ROMANCES OF NURSE HELEN GRANT "Unmasked Heart!"

Unlike Our Previous Nurse Soap Opera...

...the long-running Private Diary of Mary Robin R.N." this series ran only one issue!
We'll go into the likely reasons at the end of this story!

A series about a totally-loyal, lovestruck nurse obsessed with a Handsome Young Doctor whom every female who walks through the Emergency Room doors lusts after!

Unlike Nurse Mary Robin who wavered in her loyalty to her Dr Love Object, eventually ending up with a different doctor, Helen Grant seems determined to be by Dr Brian Clark's side...obviously as close as possible, until Death Do Them Part!
Was that the reason there wasn't an issue #2?
We'd have to ask plotter/editor Stan Lee, inker Vince Colletta, and the likely "ghost" penciler, Matt Baker, what they had in mind after this premiere issue of Atlas' Romances of Nurse Helen Grant #1 (1957).
But since they've all passed away, we'll never know!

STOP PROJECT 2025: THE COMIC BOOK "Cronyism"

Another example of what the Stop Project 2025 comic book tried to warn you about...

...Don da Con's hand-picked cronies, specifically in Health and Medical categories, and done in the style of Topps' Garbage Pail Kids trading cards!

It was a noble effort to present the insidious Reich-Wing Project 2025, condensing over 900 pages of text into a graphic presentation broken down into 2-to-6 page categories ranging from Abortion to Taxes to War on the Working Class!
The assortment of talent was quite impressive...ranging from established writers and artists to up-and-comers with only a few professional credits so far!
Sadly, the response to the comic seems to have been minimal, despite a fairly robust on-line presence and articles in several media outlets including Forbes!
Perhaps part of the problem was that it didn't go on-line until the middle of October, only a couple of weeks before the election!
I'd like to point out I didn't know it even existed until a couple of Sundays ago, when it popped up during on-line research of the works of one of the creatives, whom I didn't know had worked on it!
Continuing through the month of March, I'll post a different medicine/science-related chapter from the book each Friday to give you a taste of the quality work done for this noble effort and to warn you of what's coming in the near future!

STOP PROJECT 2025: THE COMIC BOOK "Abortion"

Here's What Project 2025 is NOW Doing to Curb Reproductive Rights...

...as shown in this unique on-line comic! 

It was a noble effort to present the insidious Reich-Wing Project 2025, condensing over 900 pages of text into a graphic presentation broken down into 2-to-6 page categories ranging from Abortion to Taxes to War on the Working Class!

The assortment of talent was quite impressive...ranging from established writers and artists to up-and-comers with only a few professional credits so far!
Sadly, the response to the comic seems to have been minimal, despite a fairly robust on-line presence and articles in several media outlets including Forbes!
Perhaps part of the problem was that it didn't go on-line until the middle of October, only a couple of weeks before the election!
I'd like to point out I didn't know it even existed until last Sunday, when it popped up during on-line research of the works of one of the creatives!
Starting today, and continuing through the month of March, I'll post a different medicine/science-related chapter from the book each Friday to give you a taste of the quality work done for this noble effort and to warn you of what's coming in the near future!

NELLIE THE NURSE "Sweets For the Not-So-Sweet!"

Among many "lost", never-reprinted comic book series...

...was this amusing one about childhood "besties" who ended up working together at the same hospital!

Even though Snazzy's an intern/resident, Nellie's a nurse and Speed is an ambulance driver, the three don't allow professional, social or financial status to affect their decades-long relationship as equals!

Also note that Nellie is an extremely-comptetent professional, unlike the stereotype of the beautiful-yet-ditzy nurse prevalent in media of the period!

This story from Timely's Nellie the Nurse #2 (1946) reads like a radio dramedy (there was no TV back then), with lots of witty and charming character interplay.
Sadly, there are no credits for the creatives, even though the book was published by what is today Marvel Comics!
Apparently, they tossed the records during one of their many moves to new offices through Manhattan over the years!
Nellie the Nurse survived for 36 issues from 1946 to 1952, despite a couple of reformattings from this relatively-sophisticated version to becoming a stereotypical ditz, to vaudeville-level slapstick humor illustrated in an Archie Comics/Dan DeCarlo art style before being moved to the back of Millie the Model, where she lasted until 1958!
(She even did a cross-over with Millie the Model, which we'll bring you soon!)

Support Medical Comics and Stories

Visit Amazon and Order...

Night Nurse

The Return of...NIGHT NURSE...BOTH of Her!

In 2004, after 31 years of not even being mentioned anywhere in the Marvel Multiverse, she suddenly turned up in Marvel's Daredevil #58 (2004) as Daily Bugle reporter Ben Urich tried to find a wounded Daredevil/Matt Murdock, whose dual identity is now known to the public...

Urich, who discovered DD's secret identity (but kept it secret) feels that the medico who aids injured superheroes would make a good story, but that her identity and location of her clinic be kept secret!

Not having super-strength or invulnerability, Daredevil tended to be her steadiest patient...

Besides DD, numerous other injured heroes and heroines have shown up on the Night Nurse's doorstep (including Captain America, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Spider-Woman [Jessica Drew], Elektra, FireStar, Ariana) and, particularly, a certain surgeon-turned sorcerer...

For the record, I haven't seen the incident Stephen Strange describes where Linda Carter was rescued by a super-hero/heroine!
Linda plays a major role in the Doctor Strange mini-series The Oath, and has a brief affair with Stephen.

She reunites with him, joining Marvel's other practicing physicians/superbeings...

...in Marvel's Jane Foster: Valkyrie #6 & #7 (2019-2020) to make an interdimensional house call to keep Death itself from dying...

...as we showed HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE during a previous October Halloween Hospital Horrors blogathon!
Note: Jane Foster is now an MD as well as a Valkyrie!
Night Nurse is still around, and continues to appear in Marvel comics to this day!

But that's not all!

"Night Nurse" has also appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe...but she's not Linda Carter!

In the MCU, the Night Nurse title is used by Claire Temple, RN, another Marvel Multiverse medico, performed by Rosario Dawson!

The character has appeared on Daredevil, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and The Defenders!

In Marvel Comics, Dr (not Nurse) Claire Temple was involved with both current beau 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 who worked with Dr Henry Pym (Ant-Man I/Giant-Man I/Goliath I/Yellowjacket I)!

As you might have guessed, Luke and Bill ended up fighting it out for her affections, as super-heroes tend to do in such situations!
Trivia: Both Claire Temple and Linda Carter were appearing simultaneously in Marvel Comics in the 1970s, but their paths never overlapped!

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!

To wind this month-long feature up, we return to All of the Marvels author Douglas Wolk to explain his theory of Linda Carter being the lynchpin of the Marvel Multiverse.
(Bet you thought we forgot about that, didn't you?)

The third reason I like to think of Linda Carter, Student Nurse #1 as the real starting point of what I read for this book is that the big Marvel narrative becomes strangely beautiful if it’s Linda’s story.
It’s ridiculous to think of any one character as the protagonist of this half-million-page epic, of course, but—what if that were true?
What would it mean if the Marvel story is really about her, as comparatively little time as she’s spent on panel?

The Marvel story is understood, too often, as a story for boys; with Linda at its center, it also belongs to a specific tradition of stories for girls.
It’s a story in which science and knowledge are defining forces; as Linda’s story, it’s about a woman who begins the most important part of her education on its first page and continues to learn even when she steps away from our view.

 

Linda Carter lives in a world more dangerous and overwhelming than anything she could have imagined when she first arrived at Metropolitan Hospital.
If Marvel’s body of comics is her story, it’s about how that world has changed around a woman who has a perspective like that of the story’s readers—someone with no special powers or more-than-human gifts.
Linda’s life has given her just what the old con man Stan Lee promised when she first appeared: thrills, but also humor and glamorous romance.
What she’s learned from the marvels that saved her is how to be brave and kind—and also that it can be fun for her to give herself another name, and sometimes wear a little cape.

Now who can argue with that?

Not me!

Support Medical Comics and Stories

Visit Amazon and Buy

All of the Marvels

by Douglas Wolk

Paid Link

The Departure of LINDA CARTER and the Coming of...NIGHT NURSE!

We Have Already Seen the Coming of Linda Carter: Student Nurse...

(you were expecting Lynda Carter aka Wonder Woman?

We already did that visual joke twice!)

As of #9 in 1962 (above), Linda disappeared...and I mean totally-vanished!

That run's never been reprinted!

But it wasn't the end of Linda Carter in the Marvel Multiverse, folks!

A decade later, Marvel launched a trio of female lead characters in their own titles as superheroine The Cat, jungle girl Shanna the She-Devil, and Night Nurse all made their debuts within a month of each other!

The other two were totally-new characters, but Night Nurse was a sequel/semi-reboot of Linda Carter with a whole new supporting cast and an emphasis on "relevant" storylines within a hospital/soap-opera format similar to those on prime-time TV!

While not exactly an ensemble book (Linda was clearly the star), we got to see a lot more of her roommates' family and friends whose tales wove through the fabric of hospital life than the previous version!

Since the Comics Code had been loosened the previous year...

...storylines that had previously been forbidden...

...showing authority figures like doctors becoming drunk and endangering patients' lives could now be shown...

...along with the pickled physician facing relatively-real life consequences!

No "happy ending" here!

The third issue was an "urban crime" story popular in movies and TV of the early '70s.
But the sales on the first two issues were poor and the decision was made to cancel the book as of #4 in 1973.

So the creatives decided to try something really different...

...doing a contemporary gothic romance tale starring one of the supporting characters!

There was no interaction/crossover with any of the other Marvel characters in any of those issues, not did Linda or any of the cast appear (even as cameos) in any other Marvel title...until Marvel's Daredevil #80 (2006)...

Here's the intro...

Be Here Next Friday for...well...

Just Be HERE!

Support Medical Comics and Stories

Visit Amazon and Buy

All of the Marvels

by Douglas Wolk

Paid Link