While Charlton's other "Soap Opera" title only lasted three issues, this other "Soap Opera" comic book actually made it to give issues before it was cancelled. And just as Soap Opera Love was a reprint title, so is Soap Opera Romances. While Soap Opera Love reprinted stories from Charlton's earlier Just Married title, Soap Opera Romances reprinted tales of Nurse Betsy Crane, who had her own title some years prior. Soap Opera Romances was actually the earlier of the two Soap titles, as it began its run in 1982, with its first issue boasting a July 1982 cover date. It ran bi-monthly for five issues, ending with the March 1983 issue, which was just one month after Soap Opera Love premiered in February 1983. Confused yet? Well, it's obvious the comic world was not really open to romance titles in the early '80s, but I have to give Charlton kudos for least giving it a try.
Soap Opera Romances was headlined by Nurse Betsy Crane, a career nurse who seemed to have considerable difficulty when it came to romance. Nurse Crane first appeared back in 1961 in My Teen Diary #11, and apparently was so popular, the next issue of that title was re-named Nurse Betsy Crane! That book continued under her name from issue 12 all the way through issue 27 before it was cancelled in 1964. She made a few appearances after that and then disappeared into comic book limbo until nearly 20 years later when Charlton tried to revive her stories and character with this book.
Because these are stories reprinted from the 1960s, they sadly do not provide the credits for writers and artists. Some online searches revealed that Charles Nicholas provided pencils for some of the stories, and comic greats Dick Giordano and Vince Colletta provided some of the inking. As far as the writing goes, that's a mystery. Which is a shame, because the stories are not really all that bad (well, let me re-phrase that - the Nurse Betsy Crane stories are not that bad - some of the short stores and one-page tales are a bit over-the-top and cliche). Yes, the stories feature standard romance comics fare, and they are fairly simple and straight-forward; but it's their simplicity that makes them enjoyable.
"Once in a great while ... there appears on the screen of life ... a person so exceptional ... so captivating ... so exciting ... that you can never forget her ... this is ... NURSE BETSY CRANE" This cover blurb on the first issue was obviously meant to draw readers in, advertising the main character of this series as an exciting, captivating person who could not possibly be forgotten. And, perhaps, that is how the powers-that-be at Charlton felt, since this was a character that previously had her own series two decades prior. Obviously someone at Charlton still remembered her, and with these reprints, hoped that they could bring the character back to life - or, simply cash on by reprinting old stories and not having to pay for new stories and art. Whatever the reason, it obviously didn't work, as the cancellation after only five issues proves.
The first issue featured a 20-page lead story titled "Scratch of Death." As many of the comic stories did back in the '60s, it opens with a splash page of danger - in this case, Nurse Diane Malvern bringing her boyfriend to Nurse Betsy Crane, holding him up as he seems about to collapse! The next page flashes back to give readers the story leading up to that moment - an effective storytelling technique of capturing the readers' attention before providing the backstory that may not be as exciting as that moment. In this case, we learn the story of how Diane met widower Jeff Wilson and his young daughter - and we see how Jeff gradually turns rude and downright mean, even to Diane, which seems quite out of character. Of course, Nurse Crane is the one who realizes what is going on - Jeff has hydrophobia, which Diane recognizes as a symptom of rabies! Nurse Betsy Crane saves the day, and Jeff and Diane walk into the sunset to live happily ever after. This first issue also features a three-page promotion for nursing as a career, describing in text and pictures just how wonderful a career in nursing is for a woman (which goes to show just how outdated this reprint was, since by the1980s, men was entering the nursing career as well!). The issue closes out with a one-page story titled "Lady in Distress," the art and story for which are so "totally" '60s, it makes the story comical.
Issue two features two, ten-page Nurse Crane stories: "Rebound" and "Fight for Sight." The first story finds Betsy falling for a doctor who is heartbroken when the woman he loves marries another. Doctor and Nurse take off for Mussar for a tour of duty to help the natives in that far country, where he begins to fall for Betsy and even asks her to marry him! But Betsy is the one heartbroken when the doctor learns his former love's husband has died, and she is free to return to him. "It's not easy to give up someone you love," Betsy thinks at the end of the tale, "but I have my life to live .. and now I must find a new love!" The second tale finds Betsy working hard to help a nurse who only wants perfection in a man to see just how fortunate she is to have the love of a man who may be losing his eyesight - if only she could overcome her desire for perfection! The stories are both very cliche, but definitely fit for the soap opera theme of the comic. In this issue, we also get a three-page story about a married couple's first fight, as well as a one-page tale titled "destination Paradise" - which was actually rather cute, as it seems a bit stereotypical in the first couple of panels as a man and woman meet on a cruise ship and fall in love at first sight - but as the final panel reveals - it's a re-enactment of the couple's first meeting that they continue to celebrate every year. I think in this one page there is more "romance" than any other story in the series!
The third issue definitely has my favorite cover (and probably my favorite story from this series). With this issue, we return to the longer lead-in story, with Nurse Betsy Crane starring in a 20-page tale called "The Dark Closet." The cover hearkens back to the old Gothic tales, with the shadowy figure coming in on Betsy, as she tries to help a man who is clearly troubled. Even the cover blurb - "What was the secret of the Old Lange Mansion? What terror lay hidden in The Dark Closet?" - is reminiscent of the Gothic comics of the past. The story features Betsy heading up to the Lange mansion on a stormy night, alongside a young doctor (none of these stories have the same supporting cast - there are always different doctors and nurses with whom Betsy works), to provide medical attention to Mrs. Lange. I found this melodrama at the beginning rather humorous, as the woman was merely having an asthma attack - and as one with asthma, I know what an attack can feel like, but I've never had one so severe that I needed a doctor and his nurse to come out to my house! (Of course, the revelation about Mrs. Lange's illness at the end of the story explains the overly dramatic nature of Mrs. Lange.) Nurse Betsy Crane remains at the house in case Mrs. Lange needs further help, and she quickly realizes something odd is going on between the woman and her son. She eventually discovers that Mrs. Lange is faking all of these illnesses to keep her son at home and away from a woman he loves and wants to marry. Betsy, as usual, opens everyone's eyes to the situation, and the son finally has the opportunity to chase after the love of his life. The three-page tale in this issue is a bit weird - a flirtatious woman flirts with the wrong man; but even after he punches her boyfriend, she still walks off with him - and when she reunites with her boyfriend, instead of dumping her, he merely asks her to flirt with men his size so he has a fair chance to beat them up! Definitely not a lesson you would want to teach young people about dating! Even the one-page story is bizarre - "Happy Birthday" sees a women kissing the birthday boy - and when the date she came with tries to intervene, she brushes him off and returns to kissing the birthday boy! Not sure what these writers were thinking, but the morals of these characters are definitely lacking!
Issue four has a rather interesting cover - instead of a single scene, it actually utilizes three panels from the story, dialogue and all! Now, granted, it is a rather dramatic scene, with Nurse Betsy Crane and a military man trying to fight their way through a dangerous flooded area to rescue a man (lifted straight from page 15 of the story) - but it leaves me wondering if perhaps Charlton simply didn't have a cover for this issue in time for publication, so simply used the inside panels as a quick way of getting the issue out. "Medals are for Heroes" is the 20 page story this time around, wherein Betsy and two other nurses head off to Harpersville to help out at an emergency center set up for the flood victims in the area. Betsy, though, finds the problem is not with the victims or even the flood - rather, it is with Corporal Kalin, who spends more time distracting the nurses than anything else. When she gets stuck with Corporal Kalin on a trip into town to help a young girl and search for her grandfather, Betsy learns there is more to Kalin than she first thought - and she ultimately helps him overcome a fear that has been causing him to act so recklessly. This issue does not have the standard three-page and one-page tales; rather, it closes out with a four-page story titled "The End of Love." With a title like that, one would expect a rather depressing tale (which it seems to be in the first three pages); however, the conclusion gives readers a great reminder that an ending of one story may only just be the beginning of a brand new one...
The fifth and final issue of this short-lived series has a story that is probably the closest to a soap opera storyline of any in this series. "Memories of the Past" finds Nurse Betsy Crane acting uncharacteristically - because when she comes face-to-face with Dr. Gil Roberts, a man from her past, she doesn't know how to react! Dr. Roberts is brought into the hospital where Betsy works with a life-threatening condition, and when Besty see him, her memories of him are triggered - and readers are treated to flashbacks of their whirlwind romance and how that relationship ended when they each had to chase after the careers of their dreams. Now, with Dr. Roberts back in her life, Betsy isn't sure what to do. The one thing she can do (and does!) is locate donors with his rare blood type so that he can undergo surgery to save his life. Once he recovers, Betsy talks with him, and they both come to realize that despite their past love, they have both grown up and moved on, and that they both found happiness in their careers - which is a good thing for that hospital, because as the head nurse thinks in that last panel, "I don't know what I'd do without that girl..." We see a return of the three-page and one-page back-up tales in this issue - the three-pager is nothing spectacular, with a girl from the States falling for a Londoner, who reveals in the end he is heading for the States and they can have a relationship there. It's the one-pager, "Never Again," that features a great little moral - don't be too quick to judge someone's actions, because it might not be what you suspect!
And with that, Charlton's first (second?) soap opera title reaches its conclusion. At least this title, unlike Soap Opera Love, featured one-off tales and did not have an ongoing tale that was left unfinished (well, technically not unfinished, since I could go back and find the original comics from which those stories were taken and read the rest of the stories). Nurse Betsy Crane kind of reminds me of Cherry Ames, a children's series (1943-68), which featured a nurse that job-hopped from one nursing position to another. I'm not sure about the original Nurse Betsy Crane comics, but based on these few stories, it seems Betsy follows in that same tradition.
It's a shame these titles didn't take off. I can only guess that Soap Opera Love and Soap Opera Romance where an attempt to cash-in on the popularity of soap operas in the early to mid '80s (what with General Hospital, Santa Barbara, All My Children, and the others). I'm not sure how many soap opera fans were actually reading comics in those days, and with all the super hero comics hitting the shelves at that time, as well as the rise of independent publishers and direct-market comics, these two titles really didn't stand much of a chance. I would love to find out who authored these stories, just to see if we could get any insight as to whether the writer was just churning out stories for a paycheck, or if he (or she!) was writing stories he actually enjoyed writing. I guess at this point (more than half a century later!) we will never know.
RATING: 7 infected scratches out of 10 for at least attempting to revive the romance genre in a time when superheroes had cornered the market!
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