Doctor Fate #18
DC Comics
Written by: Paul Levitz
Art by: Brendan McCarthy
The benefit of this issue is that it is pretty straight forward. The new Doctor Fate finds himself receiving instruction from Thoth himself on the power of Nabu and the responsibility of being Doctor Fate. The story then shifts to Fate taking on a hive of interdimensional bugs killing people in our dimension. The story is serviceable in its desire to teach Khalid a lesson in what it means to wield mystic power, but
it fails to successfully evolve him into a character that I would be interested in reading about monthly. Instead of the wonder and fear that any person would experience at having power thrust upon him, we are given another character who treats power and responsibility like an inconvenient annoyance.
Unfortunately, the art does little to help that opinion. While the backgrounds seem trippy and interesting in their own right, they also highlight the flat, uninteresting foreground details in the characters. Fate, Thoth and everything else in the frame seem like an afterthought and it makes the panels which feature action boring. The preeminent magic force in the DC universe deserves a host that takes that responsibility seriously and art that showcases the power, beauty and majesty the character demands.