A new twist for Khalid to deal with.
Creative Staff:
Story: Paul Levitz
Art: Brendan McCarthy
Colors: Mark Harrison
Letterer: Saida Temofonte
What They Say:
The threads of fate are dangling down to the Freedom Tower, latching and taking away the souls of New Yorkers, including the current Doctor Fate Khalid’s family and friends. Khalid’s mad pursuit to save them will take him on a cosmic journey, through space and time, to the world of the Dreamspinners-all illustrated by the uniquely fantastic art of Brendan McCarthy (MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, ROGAN GOSH).
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As we hit the penultimate installment of the series, we get a bit of a change as Brendan McCarthy steps in to handle the art chores for it along with Mark Harrison on colors. It’s a significant departure from the look of the book for the past sixteen issues and I can definitely appreciate their style here, but it feels so different so to almost be a different book. Khalid’s looking mighty different without the helm and the color work has so much pop to it compared to the earthier color tone of past issues that it’s a bit jarring. Thankfully, Khalid still feels like Khalid thanks to Paul Levitz’s writing, though that means there are instances where I want to throttle Khalid.
With Akila getting him to join in a protest at Freedom Tower over various injustices and prejudices, he’s not terribly interested in it because the weight of the world is on his shoulders and the things he battles are unseen. It’s understandable with his younger mindset to view things this way, to not realize the value of incrementalism of a series of protests and what it can change and bring to light. Where Khalid loses me more, however, is when he looks in the pool to get some fresh air and discovers an array of stringy lights emanating from it. They’re attaching themselves to many people in the area, unseen by all but him, and it gives off a scent of death that panics him. The problem is that he’s only concerned that Akila is getting tapped with this, not the hundreds of other peaceful protesters that are there as well. While he does have a big picture view of being Fate, he has a very small view of his responsibilities when he sees someone he knows threatened and it’s very frustrating.
Khalid’s exploration as Fate as to where the strings originate takes him to on otherdimensional location, which is where McCarthy’s artwork shines with the color work, as it has a really neat feeling to it within the beauty of space. It’s here that he discovers alien spiders managing all the threads that’s lead by Clothorus, a “mama alien” that doles out lifeline fates and has a longstanding grudge against the helm of Thoth from past encounters. All of it feels like it should be interesting but the knowledge that the series ends the next time around means we’re getting an abbreviated ending and little overall interaction with the supporting cast of the series. It’s not a bad way to end the series and it’s fairly well expected, but something about how the final pages play out here simply feels weirdly forced with what it’s doing with what Khalid encounters.
In Summary:
Doctor Fate is moving toward its conclusion and it’s hitting up some mildly underwhelming material here as we get an otherdimensional story. Khalid’s a character that I thoroughly enjoy but the absence of the supporting cast is frustrating as they, as a whole, made this a series worth reading with the cultural elements, the school and work pieces, and the relationships that were never explored enough in favor of overextended and convoluted action sequences and events. Putting that into a two-issue story with the first half here reinforces the missed opportunities of the series to really do something interesting with a character that has so much potential – both as Fate and as Khalid. I’ve enjoyed lots of this series overall but it’s leaving me in a place where I want to go find my older runs of the previous incarnation to read and see Fate and crew in a more engaging way.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: October 26th, 2016
MSRP: $2.99
