M.D. #5

Credits:
Cover dated December 1955/January 1956
Cover by Johnny Craig

"Complete Cure" - Art by Reed Crandall
"Child's Play" - Art by Joe Orlando
"Emergency" - Art by Graham Ingels
"The Right Diagnosis" - Art by George Evans

The writer for all 4 stories is unknown.

This is the first New Direction title I've covered as part of this blog. EC's New Direction comics were brought out after Bill Gaines cancelled all of EC's horror and suspenstory comics due to the horror/crime comic controversy at the time. The New Direction comics tackled various new subjects, some of which hadn't been covered in comics before. M.D. focused in particular on doctors and medical-drama related stories. Essentially a comic book version of E.R., House or other doctor/hospital themed shows. The New Direction comics were commercial failures and were a bit lifeless compared to EC's New Trend horror, crime and sci-fi comics. In addition, starting with the second issue of each the comics were under the Comics Code, resulting in a lot of censorship. Some of the New Direction comics were able to be at least somewhat interesting, even with the censorship, but M.D. was a comic I was never all that into. I can't say the stories are particularly bad, at least in this issue, but its hard to get too much into them or have much to say which is why this will be a rare instance where I won't have individual thoughts on each story. The one big thing that does come across in reading this issue is how different things are today; in "Child's Play", the mother's fear of her son being labeled different due to having a hearing aid, enough so that she doesn't even want him to have it, comes off as particularly ridiculous nowadays. The issue features a lot of extremism from the main characters, not just from that mother, but also central characters from the first and last stories.

"Complete Cure" - A man named Phil is in a car accident in which his legs are severly injured. His wife arrives at the hopsital and agrees to surgery which will save his life, but require the removal of his legs. Phil is extremely negative after waking up, wishing that he had died rather than losing his legs. He is convinced that his life is over and doesn't want to live as a cripple using prosthetics. Eventually he is convinced by his wife to use prosthetics and is able to walk again, but still feels extremely sorry for himself. He decides to leave his wife to spare her the burden of having to support him, but his doctor convinces him to come and see him first at a country club where he introduces him to a well known doctor, who also lost both of his legs. Phil realizes that he can make something of himself despite his handicap.

"Child's Play" - This story features a young boy named Jimmy whose friends stop playing with him and whose grades start suffering. It is soon discovered that Jimmy is going deaf which is the reason for these things. He goes through various tests and the doctor tells his parents that they could operate on him and give him a hearing aid to make things better. His mother is strongly opposed to this, thinking he will be labeled as different. She eventually concedes to having the operation. As it turns out, him having a hearing aid doesn't cause any problems at all; he gets back together with his old friends and they find his hearing aid very interesting.

"Emergency" - This story features a doctor traveling in an ambulance with a man with a broken leg. Due to a large storm, a tree blocks the road and he's forced to carry the injured man on a stretcher with the driver. When they get to the hospital they find that the power is completely out, and the backup generator isn't working either. The doctor, as well as the other doctor there and the various other staff work throughout the night to help out their patients, despite the lack of light or electricity, including successfully conducting surgery. By morning the power is back on and the doctors are finally able to take a break.

"The Right Diagnosis" - A man named George Gordon goes to his doctor complaining of severe abdominal pain. His doctor says nothing appears wrong after doing various tests, but George is convinced that he needs his appendix out. The doctor thinks it is more of a psychological disorder due to George's depression and that he has a self-destructive personality making him want to get surgery despite not needing it. George decides to go to another hospital under a fake name to see if they will operate on him, but they refuse as well. This causes George to want to commit suicide by jumping off the side of the building, but the doctor convinces him to not do so and get help.