by Matt Peters Content advisory: Strong language and brief depictions of criminal violence and traumatic injuries In Shadow Doctor, writer Peter Calloway and artist Georges Jeanty tell the story of an early-career doctor in the 1930s whose entry into the medical profession took a perilous detour. Set in Prohibition-era Chicago, the graphic novel follows the early life of Peter Calloway’s real-life grandfather, Dr. Nathaniel Calloway. Dr. Calloway was a Black physician who was steered into a world of underground clinical care, serving one of Chicago’s most notorious gangs. Running a secret clinic in a downtown apartment, Dr. Calloway… Read More
City Surgeon #1
by Matt Peters For Gold Key Comics, licensed content was a mainstay. An imprint of Western Publishing, Gold Key operated from 1962 to 1984, churning out an extensive catalog of comic adaptations of popular TV and movie properties from Hanna-Barbera, Looney Tunes, Walt Disney Productions, and other entertainment companies. Aside from those comics, Gold Key had a smaller slate of original content, a less iconic lineup of science fiction, fantasy, adventure, suspense, and other genre fiction. A nearly forgotten comic from that slate was a medical drama titled City Surgeon (sometimes referred to as Blake Harper, City Surgeon, based… Read More
Iron Man – Demon in a Bottle
by Matt Peters Content Advisory: References to addiction. If you are struggling with addiction, please call the SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) National Hotline at 1-800-662-HELP or text 988. For obvious reasons, origin stories have an enduring power to define a superhero character. They weave together the events and circumstances that shaped the character’s identity, calling, strengths, and challenges. For Marvel’s Iron Man, though, his origin story has a serious contender in another story that took place much later, both in terms of publication history and in-universe chronology. That story ran in nine issues of… Read More
The Incredible Hulk #420 – AIDS issue
by Matt Peters With his work on a long list of titles at Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and First Comics, the late Peter David (died May 24, 2025) had many claims to fame as a comics writer. Perhaps foremost among them was his 12-year run writing The Incredible Hulk. He took over its writing in 1987, when sales of the long-running series (published from 1962 to 1999) were so low that other writers didn’t want the assignment. David’s storytelling approach soon turned things around, making the series a commercial success. Much of that success was due to David’s ability… Read More