A Horrifying Comic-Book Future Where Antibiotics Don't Work Any More

Imagine a future where the drugs we rely on to cure common yet life-threatening infections don’t work on most people. Now imagine a right-wing regime that only gives the medicine that still works to “productive” citizens. That’s right: millions of people would be screwed.

Widespread antibiotic resistance is the looming medical apocalypse most people are too scared to think about. It’s simple science: as antibiotics get used more and more, the germs they treat will mutate to become increasingly immune to them. Written and created by scientist/filmmaker Sara Kenney, drawn by John Watkiss and edited by Karen Berger, the influential founding editor of DC’s Vertigo imprint, Surgeon X happens in a near-future where that nightmare comes to pass. and main character Rosa Scott goes off the grid to set up a speakeasy surgical practice and use untested experimental drugs to try and save lives.

In the exclusive preview below, Sara takes in a lecture by her twin sister that details the history of antibiotics.

You can get a glimpse of just how hopeless the series’ world-to-come looks, which gets rendered in more darkly satirical detail in Surgeon X #1, out on September 28 from Image Comics.