#doctor fate

Doctor Fate v1

Dr Fate was created by Gardner FoxandHoward Sherman and first appeared in National’sMore Fun Comics #55 (1940). He debuted as a flying, magical-based superhero who was somewhat invulnerable and could shoot lightning from his fingertips. It has been speculated that the creation of Dr Fate was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft (and the need for another Superman-like character). Dr Fate was a member of the Justice Society of America and appeared in All-American’sAll Star Comics #3 (1940) as a founding member of the team. In 1942, More Fun Comics (the series Dr Fate regularly appeared in) became more oriented towards super-hero action, and the creative team decided to downplay his magical powers and play him up as physician who occasionally became a masked crime fighter to beat-up criminals (they also reduced his full helmet to half of a helmet). In 1944, World War II was concluding and super-heroes were no longer the popular genre, so Dr Fate was placed into comic book limbo.

Dr Fate resurfaced in the 1960s and, being categorized as a ‘Golden Age hero’ along with the rest of the Justice Society of America, mainly appeared in stories set on Earth-Two. The more famous of these stories being the ones in which the JSA crossed over to Earth-One and met the modern aged Justice League of America. In 1975, Dr Fate got a chance at an ongoing series in DC’s First Issue Special #9, but fan reaction wasn’t strong enough so it didn’t take. In the mid-70s, Dr Fate appeared regularly in DC’s All-Star Comics until it was cancelled. Although he was an Earth-Two character, he still appeared in many other mainstream DC books (sometimes as a cameo, sometimes as a guest appearance or sometimes even in a back-up feature) so he was never far from view. It would seem like he was one of those characters who had a lot of potential, but DC wasn’t sure what to do with him. Finally, in 1985’s Crisis On Infinite Earths, Dr Fate got his big break: he had somehow been spared of the fate the Justice Society of America had received (they were all wiped out and placed into comic book limbo) and had been transplanted to Earth One. He appeared in the company-wide Legends cross-over and ultimately became a member of Keith Giffen’sJustice League in 1987.

I don’t think Dr Fate migrating from Earth-Two to Earth-One was an lucky coincidence, and a big clue supporting this theory the Super Powers Collection action figure toy line released in 1985 by Kenner. Dr Fate is the only Earth-Two figure in the toyline and was not appearing in any cartoons at the time - so I’m going to go on a limb and guess that DC was planning for Dr Fate to have a larger role in the DCU and was just trying to get the fans warmed up to him. Well, that and the fact that he’s just a cool-looking character. Around this same time, DC published a 3 issue series called Immortal Dr Fate which consisted only of reprints of his more popular Silver Age solo stories - I believe this was reprinted in an effort to re-spark interest in the character.

Doctor Fate v1 was written by J.M. DeMatteis and illustrated by Keith Giffen, and was essentially the introduction of a new version of the character. DeMatteis took care to incorporate the previous Dr Fate’s history when explaining the origin of this new character rather than tossing all of the previous history away and starting anew (aka: John Byrne’s reboot of Superman). I’m kind of getting the impression that writers couldn’t decide what to do with Dr Fate during his previous 40 year publication history - everybody from Paul LevitztoRoy ThomastoMartin Pasko has put their own little spin on the character (whether it be slightly altering his origin or changing the extent of his powers) and I suspect this is a common problem when you are dealing with a character whose powers and origins are somewhat vague. DeMatteisopted to start fresh and, roughly following the old origin formula of the previous Dr Fate, created a mystical character that was now a composite of both a man AND a woman. This was a major revitalization of the character and surprised many long-time fans.

This mini-series contains some of my favorite Keith Giffen artwork. If I was a Keith Giffen-ologist, I’d tell you at this point in his career he was one of DC’s most popular comic book artists, but his art was under heavy scrutiny for mimicking the work of Argentinian cartoonist Jose Muñoz. This wasn’t the first time Giffen had pencilled Dr Fate - but his style was way different from the previous back-up stories he illustrated back in 1959’s The Flash v1 #306-310. Thankfully, Giffen was able to bounce back from these accusations and kept delivering on some top notch work for DC comics.

All things considered, this mini-series was a pretty good read. I’m really tempted to call this the post-Crisis reboot of Dr Fate for the main reason that, in the story, the former Dr Fate (Kent Nelson) blames the Crisis on Infinite Earths as the reason for his demise (as well as Inza’s). Chronologically speaking, Doctor Fate v1 occurred after Dr Fate’s appearance in LegendsandGiffen’sJustice League, so it’s kind of a mess to determine just what is considered post-Crisis and what isn’t. Apparently, the only reason Dr Fate was included in Giffen’sJustice League is because DeMatteis (who was also writing Justice League) was already writing this mini-series, so they had free reign of the character. Speaking of which, a few members of Giffen’sJustice League DO make an appearance in this mini-series (albeit a pretty minor role) which I was pretty grateful for. Dr Fate works well as a member of the Justice League, but omnipotent mystical characters do not tend to make for interesting main characters in a book and tend to not sell very well. I was a little surprised that this mini-series spun-off into an ongoing in 1988 that lasted 41 issues and an annual.

A quick Doctor Fate to bring some cheer to your day!

This started as a drawing of Ted for fun and then…it just…kept going…

The full-scale Doctor Fate helmet replica from Constantine is now up for preorder!

Reserve yours here: http://comicsinfinity.com/product/doctor-fate-helmet-constantine-prop-replica/