Like Kathy the Teenage Tornado, Linda Carter, Student Nurse was a title that straddled that period when Marvel Comics wasn’t really Atlas Comics anymore, but still wasn’t quite Marvel either. In this case between 1961 and 1963 they published nine issues of this title which was an uncomfortable mixture of teen romance, comedy and soap opera. Or as the first story in the first issue put it:“Linda Carter, destined to become one of your most beloved friends! Let us watch as a new chapter of her life begins … a life filled with humor, thrills, and glamorous romance!”

Sadly it follows the usual Stan Lee teen comedy romance template; our heroine Linda Carter is super nice and pretty which pretty much instantly earns her the eternal enmity of Gwen Glitter, Student Nurse Bitch. If that seems a bit harsh it’s important to know Gwen spends every waking moment scheming up ways of destroying Linda’s career and happiness. These invariably backfire horribly and Linda goes on believing that Gwen is one of her good friends. Which is, I’m guessing, is supposed to be funny.

Like most Atlas Comics of the era these comics were signed, by Stan Lee (of course) and also artist Art Hartley, best known for the Spire Christian Archie comics. Hartley does an OK job here, but the main trouble is we only know that Linda Carter is an irrepressible blithe spirit and great beauty because the script keeps telling us. As drawn, Linda is just so much ‘meh’.

As it has been pointed out to me Linda Carter, Student Nurse was undoubtedly inspired by the Cherry Ames girls book series. It was also no doubt also the inspiration behind the Linda Lark, Student Nurse comic book series from Dell which came out roughly at the same time. Even with the participation of writer John Stanely it was actually a slightly worse comic book.