piloting skillz.

It is interesting how half the blood seems to be at zero-g and the rest normal gravity.

All previous Nosebleed Zen posts

Tags: comics medicine nosebleed fantastic four

Click on the ad for the full-sized image

Will wonders never cease? Thanks to modern technology and revolutionary electronics, I can now make my own records — at home! And I can record them in 331/3, 45, or even 78 rpm. It is truly an age of miracles we live in. I wonder what will come next? Portable telephones? Color television? Flying cars?

Take a look at that first paragraph:

Sing, tell jokes, record secret conversations, speeches, take off your favorite shows and music, and it’s all ready to play back instantly.

“Record secret conversations” — between this and listening through walls with the stethoscope, I wonder what sort of values were taught in the ’60s. Maybe it wasn’t quite as idyllic as everyone remembers.

(Ad scanned from Doctor Tom Brent, Young Intern #1, Charlton, February1963.)

Tags: comics advertisement

Click on the panel for the full-sized image

What happened to poor Rags between the two panels posted above? Click on the image to learn the whole sordid truth behind Jimmy, Mom, and Rags. And remember…Know Your Pet!

This PSA Ad was graciously provided by H, of The Comic Treadmill fame, and originally appeared in Adventure Comics #252 (DC, 1958). As with many of these old DC comics PSA ads, the script is by Jack Schiff, with pencils and inks this time by Lou Cameron.

Tags: comics psa adventure comics pets

A change of pace in tonight’s episode. There was no grand medical mystery to solve. Instead it was a character show. I’ll admit it was a well done character show, but personally, my favorite parts have always been the medical aspects of the show.

The episode begins with House in the clinic as part of his payback to Dr. Cuddy. His first three patients are all concerned about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). House tries to bribe patients to leave, but Cuddy isn’t very pleased with that plan. In the middle of their discussion, one of the patients in the waiting room stands up, grabs his head and starts screaming. He runs around the room screaming about how much his head hurts. House trips him and then injects him with medicine to calm him down — of course it turns out he didn’t inject him with a sedative, but instead a paralytic. This paralyzes his muscles, so he can’t run or scream. Unfortunately, as Cuddy points out, it does nothing to stop the pain, and it also paralyzes his respiratory muscles so he’ll need to be intubated. House convinces Cuddy to let him admit the patient so he can work him up. Foreman suspects the patient may have an acoustic neuroma, Chase thinks the patient may be psychotic, and Cameron mentions that the patient may have a severe ear infection and mastoiditis. House tells them all to run the appropriate (and expensive) tests, then he admits that he already knows the problem: the patient has a cockroach in his ear. He just admitted the patient to the hospital so that he could get out of working in the clinic.

When Cuddy finds out, she drags House back to clinic. Eventually, she offers him $10 for each patient he can diagnose without touching, but he will have to pay her $10 for each patient he has to touch to diagnose. This leads to several amusing scenes where House has patients use tongue depressors on themselves, check their own pulse, and diagnose their own rash.

The STD test results are back and House has to deliver the news to the patients. The first two tested negative. But the third patient, a young woman named Eve, has tested positive for chlamydia. Based on her reaction to the news, House realizes that she is a victim of rape. He goes to Cuddy and requests that a different doctor be assigned to the patient because — let’s be honest — being supportive isn’t one of House’s best skills. However, Eve feels differently and states that she only wants to talk to House. The two of them talk some more, but don’t come to much of an understanding, so House sends a psychiatrist in to talk to Eve. After talking to the patient for about an hour, the psychiatrist screams for a crash cart. It seems that when she was giving Eve a benzodiazepine sedative (the same family of drugs as Valium), Eve grabbed the whole bottle and took them all.

Eve is resuscitated and admitted to the hospital. After she wakes up, Eve tells House that she won’t try to kill herself again. She tells him that she just wan