Medical Comics and Stories: DC

Showing posts with label DC. Show all posts

Friday, November 28, 2025

Best of Medical Comics & Stories DR PAT: The First Female Doctor to Have Her Own Comic Series!

Debuting in DC's Sensation Comics #94 (1949)...

...Dr Pat was a radical concept for the era, an independent female doctor equal to any male MD, and not obsessed with romance!

In fact, romance was usually the last thing on her mind!

She was too busy battling crime...

...Commies...

...even rampaging robots!

And when she did get involved in romantic situations, it was usually to assist someone else!

Created as part of the rebooting of Wonder Woman's original home, Sensation Comics into an all-female series book!
She lasted longer than any of the other secondary features including Romance: Inc, Headline Heroines, Astra: Girl of the Future, and Beautiful, But Not Dumb!,
When Sensation Comics was rebooted again, this time with an entirely-new line-up in #107 (1952), Dr Pat and Wonder Woman both lost their strips...though Princess Diana continued in her own book!
Except for a couple of reprints in the back of Superman's Girl Friend: Lois Lane, almost the entire comics world forgot all about Dr Pat!
But we didn't!
In fact, she was our very first post, and our first ongoing series!
So, when you have a moment, check her her out!

She's a bit of comics history who doesn't deserve to be forgotten!

Friday, August 22, 2025

NEW TEEN TITANS "Plague!" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

...The Teen Titans (minus Robin) assist The Protector in trying to shut down a drug dealing operation.

While interacting with tweens/teens, one of the heroes, Speedy, reveals he had been an addict, but managed, with great difficulty, to kick the habit.
But the kids' parents are still confused and disturbed...

It's not a pat ending, but it is a hopeful one!

Co-creators Marv Wolfman (writer) and George Perez (penciler) of the NEW Teen Titans ensemble* did a superb job creating a story that gets the point across without being overly "preachy", even going into establish DC canon about Speedy's drug addiction!
(*The Teen Titans were created in 1964, originally made up of adult superhero/heroines' sidekicks and had a couple of different runs ending in 1975,
In 1980, DC, following the example of Marvel's "All-New, All-Different X-Men" revamp, did a similar thing with Titans, combining already-existing characters with several new Wolfman-Perez creations, Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire)

Friday, August 15, 2025

NEW TEEN TITANS "Plague!" Part 1

If You're Any Sort of Comic Book Fan, You Know this Team...

...except for the guy in the middle yelling at us!
Don't worry, we'll clear that matter up as we go along...

To Be Continued...Next Friday

Unlike a number of other "revelations" about super-heroes in public-service comics, like Captain America revealing he had asthma as a kid, Speedy's confession about being a drug addict didn't come out of nowhere!
It was already part of official DC canon, first shown over a decade earlier in DC's Green Lantern/Green Arrow #85 (1971)...

...written by Denny O'Neil, penciled by Neal Adams, and inked by Dick Giordano (who also inked this story).
Note: when this Titans story was published in 1983, the GL/GA story was out of print, so that's why there's no footnote about it in the tale above.
The entire GL/GA storyline from the early 1970s was reprinted in a mini series the next year.
As to who The Protector is...
Because Robin was part of the Batman licensing program which was promoting Nabisco cookies at that point in time, he couldn't be used in the Keebler cookie-sponsored comic!
The Protector ended up as the Robin-replacement in all three public service drug issues, even the ones not sponsored by Keebler!
But, DC apparently made him an official part of DC continuity with an entry in Who's Who Update '87 #4...