Doctor Fate #17 Review and *SPOILERS*

More of The Same, Only Prettier

Written By: Paul Levitz
Art By: Brendan McCarthy, Mark Harrison, Saida Temofonte
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: October 26, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

It's almost over....... and as I write this I realize that if you're reading this review you're probably fans of this series and are getting annoyed at me bashing it all the time....... but come on, nothing has happened in this series at all and every issue seems to be Khalid just whining about school or about how he doesn't know how to use his powers.  While I'm all about heroes learning how to become heroes, there's only so much of the same old shit that I can take, especially when the character isn't even that likable.  I'd tell you about the previous issue, but it really doesn't matter as we go into this one since we're in the stretch run of this series with only one more issue after this.  Hopefully Doctor Fate is able to redeem himself in his eleventh hour, but I've read everything we've got so far and if it hasn't changed yet, I don't think it's going to.  Let's check out this issue.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Khalid protesting outside of Freedom Tower with the neighbor girl Akila, who if you'll remember has a big ol' crush on our hero........ Now, if it was the other way around I could see why Khalid would be protesting, but since he already has a girlfriend and doesn't seem to care about anything that's going on, I really have no idea why he's even there in the first place....... Hell, I'm not even sure why these people are protesting.  Just something to do I guess.  Anyway, as Khalid lets his mind wander as he walks out of the crowd to try and get a breath of fresh air, he starts noticing strange ass threads coming out of everyone's heads and leading up into infinity and it's when Khalid notices that Akila's thread is looking somewhat burnt that our story begins.  I'm starting to think that Paul Levitz read Stephen King's Insomnia before writing this because while this life line concept might be something ancient, it sure as hell made me think of that book.  

So Khalid Doctor Fates up and starts following this thread into the beyond, where he comes across a shit load of creepy ass spider things called the "Dreamspinners" that seem to be managing the threads, but he ends up losing Akila's when he gets all caught up in the web they're weaving.  All of the threads seem to lead back to a source though and when Khalid finally reaches their end, he comes across a bigger grosser worm looking dealy calling itself Clothorus, who doesn't really give us anything except for the fact that it's had dealings with Doctor Fates from the past and doesn't seem to care for the character.  With this, Clothorus tries to kill Khalid and Khalid simply breaks away.  No fuss, no muss.

In the end, Khalid leaves this realm of Fate and winds up back at the Sphinx that gave him the riddle about how to overcome Anubis earlier in the series and like everything else in this series, there are no easy answers........ or really any answers at all.  This might as well be called The Riddle of The Sphinx itself.  Anyway, the Sphinx tells Khalid that if he's to destroy the mother, he must embrace her and all her children, which since Khalid is trying to save Akila from her fate of dying I'm guessing he's all about going after Clothorus, but from the Sphinx's riddle, I'm guessing that Khalid will have to become Clothorus and actually become the real deal when it comes to things such as fate.

That's it for this issue of Doctor Fate and while the final page got me thinking about how things might be changing for the character as he ends his series in the next issue........ which got me a little interested, this issue is just more of the same nonsense that the rest of the series is plagued with, like Khalid just doing things that he doesn't understand and coming across people/things that he doesn't understand, while Nabu and the Sphinx just talk in circles at him.  It's just not a good series, but luckily this issue does have Brendan McCarthy on art this issue and I really appreciate his art here because it's fresh and new and gives this book a whole new look that really amps the enjoyment factor up while reading it.  So yeah, the ending and the art are the main draws here, but it's still not enough to make me think that this series is any good.

Bits and Pieces:

While Doctor Fate gives us more of the same.......... which is pretty much nothing, I have to say that the art in this book was great and I wish we could have had this artist on ages ago because Brendan McCarthy really made this book look fantastic.  Really though, that's about the only thing that this book had going for it as we crawl towards the finale next issue.  

5.1/10