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Okay, so I'm a Doctor Fate fanboy, and have been since I was about nine. I don't know, he looks cool. Shut up, I've always been into random Golden Age weirdos usually on strength of their helmets (Doc Fate, swoon) or their high-collared purple capes (Green Lantern, sigh!).
Anyway, I picked up the late Steve Gerber's Countdown to Mystery trade today, his last story written from the hospital, with Doctor Fate front and center. Also, like, total swoon.
All that said, I really went into expecting to like Justiniano's artwork -- I quite enjoyed him on the otherwise dubious Day of Vengeance and think he works well with the pseudo-gothic dark magic gunk of the DCU -- but wasn't sure, with all the post-Infinite Crisis bollocks, if I would like the story.
I did. I mean, it's a little heavy-handed at times and demonstrates the rifeness of coincidence in the DCU (which I suppose is a lynchpin of magic, and thus appropriate), but I really enjoyed it. Kent V. Nelson, washed-up psychiatrist, alcoholic, and homeless person gets a gift from the universe. And proceeds to fuck it up.
The name coincidence -- you have to wonder, was it mandated that Fate be reworked as a "new" Kent Nelson (could he be from Earth-8 like other redux heroes?) or was that Gerber's choice? Either way, Gerber ran with it and managed to own it. He also worked in some fun pastiche work with a comic-within-a-comic, gave a quick little tour of the recent Fate-past, and then gave us punch-drunk dark-side-of-DeMatteis (who worked on Inza's tenure as Fate) journey into the soul.
And in an interesting tribute to Gerber, the story -- which went unfinished due to his passing -- is completed in four different ways by four different creative teams to honour Gerber's legacy. I think Gail Simone's was the best written but I think Adam Beechem's ending used Kent and his supporting protagonists in a way that felt fitting and called me back to those back-up Fate comics that Giffen did in The Flash back in the Eighties.
In short, I really enjoyed it, and I hope that DC doesn't leave Doc Fate stranded in the cold forever, maybe gives him to someone else to use and bring us more goofy mystical flash-bang stories. It reminded me a little of the Zatanna component of Seven Soldiers.
I tend to think I prefer Inza "I turn congressmen into newts" Nelson (I really need to remember where I put that particular comic!) and her tenure as Fate, but this was an enjoyable read.
And Justiniano was superb. Given all the boringly flat "house style" DC artists around these days (often doing fill-ins on Blue Beetle so I can't enjoy my Hamner/Albuquerque/Rouleau), he's a nice fresh face to come out of the "Infinite Crisis Era" of DC's creative shuffles, and is a perfect fit for the dark-but-not-Vertigo side of DC's stable. |
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