Going Viral

Satan's Island by John Wagner, Kev Walker, Ben Willsher, Paul Marshall, Cam Kennedy, Chris Blythe and Tom Frame.

Here's another collection from my 2000AD gap years, and it's one I picked up after a suggestion from Flintlockjaw from the ECBT2000AD podcast about other Dredd stories which featured biological warfare. This one concerns the arrival of the floating Sin City in the waters off the coast of Mega-City One. With no laws on board it allows visiting citizens to gamble and debauch themselves to their hearts content while the Judges can only look on with disapproval. Chief Judge Hershey ostensibly allows it because it brings in much needed revenue for the Meg's coffers but her ulterior motive is the hunt for a wanted terrorist agent rumoured to be on board the pontooned palace of perversion, and naturally she sends Dredd to head up the investigation.

As ever the civilians get up to all kinds of futuristic nonsense and inevitably the terrorist is revealed and there is mayhem aplenty as one of Dredd's oldest foes steps out of the shadows. Look away now if you don't want any spoilers but it's that man again, Orlok the assassin is back and he's carrying vials of another deadly microbe to unleash on the unsuspecting citizens of the big Meg. This time it's a bacterium as opposed to the block mania neurotoxin that kicked off the Apocalypse War but it does seem that the Sov Judges are a bit repetitive in their attacks. Presumably all meetings of the Polit bureau feature some bright spark asking if they have ever considered weakening their enemies by poisoning their water supply first?

The recent IDW collection of the Apocalypse War led me to muse on how these comic book stories reflect society's fears at the time they were written, and made me almost nostalgic for the nuclear paranoia of the 1980s. Even further back in the 1950s when the space race was just getting started comics were full of mysterious invaders from other planets, and all sorts of heroes were gaining powers from strangely glowing meteorites. In 1963 the amazing Spider-Man, like most of his fellow Marvel superheroes, gained his powers from radioactivity but by the time it came to his first big movie in 2002 we seemed to have all lost our fear of the power of the atom and the spider that bites Tobey Maguire represents another branch of scary science, genetic modification. Although ten years later when they rebooted we seemed to have decided that GM was no big deal after all and it was, once again, an atomic powered arachnid that led Andrew Garfield to don the red and blue unitard. Maybe it was the fear of some terrorist with a dirty bomb that pushed radioactivity back to the top of the lethal list, or perhaps the writers just loved that line about radioactive blood from the cartoon show song. And to continue my theme I bet there were all sorts of comics in the 1970s about environmental concerns, Swamp Thing was created in that decade and he would go on to be at the forefront of Alan Moore's stories about man's careless attitude to his home planet.

One of John Wagner's great talents is how he uses the Dredd strip to satirise so many of the stranger aspects of our own modern lives, and he certainly knows what frightens us. Whether it is the horrors of nuclear war or the flesh eating terror of a contagious disease with a 90% mortality rate. This series originally appeared in 2002 so possibly Wagner had New Labour's plans to introduce super-casinos to the UK in his mind rather than our fear of a microbiological catastrophe, but reading it now when Ebola victims in Africa are literally bleeding from their eyes is a sobering experience.

In the case of Orlok the agent he releases here is said to be a bacterium which means that Wagner has run the full gamut of different microbial menaces. It was a virus with the catchy name of 2T(FRU)T which infected Mega-City Two and led Dredd to make his epic trek across the Cursed Earth. In 1982 the Judges had to deal with a lethal Fungal infection that left victims growing a nasty crop of mushrooms on their skin. And to bring things right up to date the Chaos Day organism was based on a Protozoa called Toxoplasma Gondii. The Block Mania agent is, I think, just referred to as a toxin so I presume it was something pharmacological that sent the citizens crazy and not a bug. That only leaves a few rare wee beasties for the Sovs to try unleashing on the big Meg.

Turning back to this volume there is terrific art from the accomplished Kev Walker and some very early Ben Willsher on the sequel Orlok story from Prog 1303. Then Paul Marshall and Cam Kennedy illustrate the last stories which puts Orlok on trial. All three of these back up stories are coloured by Chris Blythe and the whole volume is lettered by Tom Frame. It's another fine Dredd collection which was a pleasure to read, and so cheap and easy to download on the iPad app. Four stars and recommended.

Prog 1877 vs Meg 347

It's a double helping of thrill power week with both the Prog and the Meg coming through the letter box together. Time for the Dredd-full duo to face off for the title.

Covers. Ben Willsher vs Steve Yeowell and Chris Blythe
Willsher delivers an early knock out blow with Dredd crashing through the cover and taking out most of the logo in the process. That's two weeks in a row with a lot of broken glass on the cover. The Meg cover is interesting but not particularly memorable. I wonder how much of the detail has been added by Chris Blythe's colours. I look forward to seeing the pencils when this shows up on Pete Wells block's 2000AD Covers Uncovered.
Score 1-0 to the Prog.

Dredd. Mega-City Confidential part 4 by John Wagner, Colin MacNeil, Chris Blythe and Annie Parkhouse vs Rad to the Bone part 1 by T.C.Eglington, Boo Cook and Annie Parkhouse.
Wagner and MacNeil are keeping the secret of Section 7 until next week. Whether it can ever live up to this suspenseful build up remains to be seen. I've always found Wagner's endings to be slightly anti-climatic but that's true of most ongoing comic stories which need the major characters and setting unchanged for the next instalment. MacNeil's use of light and shadow is fantastic, Dredd's visor and Styler's glasses on the third page are especially effective.

Over in the Meg Eglington and Cook set up a tale of a vengeful villain from Dredd's past. Another week another death threat, but if an ongoing series lasts 37 years there are bound to be some repeated tropes. I assume the mutated Orang-Utan is a known character but it's a new one on me. On a medical note the amount of deformation of Dredd's helmet suggests a fatal injury to me but maybe his skull is Adamantium these days. Cook's work is lovely but MacNeil has the edge here.
Score 2-0 to the Prog.

Outlier part 4 by T.C.Eglington, Karl Richardson and Annie Parkhouse vs DeMarco P.I. The Whisper part 5 by Michael Carroll, Steve Yeowell and Ellie De Ville

Two private investigators on the trail of super powered killers. Outlier continues with the jungle hunt diversion and weapons of mass destructions with cool names but little impact. Meanwhile DeMarco uses some grim weaponry of her own to work out who is tipping off the Whisper and why. The story telling was a bit confusing here with different timelines to work out and I confess that I have only just realised that the former cadet Kesseler is one of the survivors from Carroll's Forsaken story in last year's Prog.

Both stories were a bit of a let down after the earlier episodes but again the colour art in the Prog tips the scales.

Score 3-0 to the Prog. An early hat-trick, is the match over already?

Slaine The Brutania Chronicles part 4 by Pat Mills, Simon Davis and Ellie De Ville vs The Irrational Lottery by T.C.Eglington, Jon Davis-Hunt, Gary Caldwell and Simon Bowland.

Slaine finally swings his axe but it looks like there is a sting in the demon's tail. Over in the Meg the ubiquitous Eglington gives us an amusing self contained story about life on the Mega-City dole. Slaine wins points for having some creepy Doctor Who style demons emerging from the waves but as ever Mills is taking his time getting to the point. It's a close run thing but the art by Davis-Hunt with Caldwell's crazy colours just edges it out for a win for the Meg.
Score 3-1 and the Megazine is back in the game.

Jaegir: Strigoi part 4 by Gordon Rennie, Simon Coleby, Len O'Grady and Simon Bowland vs Anderson: Dead End part 5 by Alan Grant, Michael Dowling and Simon Bowland.

Two scarred heroines face off. It's time for a creepy castle in Jaegir with scary monsters and super creeps in a jungle hunt (that's this week's 80s electro-pop reference taken care of). O'Grady's colours continue to make this work for me although I need some steak now after all the sizzle.

Meanwhile Anderson and Dredd realise they are on the trail of another blast from the past, but it doesn't matter that the story has gone down a familiar pathway because Dowling's art steals the show. There's something about his big screen facial close-ups that seems just right for the pages of the Megazine. It's nice to see Anderson back on top of her game and craggy faced Dredd putting her back in the firing line. And it's an easy win for the Anderson story.

Score 3-2 and all to play for.

Sinister Dexter: The Generican Dream part 4 by Dan Abnett, Smudge and Ellie De Ville vs the Megazine articles.

Godzilla wins, that's just the way it is.
Final score 3-3, a tie!

So my scoring system is a bit suspect but the judge's decision is the law etc. (If it came down to a penalty shoot out then my money would be on Wagner and MacNeil to win it). Two top quality issues from the house of Tharg. If you're not reading 2000AD you are missing out on the best of British comics.

2000AD Prog 1857

Cover

By Karl Richardson. Terrific depiction of Dredd and the monster. Richardson goes with the vambrace gauntlet thing that he used on the cover of 1845 but more of that later. Dredd has pretty impressive abs for a 70 year old, I don't believe they would show through a leather uniform but that's artistic licence again. My main problem with this cover is that it looks so similar to Prog 1826 by Paul Davidson. I'll be interested to see Pete Wells' 2000AD Covers Uncovered blog posting on this and what Tharg's brief was.

Dredd. Prey part three by T.C.Eglington, Karl Richardson and Annie Parkhouse.

Although the bad guy gets plenty of time to monologue his evil plan this final episode feels a bit rushed like a lot of the recent Dredd tales. It did seem that it might have another prog in it but once the beastie is dispatched it's all wrapped up in five quick panels.

Now for the medical content. Firstly I don't know how the nurse's medical band delivers the "anti-allergy medicine" into the body but I'm pretty sure it would need to be on the skin or fairly close to it. We teach patients that they can deliver their Epipen or Jext injection devices through a pair of trousers or tights in an emergency, but I don't think that would work through a pair of thick leather gauntlets with that wrist protector vambrace thing. We know that Dredd's costume is resistant against fire and a variety of nasty chemicals. I don't think it can do that and still allow a fairly small needle or gas powered injection device to fire through the back of his glove.

The second problem with this get out of jail device is the idea that this medical band has delivered "enough adrenaline to briefly counteract the neurotoxin". Adrenaline does not work like that, there are only a few medical emergencies that justify its use. The devices used by patients and doctors to treat allergic anaphylaxis do contain adrenaline but the way that works is to increase the force and speed of the heart pumping, as well as opening up the airways and making it easier for someone having an allergic crisis to breathe. It's not going to reverse the effects of a neurotoxin. Adrenaline was also used incorrectly to get Dredd back on his feet after major blood loss in Trifecta. And another thing, in America adrenaline is called epinephrine, in fact there is an attempt to get all countries to use the same name for drugs and epinephrine is the term accepted by the international medical community. Unless the nurse is from Brit-Cit she is using the wrong drug name. This sort of stuff stands out like a sore thumb to me (and I see lots of sore thumbs as well). There are better drugs and devices that might work in these situations, just ask me.

Having said that the detail about the Doctor developing new drugs from the Scrall venom does reflect real medicine. In recent years we have started using a blood pressure medicine developed from Pit-Viper venom, and a new diabetic drug comes from the saliva of the venomous Gila Monster. So hats off to Mr Eglington for that.

Brass Sun. The Diamond Age part eight by Ian Edginton, INJ Culbard and Ellie De Ville.

Stop me if you have heard this opinion already. The art is lovely and I look forward to reading the whole thing in trade, but it just moves so slowly. Having said that doesn't it also seem that the protagonists are getting chased through long grass by one of those strangely ineffectual Scythe robot things every third episode or so? I'll wait for the collected version.

Flesh. Badlanders part eight by Pat Mills, James McKay, Lee Townsend and Annie Parkhouse.

I'm growing to love the black and white art which reminds me of the early days of 2000AD but I'm still mystified by the storyline. Still we get a raptor versus a rodeo cowboy, Vegas shows off her boobs again, and next issue we might finally get Gorehead living up to his name.

Tharg's 3rillers. Rewind part two by Robert Murphy, Jesus Redondo, Eva De La Cruz and Ellie De Ville.

I really enjoy these three episode stories which introduce some new blood into 2000AD's line up. There is a slight problem with the time travel cop story which has already been pointed out on the forums, namely if you can go back and solve past murders, why don't you just go back a little further and prevent them in the first place?

As you might expect I also have some medical problems with this story. In the last prog one of the cops used a hand held device to identify the suspects as two adult males based on "exhaled DNA particles". There are all sorts of problems with this. Let's assume that we do shed some some lung lining cells and blow those out in each breath. Collecting enough of those and then extracting the DNA from them is going to be enormously difficult and way beyond the power of something you can wear on your belt. However if we can accept time travel for the story then let's allow Robert Murphy to have a CSI crime lab that can be carried on a utility belt. But you can't identify someone's sex from DNA, you identify it from the chromosomes made from DNA. And even if we reject that as just a quibble about names how does DNA analysis tell you how old someone is?

My other problem with this particular story is the size of the hole that Dick Turpin blows in Benson's chest with his flintlock pistol. Of course this allows for some Death Becomes Her fun as the artist draws his partner peering through the gaping wound, but even a large calibre musket ball would not make that size of wound. Look at the American civil war photographs of Matthew Brady to see the small but deadly wounds caused by musket fire.

Damnation Station. In Another Lifetime by Al Ewing, Mark Harrison and Simon Bowland.

Looks pretty but I have no idea what's going on. I need to go right back to the start on this one.

Pick of the prog is Dredd, but mainly through lack of competition. I'm off now for an adrenaline shot and a nice cup of tea.

2000AD Prog 1848 - A Medical Review

A quick look at the Judge Dredd story in the very latest Prog. This is from Bender part four by John Wagner, Ben Willsher and Chris Blythe. Warning spoilers ahead!

Judges Lock and Bender make an explosive entrance into a hidden laboratory where two men are "cooking" the drug Zziz. One of the criminal chemists douses Lock with the highly flammable base ingredient which then catches fire when the Judge fires his Lawgiver. His partner Bender acts quickly to disable their assailants and throws a fire blanket over Lock to put out the flames. However from the following image it would appear that his injuries are severe.

Judges' uniforms are flame resistant and he hopefully got a lot of protection from his helmet. At the end of the previous issue Bender advised Lock to put his helmet respirator down before entering the lab. It is missing from the front crest on his helmet so he must have been wearing in when he was engulfed in flames. This should have protected his lungs from the flames, fumes and risks of smoke inhalation. However it would seem that Lock has third degree burns on his lower face and neck, the fire has removed the full thickness of skin and exposed the subcutaneous tissues. This is a serious injury that would require extensive inpatient treatment to heal and a lot of plastic surgery to repair the damage to the face.

Fortunately this is something that the Mega-City One medics are very good at. We know that Judge Dredd himself had similar facial burns repaired after the events of Necropolis. What bothers me slightly is how quickly Lock returns to street duty after this terrible injury. By the end of this episode he is back on his bike and confronting Bender about his actions. The story demands a fairly quick return to duty but I'm not sure that the medics would be able to get him fit again so easily. The other problem is that we know Lock is already suffering from a degree of post traumatic stress disorder after the events of the Day of Chaos. Having treated police officers and firemen who have been injured in the line of duty I know how difficult it can be for them to recover fully. After sustaining such horrific burns I would have thought Lock would need a further period of counselling before he was passed fit to return to work. However as the 2000AD forums have pointed out, John Wagner might have story plans for a Judge with deep psychological issues and a scarred face. He does resemble one of Dredd's greatest foes who is due to return to the comic next year.

One final note. I confess I don't know much about he properties of the fictional Mega-City drug Zziz. It would seem that Wagner has been watching Breaking Bad, and used the preparation of Meth-amphetamine as inspiration for the activity of the illicit chemists. Making the drug is clearly a risky business and judging from the following panels Lock was very fortunate that he had his helmet and respirator to protect his eyes and mouth from the drug base.

2000AD Prog 1835 - A Medical Review

This post looks at some of the medical issues raised in the Judge Dredd story from 2000AD Prog 1835, the final part of The Forsaken storyline written by Mike Carroll with art by P.J.Holden. Spoilers follow, you have been warned!

The Forsaken follows Dredd and one of his many clones, Dollman, as they try to discover what happened to a group of cadet Judges in the immediate aftermath of the Day of Chaos. The search turns out to have a particular family resonance for Dredd and Dollman when it is revealed that one of the trainee Judges is yet another clone. All the way through this story we have been led to believe that the cadet in question is a chap called Falcon but at the end of Prog 1834 Mike Carroll pulled that rug out from under us with the surprise twist that the clone was really a young woman called Jessica Paris.

In this final installment they reveal how Justice department Gene-Techs turned a male foetus with XY chromosomes into a female. Click the picture for a larger image.

The SRY gene is the Sex determining region on the Y chromosome. There is a rare but naturally occurring condition called Swyer syndrome where a defective SRY gene produces females who do not have functioning ovaries. Women with this condition do not go through puberty unless they are given hormone replacement treatment and they can not produce eggs. They couldn't become pregnant unless they had an embryo implanted by IVF or some similar procedure. At the end of this story we learn that Cadet Paris is indeed pregnant and that she appears to have conceived somewhere out in the city after the Day of Chaos, and not in a nice, warm Justice Department laboratory.

So the big problem with this reveal is not how they would produce a female clone who can have babies, but why they would want to. If they are trying to clone a line of tough female Judges why would they start with Dredd? Wouldn't the Gene-Techs be more likely to look at some of the existing strong women characters like Chief Judge Hershey or Psi Judge Anderson? And even if they did produce a female version of Dredd there would be no good reason to go to all the trouble of making her able to conceive. They don't need pregnant judges when they can produce new ones in a test tube.

It's clear that Dollman in particular feels a family connection to his clone brothers and sisters which drives the story of The Forsaken along, but the only reason that Carroll seems to have borrowed this bit of real world medicine is to let him pull off the misdirect that the clone was the last male cadet, Falcon, instead of Paris. And soon there will be a new baby Dredd-let in MC1. I wonder if they will bother to return to that plot point in the future.

I should point out that House of Usher on the 2000AD forums, and Orlok on the ECBT2000AD blog covered some of this ground ahead of me, and spotted the obvious problems that this story created (in more ways than one).

Iain Banks no more

Yesterday came the sad news that one of our greatest authors had died at the age of 59 after what he described as a "brilliant life" that was cut short by "bad luck" in the form of metastatic cancer of the gall bladder.

Like everyone else I was introduced to Banks by his first remarkable novel The Wasp Factory which I read shortly after its publication in 1984 when I started to hear all the fuss about it. He has since published another 27 books and I have read them all, several of them twice or more. It was a particular delight to discover his science fiction books which he wrote as Iain M. Banks, about which I have blogged in the past.

His writings revealed him as thoughtful human being with liberal views and a hopeful vision of the future where we will one day perfect medicine, get past scarcity, and, most importantly of all, stop being so horrid to each other and concentrate on creating art and just having fun. In his science fiction books this version of humanity is known as The Culture, and although they aren't always a force for good in the universe they are a beguiling thought experiment about how things might one day be.

My father and my three brothers were all huge fans of his Culture books and we would look forward to a new one coming out every other year, and then discuss it and share our thoughts via email. Banks' books were one of the things we had in common and we joined in all the fun of thinking up new names for the giant ship Minds that feature in the novels.

My brother Michael died last year after a similarly short battle with a metastatic cancer. Now both Michael and his favourite author are gone and the loss of one of the things we used to talk about seems to make it worse somehow.

I met Iain Banks at a book signing for his novel Surface Detail in 2010 and he was delightful. I have never heard anyone say a bad word about him. He always seemed to be humorous, witty and a genuinely nice bloke. The dignified way he dealt with the news of his own illness stands as a lesson to us all. I wonder if I will have the same courage they had when my time comes.

One day in the distant future we will finally crack the cancer problem and it will become a thing of the past. Until then we have to mourn the loss of decent people who are taken before their time.

Rest in Peace Iain and Michael.

2000AD Prog 1823 - A medical review

Haven't done one of these in a while but there's another medical storyline in the latest Judge Dredd strip, Black Kisses by T.C.Eglington, with art by Karl Richardson and letters by Annie Parkhouse.

Spoiler warning. The following contains minor spoilers for a story which, at the time of writing, isn't on the newsstands yet. Look away now.

Black Kisses is quite a neat stand alone Dredd tale about an infectious tattoo that is killing people. There is a bit of social commentary about the perils of promiscuity, revenge and sexually transmitted diseases while Dredd solves the mystery and deals with an incompetent rookie Judge.

In this scene a Tech Judge carries out a post mortem on one of the victims and explains how the tattoo is passed from person to person like a virus. Click below for a larger image.

Naon-technology is the current "go to" concept for science fiction writers when they want to explain any bit of magic, but we can't hold that against Eglington, everyone is using it at the moment. However. he does get his skin pigments slightly wrong. Skin colouration is caused by the body's melanocyte cells which produce different types of the pigment Melanin. Brown or black skin tones are caused by the Eumelanin pigment which is the variety we produce when our skin starts to tan. But the Tech Judge refers to Pheomelanin which causes a red colouration. We all produce a certain amount of Pheomelanin for the red areas of our bodies, lips and nipples and so on. Some individuals produce a lot of this red chemical, so you could say it is the Ginger pigment.

If the story had been called "Red Kisses" the Tech might have got away with it, but as the transmitted tattoos are clearly black in colour then I think what he meant to say was Eumelanin. Still a slip of the tongue (or of the google) shouldn't subtract from what is a pretty good Dredd story with a clever plot device. 3 out of 5 medic-droids.

Absalom - Ghosts of London

Absalom is a 2000AD strip about a London police unit that deals with the paranormal. Written by Gordon Rennie, illustrated by Tiernen Trevallion, and lettered by Simon Bowland and Ellie De Ville. It originally span out of another series called Caballistics, Inc. and has recently been collected in a Rebellion trade paperback.

The central idea of a special police unit that deals with paranormal incidents is a familiar one which we have seen in the X-Files and Fringe. Recently the Doctor Who writer Ben Aaronovitch covered this territory in his Rivers of London books, and another Who writer Paul Cornell will venture into the same field in his forthcoming London Falling. What Absalom has that makes it stand out from this crowd is the central character.
Detective Inspector Harry Absalom is an unrepentant, hard as nails copper from the old school. Disreputable and shabby to look at, frequently sipping alcohol and morphine to control cancer pain, and always telling things like they are without any hint of political correctness. Imagine Columbo crossed with Jack Regan from the Sweeney with a bit of Van Helsing thrown in.

The paperback collects the original story Noblesse Oblige from progs 1732-1739 and the sequel Ghosts of London from 1765-1771, as well a one-shot story called Sick Leave that appeared in the Christmas special Prog 2012. Sick Leave filled in a little of Harry Absalom's history as well as dealing with his medical condition which I discussed in one of my previous medic-droid reviews. Rennie and Trevallion also fill the pages with in-jokes and references to other works which I am starting to annotate over on my other website. As ever if you can help out with any references then please email me.

I found the art on Caballistics, Inc. a bit too scratchy for my liking but Tiernen Trevaillion's work on this book is just fantastic. Likewise I am a big fan of Rennie's writing and his dialogue for Harry Absalom. Both tales are terrific, fast paced adventures which do what 2000AD has done so well over the years, namely introducing great characters in bizarre new worlds. The last new strip to get me this excited was Stickleback. Interestingly the two central figures do share some similarities.

Absalom is one of a host of interesting creations brought to us by 2000AD in the last decade. You can pick up a copy of this book on Amazon for under £8 and it's really worth it. 4 out of 5 stars from me.

Back Beats

Spoiler alert! This article contains some spoilers for The Power of Three. You have been warned.

There were some good moments in the latest Doctor Who story - The Power of Three, although it was basically a kiddie friendly version of Clive Barker's Hellraiser. What stood out for me was, of course, the stuff about hearts and the Doctor's dual cardiovascular systems. As UNIT descended upon the Ponds' house Kate Stewart identified the Doctor by his dress sense and then confirmed this with a hand held heart scanner producing a wonderful screen shot. (Click on the image for a larger picture.)

There we are, a nice colour image of two hearts. Unlike some of the previous images we have seen the hearts are shown arranged one above the other rather than side by side. We also see what could be lungs highlighted in blue, or this may be the Doctor's famous respiratory bypass system - a convenient "get out of jail card" for the writers on several occasions. There are also some rather truncated ribs which are helpfully kept out of the way of our view of the middle. Quite how this scanner manages to show them at the sides and not where they meet at the breastbone is a mystery but UNIT get all the cool toys.

Things take a turn for the worse when the mysterious cubes stop a lot of people's hearts. This also affects the Doctor's left heart and he struggles to continue with just one side beating. As his condition deteriorates Amy takes matters into her own hands and grabs a conveniently placed defibrillator from a hospital corridor. She shocks the Doctor and restarts his left heart. The reinvigorated Doctor can then program the cubes to act as some form of mass defibrillator and restart the hearts of all the affected humans. Happy endings all round.

Unfortunately this plot device makes the usual television error about what defibrillators actually do. When the heart is fibrillating it means that the muscle is contracting in an uncoordinated fashion and not pumping blood effectively. If you could look directly at a fibrillating heart it would be quivering rather than contracting regularly. Defibrillation applies an electrical shock which basically resets the electrical system of the heart and hopefully gets it contracting properly. If the fibrillation continues unchecked then eventually the heart stops altogether, at which point an electrical shock is going to make no difference at all. Sadly you can't "jump-start" a stopped heart with a defibrillator.

The Doctor's heart and the hearts of a third of the world's population have stopped. Defibrillation will not restart them. In fact using the defibrillator as Amy does would actually risk causing fibrillation in the Doctor's other heart. It is also interesting that the machine she uses is a rather old fashioned model that would only be used by doctors (of the human kind) or trained paramedics. You are much more likely to see something called an Automated External Defibrillator in public places or hospital corridors.

There is another problem. When the Doctor's left heart stops he still has his right sided organ to continue pumping blood to his brain. The humans who we see collapsing all around the world do not have this luxury. While their hearts are stopped no blood is getting to their brains so they are all at risk of serious brain damage. Unless I missed the bit where the Doctor managed to go back in time and somehow restart their hearts immediately after they collapsed then I don't think we would see people just standing up and carrying on as if nothing had happened.

However, the misconception about defibrillation is very common in film and television so the writer can perhaps be excused for making the same mistake. At least this episode gave us a nice view of the Doctor's two hearts. It also get brownie points for introducing Kate Stewart who I hope we see more of, and for mentioning the Zygons. Apart from that I found all the stuff about the Doctor living with the Ponds rather dull and that combined with the poor medicine made it rather a weak story for me. We shall see if the Weeping Angels can save the current series.

Back from the Dredd

There are at least 2000 reviews of Dredd 3D out there. Here is another one.

2000AD has been one of the biggest proving grounds for British comic book talent over the last 35 years. So much so that it is a bit of a mystery why none of its iconic characters have been adapted into successful films before now. Obviously there was the other movie but we all try to forget that one. But think of the creators who started out with 2000AD: Alan Moore, Brian Bolland, Neil Gaiman, John Wagner, Mark Millar and Grant Morrison to name just a few. Many of them have gone on to create stories for other comics that have been adapted for the screen, but still the only 2000AD character to escape from the comic pages is Judge Joe Dredd.

Dredd 3D arrives with an enormous weight of expectations from the fans, and also the big question of whether it can cross over and attract those who don't read the comics into the cinemas. Fortunately everyone involved seems to have been aware of the expectations and were committed to treating the character seriously. Another huge factor in the success of the film has been the involvement of the creators John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra who get first billing in the end credits. Getting the popular 2000AD artist Jock to help design the look of Megacity One was also a very smart move by the producers.

So how well do they succeed in adapting the world of Judge Dredd? The opening shots of the Cursed Earth, the wall, and then Megacity One along with Karl Urban's voice over set the scene quickly and efficiently. Director Pete Travis makes sure we know where we are straight away, and it is a believable world that doesn't seem that far from our own. The slums, the battered vehicles and the street crime recall images from films like City of God and even the riots that plagued London in 2011AD.

And then there is Dredd himself. Right from the opening shots of him donning his armoured clothing and helmet Karl Urban is Judge Dredd. Terse, brutal and deadly. Obviously the uniform had to be adapted from the comic book depictions into something more functional, but the interesting thing is Dredd's outfit looks well used and somewhat battered. Even the famous helmet is scarred and scratched in contrast to the Stallone movie where everything gleamed as if it had come straight out of the factory, or had just stepped off Versace's catwalk.

The storyline is kept fairly straight-forward and simple with the two Judges outnumbered and outgunned as they try to work their way up through Peach Trees block to the final showdown with Lena Headey's Ma-Ma. If I had any criticism it would be with the portrayal of Anderson as somewhat nervous and uncertain at the start of the film, I would expect a cadet Judge to be tougher but it does allow the the writer Alex Garland to give us her character progression through the 95 minute film. Those minutes are perfectly paced and it feels is just the right length for an adult action film which is not affected by the bloated running times that are increasingly common.

While on the subject of time the depiction of the effects of the drug Slo-Mo are central to the plot and allow for an impressive combination of slow motion filming and the 3D effects. The water splashing from Ma-Ma's bath and the shattering of a glass window later in the film are stand-out moments. I will don my medical hat for a moment to wonder how the drug works. Slo-Mo slows the user's perception of time passing to one hundredth of normal. It is taken taken through an inhaler device and appears to work almost instantaneously. To affect the experience of time passing I would assume that Slo-Mo must work on neurotransmitter chemicals in the brain. That means the drug must be inhaled into the lungs, cross into the bloodstream and then get across the blood brain barrier which would take some time. It would be quick but not as fast as shown in the film but we will just have to allow some artistic licence here.

Along with Karl Urban the rest of the cast are fantastic. Fans of The Wire will enjoy seeing Dredd and Anderson arrest Avon Barksdale (Wood Harris). It was also nice to see one of the Weasleys, Domhnall Gleeson, graduating to a more interesting film role as the Clan Techie, and Rakie Ayola makes the jump from Holby City to Chief Judge look easy!

Overall the film is a fantastic action adventure which remains true to the spirit of the comics while opening the character up for a wider audience. Let us hope that it makes enough money so that Travis, Garland and Urban can give us a sequel. The medic-droid gives Dredd 3D a full 5 stars. Film of the year for me.

Big Finish - Medicinal Purposes

Big Finish monthly release 60 - Medicinal Purposes from August 2004. Written by Robert Ross and directed by Gary Russell.

How is this for a list of ingredients? The Sixth Doctor, Evelyn Smythe, spooky Edinburgh, the body snatchers Burke and Hare, David Tennant, and the fabulous Leslie Philips. I was always going to enjoy this story. Not least because I was in Edinburgh earlier this year and visited the Greyfriars graveyard where the Doctor an Evelyn begin their investigations. I also looked round the Surgeon's Hall museum which includes a rather gruesome book bound in leather made from William Burke's skin

I am on record as not liking the Doctor Who historicals, but this story about the Doctor wanting to meet two minor figures whose criminality inspired medical breakthroughs is really rather good. Especially when the Doctor discovers that something is seriously wrong and that history is not unfolding in the way he expects. I bought this story in Big Finish's recent David Tennant sale but his character is a rather minor one. Far more interesting was the wonderful voice of Leslie Philips, and hearing his villainous Dr Knox go up against the Doctor.

Dr Smythe rather let me down in this adventure. There is one anachronistic clue which the Doctor (and myself) picked up on but Evelyn missed, which surprised me knowing that she is a historian. Maybe travelling in the Tardis has confused her perception of time. Strictly speaking it is not her area of expertise so I will let the writer off on that one. The other slight problem with this production was the background noises of the Edinburgh streets and the public house where much of the story takes place. I found the constant hubbub rather intrusive at times but again this is a minor quibble about an otherwise excellent, and rather spooky, Big Finish drama.

4 out of 5 bumps in the night I think. Next up the Sixth Doctor returns to Világ in Thicker than Water, but where is Evelyn?

2000AD Prog 1787 - A medical review

Spoiler alert! Mild spoilers for 2000AD prog 1787 follow. You have been warned.

There are some more medical details about the chaos bug in the latest 2000AD. Chaos Day has arrived and the deadly micro-organism is sweeping through Mega-City one. According to the caption in the second panel there are now millions of victims which suggests we are on the third day of Professor Wyant's projections.

Dredd is working with a small team of Judges and members of the Citi-Def citizens' militia as they try to regain control of a single city block. After Dredd deals with an infected victim in characteristic, uncompromising  fashion we get another snippet of information about the infectious nature of the Chaos organism. Respirators are apparently essential to prevent airborne transmission, but the Judges have also covered their exposed skin with a barrier gel. This suggests that either the organism can penetrate human skin, or more likely the airborne organism can settle on human skin and then be transferred internally later by the usual hand to mouth touching that we all do throughout the day. This is how we normally pick up the common cold virus and manage to infect ourselves. It would be nice if we had a barrier gel that we could wear during flu and cold season.

Having established that the chaos illness can be caught through breathing or skin contact we then get a standard scene for any Zombie type infection story - a human bite. Clearly the bite of a Chaos victim will transmit the bug to the unfortunate Citi-Def member and Dredd prepares to take drastic action with a laser. But this is a bit strange because it seems fairly clear that the Citi-Def are not wearing any form of masks. Having established that respirators are mandatory it would appear that the militia members are already at risk of airborne infection. Could the Judges have made a deliberate decision to sacrifice the Citi-Def members? And if so why does Dredd bother with the laser surgery he is planning at the end of this page. It does seem like a strange omission, unless their lack of respirators has been explained somewhere else? Please email me if I have missed this.

Having said all that the story of Chaos Day is completely engrossing and this minor detail does not detract from John Wagner's masterpiece. The full scale of the disaster is becoming clear and strangely Dredd seems to be on the periphery of the action as the Mega-City falls. Presumably his moment is coming but it is difficult to see how the Judges are going to save the day.

My nit-picking point about the respirators means this issue only gets 3 out of 5 medic-droids for medical accuracy, but it gets a full 10 points on the Zarjaz scale. Watch this space for more soon.

2000AD Prog 1783 - A medical review

Spoiler alert! Mild spoilers for the Judge Dredd story from Prog 1783 ahead. You have been warned!


The Day of Chaos - Eve of Destruction story by John Wagner continues and the situation in Mega-City One just gets worse. The Council of Five meet to try and plan a way out of the approaching catastrophe and they have summoned my favourite Mega-City Microbiologist, Professor Lucas Wyant.

Wyant lays out the difficulties they face in trying to control the spread of the deadly Chaos Bug. His calculations of the numbers of people likely to be infected are based on an exponential growth rate with each newly infected victim going on to infect a number of people and so on, and so on. Plugging Wyant's figures into excel and using an exponential growth trend suggests that the number of Chaos infected citizens on day four will be 147 million. After the Apocalypse war the Mega-City One population is about 400 million so Wyant is correct when he says that Dredd's suggestion of a quarter of the city is likely to be an underestimate. However Dredd is not far off and this just reinforces the impression that Dredd instinctively knows his city and the challenges facing it. Likewise John Wagner's attention to detail in this storyline continues to impress me. He certainly seems to have a grasp of public health issues and exponential growth rates.


Turning back a page Judges in bio-hazard suits examine the body of one of the infected agents who brought the Chaos bug into the city. They note that he bled to death and that transfusions just seemed to make the situation worse.

It would seem that along with all the others symptoms the infection also causes a condition called Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation, or DIC for short, which is an extremely serious blood clotting disorder. In DIC multiple tiny clots form within blood vessels and these clots quickly use up all the proteins known as clotting factors. Without these clotting factors there is nothing to stop bleeding and the result is uncontrolled haemorrhage. Giving patients blood or infusing clotting factors may buy some time but can actually make things worse and the only effective treatment is to find what has caused the DIC in the first place, and to reverse that. As Professor Wyant points out, for the victims of the incurable Chaos bug this is impossible. DIC also explains why the infected bleed from every orifice as discussed in Prog 1765.

I would be fascinated to know where Wagner gets his medical knowledge. He is certainly on the money again here, even in a single throw-away remark by a Med-Judge that reveals more about the deadly plague which is sweeping the Mega-City. This issue gets a full 5 out of 5 medic-droids for medical accuracy. The new Golden Age of 2000AD continues. If you want to get caught up on what you have been missing then there is a useful recap of the Day of Chaos storyline on the 2000AD site here.

2000AD Prog 1775 - A medical review

This week's 2000AD is Prog 1779 and there is no medicine to review other than to say that the prognosis for Mega-City One looks to be very poor indeed. Instead I'm going to turn back to Prog 1775 and consider something that the Chief Judge said.

Spoiler alert. This review includes mild spoilers for 2000AD Prog 1775 and the current Eve of Destruction story. You have been warned!

Judge Dan Francisco was the subject of a reality television series called The Streets of Dan Francisco. The Dredd stories have always been peppered with puns and in-jokes so having a show that is similarly named to a 1970s police drama is just par for the course for 2000AD. The Judge Francisco series was a big public relations hit for the Justice department and subsequently he was elected Chief Judge by his fellow Judges. His reign has not been straight-forward to say the least. He seems to be a decent Judge who tries to do the right things but events conspire against him, and now he is struggling to contain the escalating crisis that threatens to destroy Mega-City One. As so often in the past, Judge Dredd may be their only chance for salvation.

In Prog 1775 the Chief Judge and Dredd interview the widow of the scientist who engineered the chaos bug for the rogue Sov-Judges. She reveals that her husband ensured that the bug had an inbuilt weakness.

To recap what we have learned about the chaos bug from previous progs - Dr Yurges created an organism that is based on a protozoa called Toxoplasma Gondii but is much more infectious and deadly. The infection has already been released in Mega-City One and is spreading quickly. There has been some confusion about whether the bug is a protozoa or a virus. In the first panel Dredd plays it safe and refers to it as "the organism". Then Mrs Yurges drops her bombshell - the bug is unstable and will become weaker as it passes from person to person until it reverts to its previous, almost harmless form. "Like the common cold?" asks the Chief Judge but no-one answers him.

The common cold is caused by any one of several hundred different viruses. None of these viruses reduce in virulence as they pass from one person to another. What tends to happen is that people who are more susceptible to infection at any one time tend to pick up the infection first and often develop more symptoms than "fitter" people who get the infection later on. So people whose immune system is weakened by age, medications or another illness will tend to be infected earlier and be more unwell then their family, friends or work and school colleagues who catch the cold from them. Likewise children who have not come into contact with a particular virus before will often have more severe symptoms than their older siblings and parents who have probably developed some immunity already. This is probably where the idea that the Cold virus "burns itself out" comes from.

The Chief Judge may also be confused by something called the Trade-Off Hypothesis which suggested that evolution may have slowly selected infectious organisms that were less virulent because the bugs spread best when their hosts (i.e. us) were still able to be up and about and meeting other possible hosts. As you can read on the above Wikipedia page this doesn't altogether explain what is going on in the complex relationship between micro-organisms and their hosts, which is influenced by several other factors.

Chief Judge Franscisco stumbles slightly on the science stuff but, as always, Dredd is the Law and gets it right. This prog gets a cautiously optimistic 3 out of 5 medic-droids. However, if you are up to date with the current progs you will know that the Chaos bug may be the least of their worries. Writer John Wagner is turning the screws on Mega-City One in what seems set to be his Magnum opus.

2000AD Prog 1778 - A medical review

Spoiler alert! Mild spoilers for the Judge Dredd story from Prog 1778 ahead. You have been warned.


In the current Judge Dredd storyline Day of Chaos: Eve of Destruction the Mega-City authorities are wrestling with the effects of the Chaos organism which has been released into the general population by infected Sov City agents. The Judges have introduced a curfew to prevent the bug from spreading, and are asking citizens to report any suspicious symptoms so that infected people can be identified, quarantined and treated. In this scene from prog 1778 a television reporter is following a Justice department medic team as they arrive at the home of a family who have noticed that Grannie is unwell.

The Judges have developed a quick test for the Chaos bug. Coming up with a screening test for a medical condition is harder than you might imagine, and every test has to be considered critically for two key points. Firstly, how many patients with the disease does the test miss out i.e. false negative tests, this is referred to as the test's Sensitivity. Secondly, how many patients without the disease test does the test say do have it i.e. false positives, this is referred to as the Specificity of a test. An ideal test would have 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity, so it wouldn't miss any patients who have the disease nor would it indicate someone had it when they actually didn't. In the real world it is quite hard to develop such a perfect test and this can be quite problematic when you are going to base treatment decisions on the results.


In Mega-City One the implications of a positive test are even more critical. The Judges know what the reporter does not, that there is no current treatment for the Chaos bug, and that it is almost universally fatal. And bearing in mind some of the plans for dealing with the infected that the Justice department are considering it is a good job that the mouth swab test is described as "highly specific and extremely accurate". I am assuming that accurate in this context means sensitive. I hope so. The young boy on this page is going to be a lot less excited if he turns out to be a false positive.


The confusion between a virus and a protozoa continues. The contents page in this prog calls the Chaos bug "a deadly virus". However let us be generous and assume that the Sov-Judges' captured scientist created a virus which has some of the properties of the Toxoplasma Gondii organism it is based on. It is far fetched but just about acceptable in the science fiction future of the 22nd century. Meanwhile John Wagner's use of convincing medical jargon continues to impress so this episode is going to get a highly specific 4.5 out of 5 medic-droids.


Despite all the talk of tests and fairly grim disposal methods for the infected there is no prospect of a successful treatment for the Chaos organism yet. I'm hoping that the microbiologist Professor Lucas Wyant reappears at some stage to help Dredd save the day but the Day of Chaos is almost upon Mega-City.

Pan and scan

More scans of the Doctor's chest.
This time it was the Big Finish forum which pointed out that the Ninth Doctor is x-rayed by Henry Van Statten in the episode Dalek. While Rose meets the chained Dalek the Doctor is stripped to the waist, strung up and scanned with something that looks a huge laser. Apparently this is a very painful procedure and while the Doctor screams Van Stratten marvels at the "binary vascular systems" which are shown in this scan. Click the image for a slightly larger version.

The scan is an odd mixture of echocardiogram and x-ray but it gives us just about everything we want to see. This time we get two beating hearts. They look a little small and high in the chest but that may be Gallifreyans for you.

New Who combines decent budget special effects and a more plausible depiction of anatomy. I still prefer the image from the Caves of Androzani but this is pretty good. However, the search for Doctor Who's radiological images continues, email me if you know of any more.

Two Hearts beat as One

Doctor's log supplemental:
Over on the British Invaders Facebook page I asked for any other examples of Doctor Who having an x-ray. Brad Walker and Tony Bellows pointed out there is a scene in episode two of the Caves of Androzani which shows a scan of the Fifth Doctor's hearts. Towards the end of the episode the Doctor and Peri are trying to escape from a cell which is guarded by a vigilant Android with a big gun. The Doctor gambles (correctly as it turns out) that the Android's scanner will be confused by his abnormal anatomy and won't shoot him. As he steps out of the cell the camera switches to give us the Android's point of view and we see this.

Which looks like something called a false colour Echocardiogram where colours are added to a normal ultrasound scan of the heart to represent the different directions of blood flow. We can see two purple and white heart shaped structures. They are in the right place, and they are the correct size and shape. Technically we should see them beating but we can't have everything. The special effects people on Caves of Androzani get  top marks for their depiction of the Doctor's anatomy in 1984. Sadly this was forgotten by the time of the 1996 big budget movie.

The Man with X-Ray Eyes

Let me take a moment to deal with the vexed subject of Doctor Who, his two hearts and chest x-rays. I assume that people in all professions have difficulties watching representations of their jobs on film or television. That's certainly the case with me and on screen doctors. It is, of course, great fun watching them make schoolboy errors or spouting techno-babble, and there are few things I like more than making a diagnosis before my television counterparts.

There are three basic errors that seem to be almost universal. The first is the inappropriate use of head mirrors which is best dealt with by my American colleague Scott in his blog. The second is wearing stethoscopes back to front which I might blog about another time. And the third is displaying chest x-rays the wrong way round, which will bring us to Doctor Who. First let's look at a normal chest x-ray and the structures visible. Here is a nice labelled example.

The heart is a big solid lump of muscle and does show up with the low dose of x-rays used to image the chest. You will notice that the left lung is shown on the right of the picture and that most of the heart is on the same side. Chest x-rays are always looked at like this so that what you are seeing corresponds with the front of the patient as you look at them. Now the one thing that isn't shown on the above image is the side marker. It is quite important to know that you have the x-ray film the right way round so the radiographers who take the pictures put a radio-opaque label on the film before pressing the magic button. You can see the side marker in this image.

Having a side marker is crucial in diagnosing a rare condition called Dextrocardia where the heart (and possibly other internal organs) are on the opposite side. Here is an x-ray showing Dextrocardia and notice the side marker.

But of course these side markers can cause confusion and when actors are called upon to put a chest x-ray up on a light box they usually assume that right means right and so put the film up with the R marker on the right hand side. The most infamous example is the title sequence for the medical comedy Scrubs.

Apparently so many medics complained about this that eventually Scrubs included a joke about it and had a character correct the error.

So last night I was watching Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor in the 1996 TV movie. The film starts with Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor being shot and the struggles of the emergency room physicians to save him before he apparently dies only to later regenerate while in the mortuary fridge. Now as we all know Time Lords from Gallifrey have two hearts and lots of other physiological differences from humans. The Doctor's chest x-ray is put up on a light box and the on-screen medics notice that this shows two hearts and put this down to something they call a "double exposure". This is just medical techno-babble that doesn't really mean anything. But let us examine the x-ray as shown in the film.

Here we can see a single heart shadow which is on the right hand side so either the emergency room medics have put the film up the wrong way round or the Doctor has Dextrocardia (I suspect the former). Then there are the two white shadows in the middle of the lung fields that the screen doctors call hearts. They are the wrong shape and in the wrong place. They look more like hilar shadows which would indicate a whole different set of problems for the Doctor.

I posted a brief comment about this on my Facebook page last night and Brian from British Invaders asked if the scene from Spearhead in Space was any better. This was the story which introduced Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor in 1970. Interestingly this also showed the Doctor recovering from his regeneration in a hospital. Once again he has a chest x-ray which is supposed to show his two hearts, this time the screen doctor assumes that someone in the x-ray department is playing a joke on him and goes off to remonstrate with them leaving a nurse (and us) to look at this x-ray.

This looks like an artist's impression of a chest x-ray and the staggering thing about it to medical eyes is that it shows no hearts at all! The two dark circles at the top of the chest cavity are what the Spearhead doctor thinks are hearts but again they are wrongly placed, sized and coloured. They should be white shadows where the x-rays have not penetrated to the photographic film. So the simple answer to Brian's question is that the props department and the actors in Spearhead in Space were no better with x-rays than their technologically advanced, but equally incompetent, successors in the 1996 TV movie.

All they need is to have a real medical doctor on set to put them right about all this stuff. It would only take a few minutes and I could spend the rest of my time blogging about it!