NEGRO ROMANCE "Tragic Vow"

After the recent two-parter about an interracial romance between a doctor and a nurse...

...I received an e-mail asking "Are there any comic stories featuring a Black medical professional in a relationship that isn't interracial?"

With my usual diligent research, I found two!

One can be found HERE!

This is the other one...

Scripted by editor Roy Ald and illustrated by prolific Golden Age artist Rudy Palais, this never-reprinted story from Fawcett's Negro Romances #1 (1950) probably suprised a number of readers who were used to seeing Black nurses, but not Black doctors (or doctors in training)!

In ongoing comic series, the only example I could find was Dr Claire Temple, who was involved with both Luke Cage (Hero for Hire/Power Man/Cage) and ex-husband Dr Bill Foster (Black Goliath/Giant-Man II/Goliath IV) who was not an MD like her, but a PhD-holding biochemist!

As you might have guessed, they ended up fighting it out for her affections, as super-heroes tend to do in such situations!

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson) is an RN instead of an MD,  she and Luke Cage (Mike Colter) are, as they say, "involved"!

Dr Bill Foster/Goliath (Laurence Fishburne) is Dr Henry Pym/Ant-Man 1's (Michael Douglas) former business and research partner.

There is no mention of any connection between Temple and Foster in the Marvel movies or TV series...so far!

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Night Nurse

(which includes the comics stories featuring Linda Carter meeting Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Iron Fist which were adapted into their linked Netflix/Marvel Cinematic Universe series with Claire Temple replacing Carter as Night Nurse!)

YOUNG ROMANCE "Full Hands - Empty Heart!" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

Art by Bob Oksner and Frank Giacoia

...Nurse Phyllis Carter and Doctor Allan Tate bond over working together in the ER, and a romance develops between the medical professionals.
But it's a romance with a complication the medical professionals never thought they'd have to deal with...

Wait!

The doctor she's working with has just been murdered in front of her!
Even if she wasn't romantically involved with him...
They can't let her sit down and rest?
She's clearly in shock!
I wouldn't want her near patients in her present condition!
Plus, wouldn't the police want to talk to her as a witness to the murder?
Speaking of that...has anybody restrained Johnny?
Written by Robert Kanigher, penciled by John Rosenberger and inked by Vince Colletta, this cover-featured story from DC's Young Romance #194 (1973) tries to jam a legitimate moral into the last few panels instead of giving it an extra page to play out in a more coherent manner.
Editor/writer Robert Kanigher was the most vocal proponent of racial equality in the DC editorial "Old Guard" of the 1950s-70s, scripting numerous anti-racist stories as well as introducing several Black characters into the DC Comics universe including...

...Nubia, the second ongoing character to bear the Wonder Woman title, as well as scripting this somewhat infamous Lois Lane story...

Though he meant well, Kanigher was rather heavy-handed, sometimes sacrificing plot logic (like the ending of "Full Hands, Empty Heart") to make a moral point.

Note: On some pages Phyllis (and other Black characters') skin is gray/purple and on some it's brown.
That's because on the pages showing her as gray, the color separators used the wrong combination of yellow, red (magenta) and blue (cyan) screens.
When the story was reprinted in Simon & Schuster's Heart Throbs: Best of DC Romance Comics (1979) trade paperback, the only editorial change was to correct the Black characters' skin tones.

All the other coloring remained the same.

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Heart Throbs
Best of DC Romance Comics
(Which reprints this story)

YOUNG ROMANCE "Full Hands - Empty Heart!" Part 1

Since it's both Black History Month and almost Valentines Day...

..we thought we'd present a tale about a Black nurse who becomes romantically-involved with a White doctor!

Note: On some pages Phyllis' skin is gray and on some it's brown.

That's because on the pages showing her as gray, the color separators used the wrong combination of yellow, red (magenta) and blue (cyan) screens.

To find out what happens next...

Be Here Next Week

for the heart-rending conclusion as well as some background about the writer of the tale!

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Heart Throbs
Best of DC Romance Comics
(Which reprints this story)

CoronaVirus Comics ALICE MATHESON "Day Z: Chapter 3: Suspicion

We have Already Seen...

...the dead are returning to...life (sorta).

While they are reanimating, they're not sentient, operating on pure instinct!

The staff of St Mary's, London's best hospital, including RN Alice Matheson, an "Angel of Death" who secretly euthanizes terminally-ill patients and was inadvertently the first in the hospital to witness the phenomenon when one of her "clients" refused to rest in peace, will gather to assess the situation and utilize six infected, extremely-ambulatory test subjects to find a solution...

The supervisor suspects, but will he act on his suspicions or let the matter wait until this matter of the ambulatory undead is all, as the British say, "sorted out"?

Find Out Next Week at...

Seduction of the Innocent
While Next Week, We Return to Medical Personnel handling Far More Mundane Matters of Life and Death...

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Alice Matheson

Volume 1

Z-Day