Superman Through the Ages! Forum

There are so many characters whose seniority in the DC and Marvel universes isn't justified.

These characters are the equivalent of your permanently incumbent, do-nothing Senator that inspire no one (even the people of their political party), yet nobody can get rid of them.

Brad Meltzer recently gave me the greatest Chanukah gift ever: a JLA without Aquaman or John Jones, Manhunter from Mars. Mazel Tov, Brad!

But by far the worst example I can possibly think of of "seniority without coolness?"

DOCTOR FATE

Quick, name me one good Doctor Fate story.

Okay, now name me one good Doctor Fate enemy. (The Great Leslie doesn't count.)

Heck, name me one cool, memorable spell or magical deed the good Doctor's done.

Hell, give me one adjective to describe Doctor Fate's personality.

Of all the Mandrake the Magician clones of the 1940s, Doctor F. is by far the most banal because he eschews all the atmosphere and trappings of the occult in favor of being just another superhero in a baby blue skintight costume, using magic for flight, superstrength and forcefields. Gee, that sure does credit to his uniqueness as a wizard!

Doc Fate could be a multi-alien that gets his power from a serum and pretty much be the exact same character. At least Prince Ra-Man could be spooky at times. At least Zatanna had the mystique of stage magic (e.g. escaping enemies by turning into a swarm of playing cards).

"But," you say, "he's always been a part of the JSA. Maybe he's one of those 'cool whip' heroes like the Vision or Scarlet Witch or Wonder Man that you wouldn't have on their own, but go great with a team."

Well, he would be, if it wasn't for the fact that his absentee rate from the JSA was pretty darn high! Only the Spectre was more "conveniently" absent.

And here we start to see why Doc Fate, despite his negligible personality and boring power use would have such weight: he's attached himself to a superteam. Just like other less cool people that become legends by hanging out with cool guys, like Aquaman or John Jones, or Ringo Starr.

Here's another reason I don't like the Helmed One: his overwhelming power level. Don't get me wrong, I love power - but there's a difference between characters like Superman and Thor and Green Lantern, whose high power level is visual and benefits the story, and someone like Doctor Fate that one wonders...okay, you meet the villains, so why isn't the fight OVER five seconds after it starts?

Doctor Fate, I wanna sue for malpractice!

I sort of see Fate as having a backstory similar to Alan Scott and somewhat like the original Hawkman, with an occult ability thrust upon him. I also far preferred him with the full-face mask.  He kind of plays in between magicians and characters so omnipotent that no one really knows what to do with them - i.e. The Spectre.

Before Earth 2 got so mucked up, it might have been cool to explore why magic was so common on that planet.

LOL, maybe something like the "Speed Force"...  ;D

Those 40s Fate and Spectre stories are unparalleled for their weirdness .  Very interesting art --almost naive and childish in the approach to plot.

I really liked that look.  Though i have to admit that the Spectre was a great one story character. After that, its more a case of how he wants to use unlimited power, make himself a giant, or invisible, or whatever, more like an excercise in boredom.

They both look cool at least...

So, I gather you won't be getting the just-published Doctor Fate archive then, Julian?

Personally, I'll take Dr. Fate over Dr. Strange any day.  Unfortunately I think you may be right on the Dr. Fate stories, but he's a character of untapped potential.  There was once a back-up story I read in a DC Digest drawn by Walt Simonson (I forget the writer - but it could have been Louise).  I'll have to dig it up in my collection.  He was battling a mummy - but this was some gorgeous art and a great story.  I think Dr. Fate has got a very good costume design as well, and an excellent superhero name.  Outside of the little read above, he had his finer times on JLU.  His 1st villian in his series was a guy named Nergal (you see him a bit more recently in Cartoon Network's "The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy", but I thought it was a nifty origin story - Kent gains his powers from Nabu and goes down to take out Nergal who is making a bid to take over something.  It was funny to see the "mortal" Dr. pretty much order around a (Babalonian?) god.  That is a great villian in the works.  Overall, I've seen very few stories - but Fate always struck me as a knight of magic, and an impressive visual design.  He was a bit boring in All-Star (Thomas series).  That whole "helmet controls me" riff is to stupid for words.  His subsequent revamps have been all of a rather poor quality I thought too.  Call me a purist.

Of course, when I say Fate over Strange, it's basically a visual thing in that there is something so pure and strong about his design, it would be a wonderful thing to have someone of quality develop a series for Fate.  I would imagine Gaiman could do some wonders for him, or heck, give him a writer from any success Strange series and make sure Walt is available - god, I loved his Fate story.

I found a great interview where Walt talks a bit about that legendary story, considered to be the best Doctor Fate story ever (ok so that is not saying much, but still...):

CBA: Your First Issue Special with Dr. Fate was memorable, and you went to town on that.
WALTER: Well, I did. That was actually my attempt to out-Ditko Ditko. I wasn't trying to draw like him, but to imitate his inspiration. One of the things I loved about Ditko's "Doctor Strange" was the rather wonderful job he did creating a graphic system of magic. The dialogue was cool, but Steve created a complete visual system of magic based on vectors and circles that rendered the magical aspects of the strip visually coherent. The sorcerers weren't just firing energy blasts but actual vectors that rendered the magic both visually exciting and intimated at the underlying existence of structure to it. Magic in comics is often depicted either verbally-"Oh, by the bristling hair of Flear; in my hand I find a beer!" with some rhyming baloney, or else guys are shooting special effects force blasts at each other. Could just be ray guns. There's no sense, really, of an underlying reality to the magic. That's one of the difficulties with writing magic well in a story; it's easy to do anything you want to do. After all, it's magic! To make it work for me, there needs to be some sense of limits and parameters, otherwise, it's just whatever you want to have happen. What Steve did, I think, was create a structured, system of graphics that answered these objections. Perfect for a visual medium like comics. A magician could say, "By the Crimson Bands of Cytorrak," or whatever, but once he'd said that, you can see the Bands happen, and you can see how they worked.

So, when I was doing Doctor Fate, I was trying to develop an alternative way to visualize structured magic. It grew out of my admiration for what Steve had done, of course, and owed a lot to it, but I was searching for a different visual basis. In the end, I came up with the idea of using the ankh as a symbol for Doctor Fate, the Egyptian symbol for life, which seemed appropriate for the character. And I used typography as my structure the way I'd learned at RISD, where we'd extract a letter from a specific typeface, and then play with it, make it a design element. We'd use it as a building block and make circles and spirals, geometric shapes, anything the form suggested. It was really a kind of play and exploration. And you discover negative space and positive space in ways you haven't seen before and can build on. It must have worked out okay because everybody who's drawn Fate since has used the ankh.

CBA: Did you work Marvel style with writer Marty Pasko on that?
WALTER: I don't remember precisely although Marty probably would. Most of my stuff's been done Marvel style, I prefer that, and I'm guessing Dr. Fate was done that way as well. I do remember that we were right in the middle of doing the story when DC informed us they'd cut back their page count by two pages-I think from 22 to 20-so we had to shorten the story. That was why Kent Nelson's wife, Inza, finds a little piece of pottery shard or whatever it is that's got the bad guy's name on it so quickly to help her husband.

CBA: Was the hope to do a regular series?
WALTER: It wasn't really a consideration. If they'd offered, we would've done it, but I don't remember any rumblings in that direction. The story was designed for an issue of First Issue Special as a solo story. I think we just wanted to do a cool Doctor Fate story. As far as I know, we did the first full-length Doctor Fate story.

Read the full interview here:
http://www.twomorrows.com/comicbookartist/articles/10simonson.html

Thanks for that Super Monkey - that story really did make an impression on me when I saw it.  What a pleasure it was reading that article.  It's good to know I wasn't alone in loving that story.  It was one of those that you could read over and over and was never boring.  As I said I saw it in Digest Format - but again the art was just stunning.  I didn't realize that Walt was the 1st to use the ankh.  This was definitely Dr. Fate done right, and the villain was cool too.

Just re-read the Fate-Spectre battle in Thomas' All-Star Squadron.  A nice delineation of the differences between the two.

I think Moore's "War in Heaven" treatment of the Spectre was the most awesome and eye-opening use of that character I'd read to date (the Spectre is ultimately humbled before God, the limits of his powers reached) but maybe Waid/Ross' use of him as a "spirit of Christmas future/Virgil" -type figure in Kingdom Come is a more "realistic" use of a fantastic character --not as an all-powerful avenging giant but more of a spiritual guide/prophet.

Yikes!  Even as he writes in another thread that he thinks we agree on most things, here's Julian bashing one of my all time faves, Dr Fate!

Although...in fairness I have to say Fate's hold on me is hard to explain, and perhaps not entirely merited.  All I can say is that from the moment I first met the guy, in a reprint in the back of a 100-Page Super Spectacular, I was hooked.  That oddball, stiff artwork, the helmet obscuring his entire face, the bizarre foes...it all added up to some truly weird stuff by DC standards, and I dug it.  Then it was on to the World's Finest team-up with Superman, the various JLA/JSA crossovers, the resurrected All-Star...basically anything with Dr Fate on the cover was guaranteed to get my two dimes.


Others have beaten me to it by naming the "origin" story from First Issue Special (and reprinted all over the place).  That story, with the incredible Simonson artwork, is one of a handful of comics I will probably still be re-reading in the nursing home.  I also enjoyed the back-up strip from "The Flash" in the early 80s, which even with Keith Giffen art made it ALMOST worth buying THE FLASH during the abyssmal, prolonged Bates/Infantino run that killed the book and ultimately the character.  (You should seek out the reprints of this Fate series; the scripts are by Marty Pasko, who I think is a favorite of yours?).

After that, I admit things have gone downhill for old Kent Nelson.  I've lost track of how many atrocities DC has committed against the character, but suffice it to say compared to Fate, Hawkman's gotten off easy.


Wotan was okay, but I admit Fate's enemies were essentially straw men to be knocked down once and replaced.


I'll tell you one that startled me.  At one point in the Pasko/Giffen run, Fate is in way over his head and in real danger of biting the big one.  In desperation, he calls on the power of "the Almighty" or some such, and instead of an ankh materializing, we instead see a huge Christian CROSS...which sure enough does the trick.  This reference to a Judeo-Christian God is unusual in mainstream comics period, but especially so in a book that owes so much to Pagan/Druid/Whatever influences.  I don't know how you define "memorable," but having a superhero call out, essentially, "God Help Me!" ...and getting a response!...was sure as heck something that stuck with me.


Inscrutable.  Does that count?

As usual, you're coming at this from a Marvel fan's point of view.  DC fans of a certain age don't really look for "personality" in their heroes.  Often, the "awe" factor is more important, and especially in the Golden Age if there's a choice between being "impressive" and being "relatable," they go for "impressive" every time.

For me, Fate's appeal was that he was all-business, deadly serious and hard to figure out.  Was he a guy with powers or higher being in human form?  Was he immortal or could he age and die?  Did he feel love and fear and anger or was he cold and unemotional?  Depending on the story, you could answer all kinds of ways.  I kind of LIKED that I couldn't figure the guy out.  Shouldn't a master sorceror be mysterious?


But...but...he had that spooky tower with no windows or doors!  He had the crystal ball!  He made trips to other dimensions!  Sure, he ended up being just another guy in spandex punching villains in the jaw, but in his full-helmet days, he was more "occult" than any of them.  Certainly more so that Sargon or Ibis with their tuxes and turbans and stupid walking sticks.  The "Mandrake" clones were stage performers who did real magic on the side; Fate walked the walk.


Ouch, ouch and another ouch!  Poor Ringo!

I can't speak for all fans, but I always liked Fate better solo.  Of course for a while there my only option was to take him in JLA/JSA team-ups, which was fine, but I don't think that's where he was at his best.  (You could make the same argument for Aquaman; both are characters who work fine in their own milieu, but put them in a team and you have to bend over backwards to make them relevant).


Well in the early stories it was over in about 8 pages, is that soon enough?

I never saw Fate as too poweful to be interesting.  The Spectre is another matter entirely.  Although I don't think you could call him overrated, since I'm not sure he really has many fans.

If you want to talk about over rated heros  let's move on to The Phantom Stanger.  Does really serve a purpose other then to get a story started or change direction in the middle of it?

I sort of like the Phantom Stranger as a plot device, but I know what you mean.

DC magic always confused me, as did DC immortality.  I could never figure out the relationship between earth magic, Spectre's "magic" from God, 5th Dimensional "magic" (or science), etc. I always found it odd the Spectre's own magic (power from the "creator" him or her self) was only good enough to stalemate the power of the Anti Monitor.

Magic is not easy to write correctly, for that you need rules and limits that the readers can understand, DC Comics never had any, so no one really knows what is going on or how anything actually works.

I just always figured that DC would come up with some "Magic Force" like Waid's "Speed Force"...

The latest issue of Superman attempts some definition of the magic that's out there

Yes! I was all set up to hate this storyline (sorry, kdb), but then these perfectly reasonable explanations started cropping up: Superman's actually consulted with practitioners of the mystic arts like Zatanna, and he knows how different spells work and can counter them, albeit with some difficulty. It makes sense of Superman's vulnerability to magic (he simply hadn't asked anyone how it worked yet), and gives a certain logical dimension to the magic itself.

(Also, I've been noticing that a lot of people don't like Busiek's thing of having Superman narrate the stuff like a sort of running commentary, which I personally really dig - well, in this issue, that narrative device is pretty central to one's understanding of the plot, so there.)

Huh, maybe I'll actually look for this.  I've never liked Simonson's art but did appreciate the craft and research/thinking he brought to his stories, especially the writing.  Enjoyed some of his Thor and FF for this reason.

Telle, you won't be disappointed.  Simonson was definitely on top of his game on that story.

Re: magic and its rules.

It didn't bother me when I was a kid.  It bothered me as a teen (and may be one of the reasons I'm no longer Catholic).  It sort of bothers me today.  What is it?, you ask.  The use of magic in fiction without any clearly defined system or rules. 

Most comics magic is random, deus ex machina nonsense.

Read an article in the weekend paper by Guy Gavriel Kay who claims that Tolkien and LLoyd Alexander's Prydain books ring true because both are based on a system of myth.  That is, even though "illogical"-seeming magic is used, it is based in some sort of pseudo-historical, logical system of signs, knowledge, music and language.

Clarification: I've never liked scientific explanations or too-logical explanations for magic in fiction, especially in "fantasy" (if you want to write sf, just write sf, don't try to cash in on fantasy's turf).

I think, from what I remember,  the magic of true-names and riddling in Le Guin's Earthsea books is self-supporting and "believable".

Are there any other comic book equivalents? 

Haven't read the books, but I hate it in the Harry Potter films when, simply by having wizard blood, waving a wand, and saying magic words, the Hogworts kids "do" magic --only some are inexplicably better than others while others repeatedly fail or do the wrong kind of magic.  Maybe, as in Peter Pan, they don't believe enough in fairies?

I always just assumed that DC treated magic just as they did science within the funnybooks i.e. no real limits.

After all, what's the point of limiting magic when a group of aliens can create a machine which can convert thoughts into reality? :D

The naming of things as a sort of cornerstone for magic was alluded to in Neil Gaiman's The Books of Magic (which J.K. Rowling subsequently ripped off for Harry Potter, I don't care what anyone says) and it is a recurring feature in Hellblazer, which often adopts a rather sober and pragmatic view of magic. (I haven't actually read the Le Guin books, but it seems to me that it's the same idea.)


Thanks, Telle, for providing me with an opportunity to vent my hatred of the Harry Potter phenomenon, which continues to baffle me. Why this is so popular is beyond me - I've read a few of the books, and they are sloppily written, poorly thought-out, and the magic just doesn't make any sense: it is always tailored to the situation, so to speak, and you can tell Rowling is struggling when she comes up with one magic spell, only to realise that it clashes with something else. Hence "apparating", which is Rowlingspeak for teleportation, doesn't always work because it doesn't fit with her cool ideas like flying cars and buses. Similarly, Harry and his friends seem capable of all sorts of amazing things - becoming invisible, travelling through time, flying, you name it - but when they are confronted with the bad guy, all they can do is send some rays out of their wands and hope that Hagrid will turn up to punch him in the bonce.

I could go on, but I won't. Instead, here's a link to one of the chapters of Brad Neely's redubbing of the first film, Wizard People, Dear Reader, which is ace. I just love the line "Harry awakes to yet another Tequila sunrise". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIbGmhkjra0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIbGmhkjra0)

The inconsistency always bothered me, even playing by the rules of magic meaning transferring thought into energy or matter or both. In a multiverse full of Christian gods, Greek gods, 5th Dimensional magic, and other similar beings - I have a hard time thinking that they were really in danger from the Anti Monitor.

Thus, you just identified a major problem with DC uber-villians. Most are giant, virtually omnipotent beings with an inkling to destroy the universe (Anti-Monitor, Parallax, Imperiex, etc.).

How many useless scenes in COIE involved a swarm of heroes pointlessly attacking the giant Anti-Monitor?

Yeah, even the Spectre got his can handed to him, as I recall.

Harry Potter and DC magic seem to operate on the same principles: whatever fits.  It mostly consists of shooting rays (the default superhero power after strength and flying and the one with no real real-world equivalent) and various other cliche supernatural abilities cobbled together from myth and pop culture (invisibility, teleportation).

Well, to me, its pretty lame.  Crisis made all these points about creation, Chronos, the Guardians, whoever those dudes who made the Manhunters were , etc. (sorry, my memory is failing and I hate all that Bronze Age mumbo jumbo  ;D ) and at the same time DC forgot their own 80s mythology in that the Spectre stopped Supes flying too fast and said "hey man, my master (GOD!!!!) doesn't dig it when you fly too fast because you are in danger of breaking the celestial barrier".

And the Spectre alone couldn't have lectured the Anti-Monitor?

Wasn't Michael Moorcock supposed to be involved in revamping DC magic to give it some sort of infernal consistency? 

Maybe it was Chris Angel.

I thought that was the purpose of Gaiman's Books of Magic or whatnot, but then DC stupidly decided to separate the Vertigo characters from the main universe.

Day of Vengeance would have been a better read had Constantine been involved.