Doctor Fate # 31-41 (DC Comics) (1988) [COMICS]

Alright, the final stretch of the 1988-1992 Doctor Fate.  Bill Messner-Loebs finishes out the series as writer, continuing to take the book in a very different direction than it had been under DeMatteis.

Issue # 31 is fantastic--probably the best of the run.  Inza has a talk with a woman she saved, and the conversation centers around how super heroes never seem to use their powers to make enduring societal improvements.  It's a powerful critique of inequality and corporatism, and casts super heroes as maintaining the status quo and never really being agents of change or progress.  Inza decides to respond by transforming a huge skyscraper into public housing, and (by altering his memories) a real estate tycoon into a homeless man.  But is she exercising too much power?  Much more interesting than the vapid spirituality of DeMatteis' run!  

Issue # 32 has kind of a goofy cover, and is a War of the Gods tie-in.  Wonder Woman comes to the neighborhood looking for Fate, and together the two battle an Egyptian god and defeat it.  Meanwhile, Kent, frustrated, by what Inza has been doing to the neighborhood, heads off on a dig.  A note on the letters page emphasises that issues # 1-24 were DeMatteis' story, and the series is off in a new direction and won't likely revisit the characters and themes from it.

More War of the Gods hits Issue # 33.  In a surprisingly fun take, the gods of Egypt band together to take on Fate.  It turns out that it's their collective doing that has kept Kent from becoming Fate, on the theory that Inza-Fate would be easier to defeat.  But they're wrong, and she manages to bind them mystically.  In a continuing subplot, the tycoon from Issue # 31 (Tommy Bridge) gets his memories back, and boy is he peeved!

A cool cover to Issue # 34.  An evil goddess named T'Giiaan tries to kill Fate.  This is an issue full of surprises, and really enjoyable.  There's a tragic moment as a jobless man that Fate was too busy to help commits a murder-suicide, really hitting home the idea that even super heroes can't solve everything.

Issue # 35 sees Kent getting back to New York and seeing just how widespread Inza's magic has reshaped the neighborhood.  In her efforts to make a veritable utopia, has she started suppressing free will?  And then . . . the helmet swallows Inza?

With Inza gone, there's panic in the streets in Issue # 36.  Kent becomes the classic (?) Fate.  There's some good humor in this one.

Issue # 37 has Inza break free from both the Lords of Order and the Lords of Chaos, drawing power from the people of earth to fuel her independence.  It's a bit cheesy, but a nice resolution.

We get a fill-in issue in Issue # 38 by a different creative team.  It's a flashback story involving ghosts assaulting the residents of Salem.  Fate is drawn to 1910 by a psychic medium who is his mother!?  It's a weird tale, but okay.

Issue # 39 is sadly realistic, as Congressional hearings into everything Inza accomplished for her neighborhood is twisted and distorted to sound bad.  Fed up, she delivers a stirring rebuttal.  When the President asks her to sign a sort of loyalty oath, she refuses.  It's really good, original stuff for comics!

Issue # 40 has Kent and Inza working together as Fate.  They decide to test their powers by cleaning up a lake, only to uncover a sea monster.  Wonder Woman comes by just to chat, which is cool.  Inza is thinking of having a baby, but in a refreshing twist, decides not to.

As the final issue for the series, Issue # 41 has to wrap up some subplots.  There's sort of a new cosmic beginning for Fate which is hard to describe, and I'd rank the issue as okay, but not great.  I do like how the neighborhood is better off, and continues to improve even without Fate's active involvement--an optimistic view of humanity.  There's a nice farewell in the letter column.

Overall, the series can be neatly split into the DeMatteis run (# 1-24) and the Messner-Loebs run (# 25-41).  For some reason, comics fans seem to fondly remember the first one, but in my opinion, it's really the second one that deserves acclaim.