And now for something completely different. Steve Rogers has had to deal with asthma attacks three times during his life, and one of those was when he was in his weakling, pre-super soldier serum phase. The other two times can in the form of the comic book specials Captain America Meets The Asthma Monster and Captain America: Return Of The Asthma Monster, produced in collaboration with pharmaceuticals giant and distributed through doctors' offices all across the United States. The Asthma Monster, in case you were wondering, was this total a-hole who kept breaking into George Washington Elementary School so that he could dose kids with a gas that made them feel all of the effects of an asthma attack, even if they weren't asthmatic beforehand. There wasn't really any reason for him to do this, or to do it whilst dressed in a weird green monster costume. He was just a bad person. Thankfully, he was a bad person that could easily be defeated. His one weakness was the proper use of inhalers, which of course rendered his asthma-inducing attacks useless. So, uh, basically these are comics where Captain America gets drafted in to show children how to probably use inhalers, they do, and that defeats the bad guy. Pretty much. The Asthma Monster has yet to have his origin fully explained, and hasn't appeared in a comic since his 1989 "Return".
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
