My first encounter with Doctor Fate dates back to 1966, when I met him as a member of the Justice Society of America in Justice League of America #46 — the opening half of that year’s annual summer JLA-JSA meet-up event, which, as it happened, was the first such event I experienced as a young comics fan. As I wrote in my post about that issue nine years ago, he very quickly became one of my very favorite JSAers, probably due as much to his look (that golden, whole-head-covering helmet was so cool) as to his power set (I developed a predilection for the supernaturally-based superfolks pretty early on, for whatever reason). That opinion hadn’t changed by September, 1975, so when the sorcerer from Salem was granted a solo showcase in the ninth issue of 1st Issue Special (his first such since 1944!), it was pretty much a given that I would show up for the occasion.
The project appears to have been instigated by Gerry Conway, who’d recently returned to DC Comics in an editorial as well as a writing capacity after having spent most of the last half-decade at Marvel. As with DC’s other editors, Conway had been tasked by publisher Carmine Infantino with coming up with ideas for 1st Issue Special, which highlighted a different feature every month. Some of these were brand-new character concepts, like Jack Kirby’s Atlas and Mike Grell’s Warlord, while others were revivals of older DC properties like Metamorpho and the Creeper. Per an account given by Conway decades later for an article on the revival of Dr. Fate (see Back Issue #24 [Sep., 2007]), his motivation for giving the Golden Age hero a new shot at solo stardom was pretty straightforward: “I’ve always been a fan of Dr. Fate… probably because I think his mask is cool.” (Hey, I can get behind that.)
Having decided to work up a Doc Fate proposal to pitch to Infantino, Conway then turned to a couple of creators who, while already having numerous professional credits to their name, were both still in the process of establishing themselves in the comics industry. Writer Martin Pasko had risen from the ranks of fandom, where he’d made himself known as a regular presence in the letters columns of DC’s books (especially in those edited by Julius Schwartz, who routinely referred to him as “Pesky Pasko”) prior to selling his first script (to Warren Publishing) in 1972. Since 1973, he’d worked mostly for DC — and for Schwartz — first contributing short backup stories to such titles as Superman and Action Comics, then progressing to full-lengthers for Wonder Woman and Justice League of America. Artist Walt Simonson, on the other hand, had made a pretty big splash early on with his 1973-74 work on the “Manhunter” feature in Detective Comics, but, even so, hadn’t drawn a full-length story for DC since the 20-page “Götterdämmerung” (published in Detective #443 [Oct.-Nov., 1974], which had wrapped up the Manhunter saga by teming him with the title’s headliner, Batman… and had then gone on to win the 1974 Shazam Award for Best Individual Story (Dramatic). Simonson and his “Manhunter” collaborator, writer Archie Goodwin, had picked up additional Shazams from the Academy of Comic Book Arts in both 1973 and 1974 for Best Individual Short Story (Dramatic), and Simonson had also been named an Outstanding New Talent of ’73 by the Academy. Still, as of mid-1975, all of those accolades had only rarely earned him the privilege of drawing a cover for DC. (UPDATE, 9/21/25, 1:05 a.m.: The original version of this post incorrectly stated that Simonson had yet to draw any covers for DC — but, as was gently pointed out to me by ManOfBronze over at the DC Comics Collected Editions Message Board, Simonson had actually done his first cover for DC a couple of years prior to this, for Sword of Sorcery #5; for the record, he’d done a couple more since then, for G.I. Combat #169 and Sherlock Holmes #1. Your humble blogger regrets the error.)
In the present case, the artist missed out on having a cover he’d already drawn published. Because, although the actual (and excellent) cover for 1st Issue Special #9 was executed by the veteran Joe Kubert (who, incidentally, had drawn one of Dr. Fate’s final Golden Age appearances, back in 1944’s All-Star Comics #21), Simonson had taken a couple of shots at the job beforehand. One of these rejected pieces was eventually published by DC in The Art of Walt Simonson (1989):
Yes, this version includes a redesign of Fate’s helmet by Simonson that, thankfully, never went anywhere. (What can we say? Even great artists have bad ideas every once in a while.) Per remarks by Simonson in the Back Issue article quoted from earlier, his initial go at the cover used the traditional helmet; assuming that was the only difference, it’s hard to see why that illustration wouldn’t have passed muster with the powers-that-be at DC. But that’s evidently how the company rolled, back in 1975.
In any event, those of us who bought 1IS #9 off the spinner rack half a century ago would have to wait until we opened the book to its opening splash page to get our first look at Walt Simonson’s rendition of Doctor Fate… …not to mention the cool new logo that the artist — who’d acquired an interest in typography while studying art at the Rhode Island School if Design (RISD) — had come up with for the character:
Martin Pasko’s story (the plotting of which appears to have included some contributions from Simonson) gets to the action right away, not pausing for a moment to give readers who might not already be familiar with Doctor Fate any background information beyond the absolute basics… though that’ll be coming soon enough.
Doctor Fate invokes a couple of real-world deities on the page above, and refers rather less reverently to yet a third: in order, these are Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility; Anubis, an Egyptian god associated with the afterlife; and Ohrmazd, the creator-deity in the ancient Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism. Which might seem like a real hodgepodge of comparative mythology/religion, and probably is — but is right in line with the sort of thing Dr. Fate’s co-creator Gardner Fox used to include in his early scripts for the character, as exemplified by a line from More Fun Comics #57 (Jul., 1940), where we’re told our hero “knows the secrets of Egypt and Chaldea [modern southern Mesopotamia]”.
As we’ve previously noted in an earlier post, Dr. Fate had been preceded by a little over a year in his prominent use of the Egyptian ankh symbol by his fellow super-sorcerer over at Marvel Comics, Doctor Strange. But though it’s unlikely that either Martin Pasko or Walt Simonson had Doctor Strange #4 specifically in mind while putting together this issue, Simonson did take a more general inspiration from the early, formative years of Marvel’s Master of the Mystic Arts in how he chose to visualize Doc Fate’s spellwork… a process that eventually ended up giving the ankh quite a workout. As the artist explained years later in an interview published in Comic Book Artist #10 (Oct., 2000):
One of the things I loved about [artist and co-creator Steve] 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… To make it [i.e., magic] 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…
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.
Before moving on from this panel, let’s take a moment or two to unpack Dr. Fate’s final exclamation, whose references to “Chaos” and “Order” recall similar language used in the introductory caption on the first page. Given the importance of the “Order (or Law) versus Chaos” theme in the fiction of British fantasist Michael Moorcock, and the debt to Moorcock evident in the work of other comics writers during this same period — namely, Jim Starlin (in Marvel’s Warlock) and David Michelinie (in DC’s Claw the Unconquered) — one might assume that Pasko and Simonson were drawing on the same influence in this story.
But, as noted by reader Joe Gill during our discussion of Warlock #9 a couple of months back, Michael Moorcock didn’t invent the “order vs. chaos” concept, which has had a place in human religious and philosophical thought for a very long time.* And, in fact, in Back Issue #24 Pasko recalled that Simonson had suggested “borrowing the Lords of Order and Chaos concept” not from Moorcock, but rather “from the ideas of the late Roger Zelazny.” Presumably, Pasko was referring to Zelazny’s series of fantasy novels, “The Chronicles of Amber”, in which that concept plays a major role. (Of course, given that the first novel in that series, Nine Princes in Amber, was originally published in 1970, Zelazny himself might have been influenced by Moorcock, whose first stories utilizing the theme appeared in the early 1960s… but, then again, maybe not.)
In the end, regardless of who or what inspired the idea of Doctor Fate serving as a champion in the cosmic struggle of Order against Chaos, the concept would prove to have enormous staying power, influencing not only virtually every later interpretation of the Fate character, but finding its way into other corners of the greater DC Universe, as well.
Panel from More Fun #55 (May, 1940). Text by Gardner Fox; art by Howard Sherman.
Inza Nelson’s history as a DC Comics character goes back just as far as her husband Kent’s — all the way back to the first appearance of Doctor Fate in More Fun #55 (May, 1940). In that premiere adventure, readers were given no background information about our hero, nor any details about how he’d come to be acquainted with Inza — who was described variously in Fox’s early scripts as Fate’s “beautiful accomplice”, “companion”, and other such vague terms. Not only did Inza not get a surname for several years, but readers learned virtually nothing else about her, either, save that as a young woman living (apparently alone) in a posh New York penthouse, she could be assumed to be reasonably well off.
Panel from Showcase #55 (Mar.-Apr., 1965). Text by Gardner Fox; art by Murphy Anderson.
By the time Inza left the feature (in More Fun #90 [Apr., 1943], just eight issues before Doctor Fate got the boot as well), she had settled into a somewhat more traditional girlfriend role — though it wasn’t until the Silver Age revival of the Justice Society of America (and a team-up between Fate and his fellow JSAer Hourman that appeared in Showcase #55 () that we learned that Inza Cramer had, sometime in the 22-year interval between appearances, married Kent Nelson and gone to live with him in his doorless tower in Salem, Massachusetts.
So far, so good… but what’s all this on the last page above with Fate telling Inza, “I have returned your husband to yoouuu…” Inza is married to Kent Nelson, and Kent Nelson is Doctor Fate. Isn’t he?
Decades later, recalling the approach he’d opted to take to the relationship between Inza and Kent Nelson — and, for that matter, to the relationship between Kent Nelson and the entity known as “Doctor Fate” — for Back Issue, Martin Pasko described his understanding of the existing situation as he and Walt Simonson had found it in their source material:
Gerry wanted to include the Inza character… and that meant — especially with most comics readers in the mid-’70s embracing feminism and gender equality — figuring out how to do more with her than playing the same old damsel-in-distress card…
So I said to myself, let’s make her more independent-minded, a woman who pushes back against the oppressiveness of her life. But what, exactly, was that oppression? Well, she was married to a super-hero but wasn’t allowed to share in his experience unless she was somehow victimized by it. And she was forced to live, we were told by the source material, in this “tower without windows or doors” that looked more like a medieval prison than a magic castle. So she was, in essence, held hostage by her husband’s circumstance. But [at the same time] I wanted Inza’s rage and frustration to be tempered by love for Kent and by sympathy for his oppression.
I thought, “Let’s make Inza a super-hero ‘widow,'” likewise cut off from her husband during crisis situations and unable to help him… But what about that sympathy for her husband that tempers her resentment? What was his burden? That question led to my second pitch, which was that Kent Nelson was not the super-hero; something that inhabited him was.
What the abstraction called ‘Dr. Fate’ really came from Walt’s pitch about Lords of Order, which was in response to my idea that Nelson should be just the guy whose body was used by an incorporeal entity that lived inside the helmet (thus providing a rationale for why a helmet at all). Nelson would be presumably only one of many people in history to serve as the “host vessel,” though we never explicitly stated so. This meant that Kent wasn’t being insensitive to his wife’s plight; he was simply powerless to ignore the call to service from the thing in the helmet.
Johnny Thunder gets the lowdown from Dr. Fate in this panel from All-Star Comics #3 (Winter, 1940). Text by Gardner Fox; art by E.E. Hibbard.
While Pasko didn’t make mention of the fact, there was some basis in the Golden Age source material for positing that Kent Nelson and Doctor Fate were not quite one and the same. As we’ve already noted, the earliest stories about the character — whether in More Fun or in All-Star Comics, where he appeared as a member of the Justice Society of America — gave no clue to his origins. Neither was there any hint of his having a secret identity; and indeed, certain utterances made by the character suggested that he wasn’t even human — or, at least, not entirely so.
Panel from More Fun #66 (Apr., 1941). Text by Gardner Fox; art by Howard Sherman.
That approach lasted only until the Dr. Fate adventure presented in More Fun #66 (Apr., 1941), which ended with Fate unmasking in front of Inza for the very first time, revealing himself to be a young, blonde hunk o’ man. That story was immediately followed up with More Fun #67’s origin story, which explained to readers how young Kent Nelson had been orphaned in Egypt and raised by Nabu the Wise to become Dr. Fate… and forever after, Kent Nelson and Dr. Fate were presented as being one and the same person.
Your humble blogger very much doubts that Gardner Fox — employed as he was in the business of turning our disposable pulp entertainment on a monthly basis — ever considered that his earlier definition of his hero as an inhuman entity created by “the Elder Gods” and placed on Earth “to fight evil sorcery” could be combined with the new, seemingly contradictory origin he’d since concocted to yield the premise that Doctor Fate was a separate being from Kent Nelson — one that somehow possessed Kent Nelson when he put on Fate’s blue and gold costume. But the raw material was there all along, for anyone of a mind to mine it.
Doctor Fate — or maybe we should say Kent Nelson, since he leaves the helmet off for this sequence — proceeds to consult the books and scrolls of his library, which contain “the wisdom of the ancients”… though he also broods over whether that wisdom “is still within his grasp“…
In the 2006 book Modern Masters Volume Eight: Walter Simonson, interviewer Roger Ash, noting that the Doctor Fate story in 1st Issue Special #9 was the artist’s first published work dealing specifically with mythology, asked him, “Has mythology in its various forms always been something of interest to you?” To which Simonson replied:
It has. That probably is the first thing in comics that I did with it. It was really expressed when one of the gods shows up. I used the Egyptian graphic for him rather than trying to draw a realistically jackal-headed god. I used the graphic approach as his visualization in the comic because I feel that when you see the gods, it’s more than you can really bear. It’s more than humans can see. What you see instead is some kind of symbol that you can interpret and not be driven mad by.
We’ll interrupt this one-page retelling of Doctor Fate’s origin story precisely in the middle to make a couple of observations. The first is one that I’m not sure I’d ever noticed until a recent re-reading of this story, and it’s this: the opening scene, in which Kent Nelson is said to be twelve years of age, is dated as taking place “15 years” ago — 1960, in other words — which is obviously way too late to work for the Kent Nelson who was active as Dr. Fate during the 1940s. Was DC’s intention for the version of Fate we meet in this story to be a new, previously unknown Earth-One iteration of the hero? Barring a typo, that seems highly probable. To the best of my knowledge, however, no later stories (including Pasko’s own) ever picked up on the idea, and this story was soon neatly folded into the ongoing chronology of the Earth-Two-based super-sorcerer who’d been around since the Golden Age. (Another possibility would be that the main events of the story are supposed to take place a couple of decades prior to its date of publication; but, given that there’s no other internal evidence indicating that readers are meant to take the tale as a period piece, that option seems less likely to me. Naturally, others may disagree.)
The second item of note is Pasko’s identification of the gas that revived Nabu and the gas that killed Kent’s dad as being one and the same — something which isn’t made explicit in Gardner Fox’s script for More Fun #67 at all. Nor does the dramatic moment that immediately follows here have a direct analogue in the original version of the origin story:
At least one later story (Paul Levitz and Joe Staton’s retelling of Fate’s origin in DC Special Series #10 [1978]) would imply that not only had Nabu used his magic to “erase” the pain and grief Kent naturally felt upon losing his father, but that the whole sequence of events — including Sven Nelson’s death — had been orchestrated by the Lords of Order. Which is a pretty creepy idea, if you ask me.
Like the other deities mentioned in this story, Tezcatlipoca originates in real-world mythology; unlike those, however, he’s been drawn not from the ancient belief systems of the Middle East, but from those of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica — more specifically, from the religion of the Aztecs.
Do you feel like Inza’s all-important discovery has happened a little too quickly and easily to be completely credible? If so, Walt Simonson would like you to know that things weren’t originally intended to shake out in quite this way. As he recalled in later years for Back Issue:
We did run into a glitch about the story length… DC dropped two pages of story from their comics when I was right in the middle of drawing the issue. Books were being shortened in general in a series of cost-cutting measures [the story length dropped from 20 to 18 pages at that point]. We had a plot that was suddenly two pages too long. As a result, Marty and I had to do some finagling with the plot right in the middle of working on the comic. I don’t remember what we trimmed from the original plot, but I do remember the scene where Inza Nelson finds the Mummy’s true name was part of our revision to shorten the plot. That bit always seemed a little too coincidental to me, but it was necessary to bring the story length into line with DC’s new editorial directives.
While Fate flies to confront Khalis, the mummy’s own deity mocks him: “I could sooner see a maggot’s soul than recognize you!” But, Anubis allows, he might consider Khalis’ pleas… if he successfully destroys “that annoying Dr. Fate!” And so Khalis lifts his amulet, and unleashes “the Claws of Anubis” against his foe…
And that’s that. For my money, it would be hard to imagine a more creatively successful tryout issue… which makes me a little sad that we never saw a proper follow-up — at least, not from this particular creative team.
Looking back these many years later, it’s difficult to assess whether there was ever much of a chance of Doctor Fate continuing in his own title, regardless of how well this single issue was received. As Gerry Conway told Back Issue in 2007, “I would have loved to see a Dr. Fate series… but I’m not sure FIS was set up to actually launch new titles, or even to gauge reader interest.” It’s worth noting in this context that the only properties featured in 1st Issue Special’s 13-issue run that did move on to their own titles were Warlord (which had already been approved for launch before its 1IS #8 tryout) and Return of the New Gods (which DC waited a whole fifteen months to follow up on).
For his part, Martin Pasko (who sadly left us in 2020) seems to have been proud of what he and Walt Simonson had accomplished, telling Back Issue:
…Walt and I were delightfully free to invent and, as it turned out, I think we enhanced our reputations by giving DC a new, more-readily exploitable character. I think that’s a fair assessment because Dr. Fate has been a more continuous and highly visible presence in the DCU ever since…
Cover to Flash #306 (Feb., 1982). Art by Carmine Infantino and Bob Smith.
Thankfully, Pasko would eventually get the opportunity to follow up on what he and Simonson had begun — though not until 1982, when he’d be joined by artist Keith Giffen on a Dr. Fate feature that would run in the back of The Flash for eight memorable installments. But even if the sorcerer from Salem had been obliged to wait seven years to appear again in solo action — and would have to wait yet another half-decade before finally getting his own title — he’d hardly been absent from the scene in the meantime, as he continued to show up as an active member of the Justice Society of America…. most prominently in that venerable super-team’s revival in All-Star Comics, which DC would launch less than a month after 1st Issue Special #9 arrived on stands. That new series’ creative personnel would eventually incorporate Pasko’s and Simonson’s innovations re: Doc Fate into their own chronicling of the adventures of DC’s greatest Golden Age heroes… though, of course, that’s just one small part of the story of that particular enterprise — a story that I look forward to sharing with you on this blog in the months and years to come, beginning in just two weeks.
*For the record, back in 1963 Moorcock himself credited two sources as the primary inspirations for the fictional cosmology of his early “Elric” stories: Poul Anderson’s 1961 novel Three Hearts and Three Lions, and Zoroastrianism. (See the essay “Elric” in Moorcock’s Elric: The Stealer of Souls [Del Rey, 2008]).
Hi, Alan,
I was hoping you’d do this one.
I’ve written more than once that FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL (or 1ST ISSUE SPECIAL, if you will) felt less like a tryout title and more like a dumping ground for inventory stories that otherwise wouldn’t have a place to go. Despite the murderers’ row of creators whose work appeared in the 13 issues of its run (including Kirby AND Ditko AND Joe Simon AND – well, you get the idea) few of the actual stories did all that much for me.
This issue marked the artistic pinnacle of the title. I had happily noted that Pasko was successfully making the transition from fan to pro (which offered some hope to a certain 16-year-old who will remain nameless), and I had loved watching Walt Simonson’s evolution as an artist during the Manhunter arc. The energy these two guys brought together to this story was palpable. I loved the edge Paso brought to the Kent-Inza-Fate triangle, and Simonson’s inventive layouts and clever use of typography completely won me over.
Like you, Alan, I mainly knew Dr. Fate from the JLA/JSA team-ups. I liked him well enough but never gave him too much thought as material for a lead feature. But this issue made we WANT a Dr. Fate series, especially with Pasko and Simonson at the helm. It should be noted that they WOULD do more work together in the near future – and I’m hoping you’ll take a look at least one issue of their METAL MEN run
A couple of years later, after the DC Implosion, the successful release of the WORLD OF KRYPTON three-parter (which had been created to run in the revived SHOWCASE, which really DID feel like a tryout title) showed the market for miniseries. But had they been a thing in 1975, I’d have paid good money for the Pasko-Simonson limited series that built on this fine issue.
OK, now you can go back to writing about Steve Englehart and Steve Gerber books for a while….
Like you, I discovered Dr Fate through a JLA/JSA team-up, though mine was the previous year, my introduction to the Justice Society. He and they have been lifelong favourites.
This issue of First Issue Special, a totally mis-conceived series, is my favourite comic of the entire 1970s.
Like you, Alan, I was a fan of the helmet look, and quite puzzled by the reprint in WANTED where he went to a half-helmet. This issue blew me away. It’s appalling no-one at DC thought to keep it going.
The concept the helmet wore Kent and not vice versa would be the definitive take going forward. Eventually it led to the deMatteis/McManus series which was wonderful.
I presume “Khalis” was taken from Universal’s Mummy movies — after the first film, with Boris Karloff, a new Mummy Kharis became the monster.
Great page and panel design from Walt Simonson on this one. I wonder if he wanted Dr. Fate’s helmet to look more like one belonging to a certain Asgardian he worked on some years later? As for the display lettering (sound effects) and the credits at the bottom of page one, these look like Walt’s handiwork, too.
The helmet in that first image, that is.
Looks pretty close to the new helmet Simonson eventually provided for the Thunder God.
I remember this book very well. I knew Fate the way you all did, though the JSA, but he wasn’t the draw (no pun intended) for me here. I bought this book for the art of Walt Simonson, which I’d been crazy about since Manhunter and couldn’t get enough of. And thankfully, he did not disappoint. The line work is magnificent and the caligraphy, which in this day and age is so easy to forget he did by hand, really set the work above the rest of the pack. Wonderful stuff.
As to the story, I didn’t know Fate beyond the JSA stuff, so I had no way of knowing what was new to this book and what wasn’t, but I enjoyed it all. I could certainly understand Inga’s frustrations in sharing her husband with an Egyptian spirit or whatever, but I will say that Pasko’s characterization seemed a bit uneven. Sometimes in this story, Fate sounded like an immortal magical spirit and sometimes he sounded like just some dude. Even when speaking to Inga, sometimes Fate referred to her as Mrs. Nelson and sometimes he called her Inga. Only once or twice, but it stuck out.
Still, no real complaints to be had here. I was never a huge Doctor Fate fan, and except for the helmet, which seemed logical to me as the source of the spirit that possessed him, his costume never made sense at all, but if Walt had kept drawing him, I’d have been there every issue. All in all a great issue and great memories of it. Thanks, Alan!
Interesting — I knew Fate first from the JLA but by this point I’d seen solo stories in various reprint books, and liked the odd art style.
First time I’ve seen this story. Love Simonson’s art and find reading those snippets of interviews wherein he explains his influences and artistic choices in depicting magic spells fascinating. Also makes me curious about his first run, as artist, on The Mighty Thor a few years later, wherein he used a style that seemed (to me) more like that of John Buscema, but when he returned as writer & artist in the 1980s, he used his own unique style and created a comics masterpiece. Also, the lettering and placement of word balloons appears fairly unique, suggesting to me that maybe Simonson did that himself as well. Appears in this era, DC still didn’t list letterers in the credits.
Another fun dive into comics archaeology, Alan!
I discovered Dr Fate via the Crisis reprint in the big 100-Page Super Spectacular that basically introduced me to comics a few years earlier. Like you and others here, his look was what drew me in.
I was excited to see this issue hit the stands, first by the Kubert cover which I’m sure attracted a lot of interest from even casual readers. Wow! Then I saw Simonson’s interiors and, well, this one was coming home with me. I had been especially taken with that Manhunter series and Sinonson’s graphics were part of that….those sound effects were a major factor. I even incorporated that into my own early attempts at comic book story telling and they still make me smile when I revisit these old stories.
There’s a great Simonson sound effect in an issue of Metal Men a few years later where someone’s trying to chisel a control device out of a block without triggering the guardian: tap tap tap TAP TAP TAP TAP … CRACK. Crack was very bad.
What did you think of the half helmet that he wore for awhile in the golden age? My first encounter with Dr Fate was in All Star Comics #61. That series and his appearances in the Justice League never really touched on the split personality aspect. I wasn’t aware that Dr Fate and Kent Nelson were two distinct personalities until Roy Thomas’s series The All Star Squadron. I didn’t realize it had been established earlier and just assumed it was something Roy Thomas came up with as part of his “retroactive continuity” to explain why he suddenly switched to the half helmet and his powers were reduced in the golden age
For the record, Mike, I *hated* the half-helmet. But Dr. Fate wore it for about as long as he wore the full-face version, back in the Golden Age, so it’s part of the character’s history. I appreciate Roy Thomas’ coming up with a logical reason for the change.
The split personality aspect was something Pasko and Simonson made up out of whole cloth for this one. It’s one of those changes that worked perfectly.
I have remembered this issue for decades, mostly for the incredible, almost surreal art. But half of downtown Boston being smashed by a gigantic pyramid and the assumed horrendous loss of life also made an impression. It was the first time I remember a story in which the hero failed to prevent a widespread disaster.
This was an exceptional story, a highlight of Pasko’s career and a second great outing to start Simonson’s. My only problem is I have always agreed with Pratchett’s take on Chaos and Order, even if I didn’t learn of his until long after I’d developed mine. Life is Chaos and Order is not. It just always feels backwards to me when DC or other groups have Chaos be the bad guys.
One of the things I enjoyed about the Kesels’ Hawk and Dove series is that they emphasized law and chaos can work together instead of against each other (which was, of course, what they were created to prove).
My goodness, the older I get, the more I forget. I forgot I had this issue. I’m not sure why I picked it up and looked through it, Kubert is a master, but I found the cover a bit uninspiring. Lucky I opened it up at saw the great Simonson on the splash page! And as for that splash page, Walt I think would have been right at home with the Silver Surfer. It would have been wonderful if Dr. Fate could have been “Simonized” at some point to really flesh out the character. One question I have is why they didn’t address the “Doctor” designation at some point. In the 1940’s I can see how it sounded cool, kinda lock always using “Captain” for characters. Maybe they did at some time? Anyway, very good comic, Walt is just superb.
About Fate’s origen timeline…
Either this story didn’t happen when it was published and it’s an untold story from Dr. Fate’s past or Pasko was using the time-flux theory that DC was using for Earth-2 so 1960 our time is the equivalent of 1940 on Earth-2, which is when Fate first appeared and Pasko didn’t take into account the time between Kent finding Nabu and becoming Dr Fate. Which brings up more questions, such as how long was Kent with Nabu? He had to leave Egypt, grow up, become an archeologist and then assume his role as Dr. Fate, although from the re-telling shown, it kind of looks like he was aged up to adulthood, but that would mean he hooked up with Inza at around age 12. Did Roy Thomas or anyone else ever address this and I forgot about it?
In Marvel’s “Lost Generation,” Roger Stern and John Byrne made the same point about Dr. Strange: his first appearance shows he’s an established foe of Nightmare and the mundane businessman who’s come to Stephen for help has heard his name “in whispers.” So he’s clearly been active for a while. I think it became canon he had his accident in the early 1930s.
In Kent’s case, I’d guess his father was excavating in Egypt in the 1920s, the era of King Tut’s Tomb and other discoveries. Even if he aged overnight, that would make him an adult (albeit a very weird one) by the time he first appears in the late 1930s.
I assumed that Kent spent 10-20 years being tutored by Nabu before becoming Dr Fate, I was trying to figure out the discrepancies Alan pointed out. I believe Pasko didn’t do the math (as opposed to being a tale from the past) when he said “15 years” ago because of the passenger jet which would put it at 1958 or so and the 15 years ago still wouldn’t work.
This retcon does raise other questions, such as why Nabu “became” the helmet and why bother tutoring Kent if he was just going to take over. Perhaps because the Nabu body wasn’t stable and he was preparing Kent to be a more suitable host.
Thomas’ All Star Squadron implies Nabu asserting himself was a gradual thing, not becoming serious until Kent switched out his helmet. So Kent would have to have training to survive the first few years.
the JM DeMatteis post-Crisis series reveals Kent was originally supposed to bond with Inza to become Dr. Fate; Nabu, however, decided he wanted a more hands on role so he kept Kent a singleton, enabling him to exert control.
Have there been any tales of Dr Strange that took place between his origin and his first appearance in Strange Tales 110, i.e. in the 40s or 50s?
I believe there’s one story in Lost Generation in which he teams up with the First Line against the vampire Nocturne that qualifies.
Not that I’m fishing for a No-Prize, just curious that Khalis’s word balloons have a crumbly edge along the bottom, sort of denoting other-worldliness and decay, except for on page 15 (as shown) and on another page. I’ve looked but can’t see anything in the story to suggest circumstances had changed which might indicate a difference. Oh well, one of those mysteries.
Also couldn’t help noticing that certain fans-turned-pro had a thing for old cars – on the last page Inza looks to be driving the same model Christopher Chance was motoring in in his first story…similar to the way there were a lot of old Mausers being brandished when firearms were involved.
DCU Guide shows in it’s Dr. Fate chronology this story taking place sometime in the 50s. The roadster Inza is driving does look old-timey, so I think it’s possible.
That’s really interesting! It does seem that there’s something retro about Simonson’s style here.
I have fond memories of this Dr. Fate issue from my nascent days as a regular comic book fan. I cannot say what prompted me to plop down a hard earned quarter for this particular book but I’m glad I did. What I got was a fantastic tale of action, mystery and drama with kick ass art work. It’s amazing how important this one off issue became in the development of Dr. Fate for years to come.
Like you, I too was introduced to Doctor Fate via the 1966 JLA-JSA team up and thought at the time what a stand out character from a bygone age he was. Anytime I saw the good Dr on a cover, I had to buy that issue (desperately searching for the 1965 team up issues with Hourman for years was a Holy Grail for me). For me any JLA-JSA team up without Dr Fate was poorer for his absence. I bought this issue (50 years ago !!) and hoped that DC would give Kent Nelson his own title, but alas it never happened in my comic collecting years (1965-1882).
The first one is an exceptional piece of work.
Well written great art even for Murphy Anderson, One of the best stories of the 1960s.
The second issue (the Psycho-Pirate story) is much weaker, I’m not sure why.
The Star Man/Black Canary stories in B&B ran to the same pattern; the first was great and the second weaker.
It might be that Solomon Grundy and The Mist made for better stories than the new Psycho-Pirate and Sports-Master & The Huntress as “Mr. & Mrs., Menace.”
I’m also not sure what Schwartz was trying to do with those stories. It culminated in a Fox/Anderson Earth 2 Specter series launched in Showcase at the end of the same year, 1965.
He was, IIRC, testing the waters to see if the JSA had legs to draw readers outside of Earth-One/Earth-Two stuff. It’s the same year the JSA got the annual crossover almost entirely to itself (the one where the Thunderbolt erases the JLA). https://atomicjunkshop.com/1965-the-year-the-justice-society-failed/
I agree with you about the Solomon Grundy vs. Psycho-Pirate — the latter’s power set doesn’t lend to spectacular action. Much preferred Sportsmaster and Huntress to the Mist story though.
Interesting trivia note: Michael Uslan, later producer of Bat-films, wrote to Schwartz urging he bring back the Spectre. Schwartz replied that the Comics Code wouldn’t allow it. Uslan: “Well, they allow Casper, don’t they?” Schwartz then announced another team book, Dr. Midnite and the Spectre, but obviously reconsidered and went with Spectre solo.
Odd, all of those heroes were DC, rather than Al-American (excpet Black Cannery. Schwartz and Kanigher both came in through All-American (unlike Schiff, Weisingre, Boltinoff and Kashdan
It’s probably more important that they didn’t have an Earth-One counterpart like Flash, GL, Hawkman and Atom would have.
I first learned of Doctor Fate when the DC superhero line found a new publisher (“Editora Abril”) in Brazil in the 1980s. Somehow I failed to notice him in the JSA appearances I had read up until then, and therefore my first exposition to Kent Nelson and Zabu was in a translated reprint of the second feature of Flash #306.
I found the character intriguing, perhaps a bit more because his dual nature was such a sharp contrast with his power level. It made him appear about as vulnerable as powerful. And, in fact, that storyline had him go through a lot of trouble even as he felt quite certain that he could save the whole Earth (and did).
I always wondered about that.
There were a LOT of JSA fans still floating around Thomas & Bails for two . . . .)
My first exposure to this story was when it was reprinted in a Justice Society digest….not a format conducive for presenting Walt Simonson’s detailed artwork.
I remember first seeing Dt. Fate in JLA # 101 1nd 102 and not knowing until Wanted # 3 that he was an Earth 2 hero. Dr, Fate’s costume looked quite up to date in the 1960s and 1970s. Howard Sherman did a fine job on the design.
The clarity of the design made the character look good under the hand of very talented (and diverse) artists Murphy Anderson in Showcase in 1964-’65; Walt Simonson in 1975; Wally Wood in All Star in 1975-77; and Keith Giffen in The Flash in 1981-’82.
I thought that Pasko and Simonson did a nice job of taking Fate back to his Fox/Sherman roots: a mysterious and not completely comprehensible hero. fighting genuine evil for reasons we might not find laudable if we even understood them fully.
This is not Manley Wade Wellman’s Silver John fighting evil creatures out of basic decency and a simple Christian faith. This is more like The Ally in F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack novels something else that has made common cause with us for reasons of its own.
Like the New Gods, this was a First Issue Special that went somewhere (after a delay, in this case a long one)..
After his Manhunter stories in Detective Comics, but before this one, Walt Simonson drew “Temple of the Spider,” scripted by Archie Goodwin, for (Atlas-)Seaboard’s Thrilling Adventure Stories no. 2, cover dated August 1975. Walt has cited it as his favorite work in comics:
https://ripjaggerdojo.blogspot.com/2010/11/temple-of-spider.html?m=1
It was indeed a masterpiece. In fact, those two issues of Thrilling Adventure stories are full of great art.
I own them both. Will have to revisit no. 1, but I recall no. 2 well. Great mags!
Simonson & Goodwin also did a few War comics back ups when Goodwin was editing some of the DC war books in late 1972-mid-1974 . . . .
Yes, I owned Weird War Tales no. many years ago which featured his first pro comics work:
https://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2009/07/famous-first-fridayscyranos-army-walt.html?m=1
No. 10, that is
Simonson and John Warner did a couple of related stories in Star-Spangled War Stories, I think it was #170 and 175 or 177.
Sorry, It was 3 170 and 180 and the writer was Gerry Boudreau
Oh wow…I bought this when it came out—the artwork is still incredible: Fate shimmering through the museum walls, Kahlis, Inza, the Ankhs and the sheer power invoked…and a detail I didn’t notice fifty years ago. On page Ten in the bottom right-hand corner as Fate raises his fists in defiance of Chaos, doesn’t he seem to be crucified against the Ankh design behind him? Symbolic of the sacrifices he was about to make in his personal life? Wonderful issue and my kudos to all involved. R.I.P. Marty.
I got this comic 50 years ago and really enjoyed it, like several others who have commented above. One thing that has struck me on revisiting it again is that the tomb that Sven and Kent Nelson found was in Ur in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq). This is hundreds of miles away from Egypt leading me to wonder when Dr Fate’s origin and Nabu were connected to Egypt. Was it in this comic or had there been a connection made in any of his earlier appearances? I’ve done some checking of the summaries of his earliest More Fun Comics appearances but can’t find any references to Egypt. Is anybody aware of where this connection was first made, maybe in one of the team up issues of JLA or in the Showcase issues mentioned above?
The early stories reference Fate mastering the secrets of Egypt .. but also Chaldea, Mu and Atlantis.
The origin, however, does explain things: Kent’s dad tells him he’s searching Ur for the secrets of the pyramids because they were obviously nothing Egyptians could have built by themselves, ergo Gods From Outer Space (Nabu is identified as such)! Why he figured Ur was the best place to find evidence of the space aliens goes unstated but clearly as they found Nabu, Dr. Nelson knew his stuff.
As far as I know, #9 was the first story to make more of Egypt’s role than that.
Thanks Fraser, much appreciated.
Many thanks Alan for the review and analysis. When I read this years ago the inconsistency and co-incidences put me off, but after the write-up and everyone’s positive comments, I sought out this comic once again and thoroughly enjoyed it. Losing 2 pages of comic (so 10% of the original page count of an all-in-one re-introductory story) did hinder Pasko & Simonson, but the end product still comes through. Good first effort from Conway the editor too. The art is so strong that I find it surprising that Simonson was never offered Doc Strange.