M.D. #1

Credits:
Cover dated April/May 1955
Cover by Johnny Craig

"The Fight for Life" - Art by Graham Ingels
"Janie Some Day" - Art by George Evans
"To Fill the Bill" - Art by Joe Orlando
"The Antidote" - Art by Reed Crandall

The second issue I'll be covering of M.D. is the comic's first. Not much different here than the previous issue I covered (#5) aside from the fact that each story (aside from the first) has a prognosis listed above it. Much like the previous issue I covered, its a rather dull and lifeless issue. The writer for all four stories is unknown.

"The Fight for Life" - Rather than being a traditional fictional story, this story instead provides a brief history of illnesses and attempted cures throughout the ages, starting with cave men, and going through various eras of human history. It shows the various ways in which mankind dealt with illnesses, including some very backwards thinking. It also briefly features Hippocrates and the effect he had on the medical profession. Stories told in this fashion were quite a rarity for EC, particularly for comics not edited by Harvey Kurtzman. It was clearly meant as an introduction to the comic, and a similar approach was taken with Aces High.
"Janie Some Day" - The Janie of the title is an orphan girl with Congenital Osteomyelitis, which forces both of her legs to be in casts. Eventually one of the leg gets better, enabling the removing of the cast, but the other leg gets worse and worse until it has to be amputated. The doctor tells Janie of the new leg she will get to replace her amputated one, but she is horrified when she believes she will be given a wooden leg. The doctor shows her the life-like artificial leg that is ready for her, and she is soon able to walk and play with the other orphans.

"To Fill the Bill" - A man is behind on a number of bills, and whenever he is able to pay some of them always ignores the one from his doctor, despite recommendations from his wife to pay them. One day his son swallows a safety pin and stops breathing. Despite the fact that the man was behind on all his bills, the doctor arrives and is able to save the boy by doing a tracheotomy. The man tells the doctor he will pay all the outstanding bills right away. The protagonist's refusal to pay the doctor bills in this story came off as a bit ridiculous and made it rather obvious what the ending of the story would be.

"The Antidote" - A doctor is about to head to meet with a specialist about something when one of his patients comes, hysteric about his kid. Despite having something to attend to, the doctor goes with him to see the child, who has an appendicitis. The doctor goes ahead and operates on him at the father's pleading, despite his other obligations. Once he is finished, he meets with the specialist, who was examining the doctor's wife. A similar type of story was done in Impact, although with much more tragic results.

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.