Monday, March 31, 2014

Night Nurse - Marvel Comics

The Night Nurse, Linda Carter (no, not that one, she spells her name with a Y), the "EMT to the superheroes" actually first appeared way back in 1961.
You have to admit, if superheroes were real, this would be the woman to know!
I think this would have made a better TV show than Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Can you imagine "House" and "Arrow" mixed together?

Night Nurse - Marvel Comics

Night Nurse, Claws of the Cat and Shanna the She-Devil were all launched together in an effort to draw in female readers.
But Night Nurse was not a superhero book and people weren’t even sure if it took place in the Marvel Universe.

It was about Linda Carter...yeah I know, but it's okay and you'll see why in a minute. Linda was a nurse at a hospital called Metro General in New York City. The series was created in 1972 and Lynda (with a y) Carter rose to fame in 1975. Plus, this Linda Carter actually was in a series called Linda Carter, Student Nurse back in 1961.

Anyway, Night Nurse didn’t run long, only four issues and Linda would have faded into obscurity. Except some of the writers at Marvel love tying things in as much as I do!

Turns out after Night Nurse ended, Linda was saved by a superhero. (Hey...she lives in New York...probably half of the cities population has been saved by superheroes) But that incident made Linda the EMT to super-powered beings. Similarly to the way Mob people can't go to hospitals when injured, you cant take a hero to the hospital without risking their secret identity. Which is where Night Nurse comes in. And yes though people call her Linda, her codename really is "Night Nurse".

Some of her patients include, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Doctor Strange (she dated him for a while) and Elektra. She even helped run SHIELD safe-house number 23.

One really cool thing I thought was she actually had a catch-phrase. If a wounded hero or someone seeking aid for a hero came into the hospital she would say,"go to the room on the right" which meant she would take care of them.

Though she doesn’t have any superpowers, she is a tough lady and doesn’t have a bit of trouble telling a patient to sit or lie down and shut up no matter how powerful said patient is. And she doesnt need powers. With all the heroes she has taken care of, if a supervillain even THOUGHT about laying a hand on her...can you imagine the world of hurt he would be in for?

Oh yeah...and since she first appeared, she went on to become a full-fledged Doctor...specializing in "Superhero Medicine" maybe? But Dr. Night sounds like a bad guy...so she still uses Night Nurse.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Namora - Marvel Comics

Namor the Sub-Mariner's not so little cousin, Namora was created in 1947.
She's 5'11 with blonde hair and blue eyes, she has superhuman strength, speed, durability, agility, reflexes and she can lift up to 100 tons underwater (75 tons on dry land).
What's not to love?

Namora - Marvel Comics

Namora has got the jump on DC's Mera by quite a bit considering that she was created by writer Ken Bald and artist Syd Shores way back in 1947. So she had a sixteen year jump on Mera.

And if you are like me you probably went, "Namora? Really? Why didn't they just call her Sub-Mariner Girl?" Well actually, her name as created was Aquaria Nautica Neptunia which allowed the writer to use all the Latin sounding underwatery terms he could think of. She took the name "Namora" to honor her cousin Namor. Namor (in Atlantean) means "Avenging Son" and Namora means "Avenging Daughter"...so it's not as bad as it sounds. In comic book terms at least.

Namora has your basic butt-kicking Atlantean abilities. She is five foot eleven, 189 pounds and has blonde hair and blue eyes. Namora has super-strength, limited invulnerability, she can swim at superhuman speeds, and she has those little wings things on her ankles that allow her to fly like Namor.

Side Note: No she doesn’t. Those little hummingbird wings on her feet are not gonna make her fly! Sorry...they may have bought that in the 40s....but no. She has to have some kind of psionic ability.

Anyway... besides all those powers...it's possible she has an even worse attitude than Namor when she gets angry. So that makes her pretty rough in a fight.

Namora - Marvel Comics

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