Ditto

I'm in the same boat, I really liked the 8 page preview, and the art here for this preview is really fun; I'll be buying it for sure.

And most of those Kent Nelson stories were horrible, derivative and generic, and Nelson and Fate could have been replaced with Superman/Clark KEnt, Shazam/Billy Batson, Green Lantern/Alan Scott or whoever, and you would have gotten the same exact story. Aside from the first dozen stories in More Fun (i..e up until they decided to reveal the origin of Fate and then totally change him form a sorcerer to a generic super-hero) and the stuff collected in Immortal Dr. Fate (the 1st Issue SPecial story by Simonson and the Giffen back ups form Flash) and the one origin story in the DC Special Series book told form Inza's p.o.v., Nelson has not been integral to the stories told with Dr. Fate. It's costume and power stories and the identity of the person under the helm has been largely irrelevant to the story except when they are replacing the wearer with someone else. They don't need to go back to Nelson, they need to tell better stories about a person or people, and not stories about a costume, which is exactly what Liew and Levitz seem to be doing. Characters make stories work and get people to buy in, not costumes and powers, and as long as the character is one the reader can identity with, connect with, and root for, it doesn't matter who wears the helm. The Strauss' were unlikable and DeMatteis was more interested in exploring metaphysical themes than he was in telling stories about characters when he wrote Dr. Fate. The Hector HAll solo stories were generic costume stories that anyone could wear the helmet and not affect the story. Jared Stevens was an attempt to make a 90s grim and gritty magic character not a Dr. Fate story attempt because magic books were dead in the water in the later 90s (see Dr. Strange, look at what they did to Zatanna in her 90s mini, they had to connect the Spectre to Hal Jordan to try to draw readers in etc.) and we don't know what would have happened with Khalid because James RObinson who introduced and developed the character (and who tends to be a very character oriented writer) was driven off the book and replaced by someone who wanted to write stories about Superman as the ultimate villain beating people up instead of about the characters that had been the draw of the Earth 2 book before he came on it. All because people saw they want something different from the same old same old, and when they get it, won't buy it because it's not the same old same old.

And yes, try something different, because no matter who wore the helmet, it was the same old tired stories being told because the person under the helmet was secondary to the story being told. The new book seems to be making the wearer matter for a change. 

If you don't like it, don't buy it, that's cool and it's your choice. But why wish failure on a book that other people might like and that creators are doing as their livelihood? If everything is on the table and there's a multiverse, and DC can supposedly put out books featuring multiple versions of characters as long as they sell, than this book doesn't mean there can't be a Kent Nelson Dr. Fate book too, but maybe DC isn't doing a Nelson led Fate book because it hasn't worked since the 1940 and even then it was quickly replaced as the lead feature by other properties in More Fun.

-M

Have you read the bulk of the Golden age Dr. Fate stories from New Fun, i.e. the longest solo run of Dr. Fate stories? After the origin story until the end of the run Fate essentially uses no magic, Nabu is never mentioned, Kent gave up archaeology to be a medical doctor and the idea of his being an archeologist is completely forgotten, Inza is forgotten and Fate is an invulnerable guy because of his "magic" who punches the lights out of people, his only weakness is gas because he has to breathe and every story is some villain getting hit by Doc, using gas to knock him out, and Fate finding a way to overcome that and give him his comeuppance. Every story-for a long run, the same thing, completely interchangeable and generic. And this is the largest body of Kent Nelson stories there are. Month after month. Now the first handful of stories, before they give Fate's origin, are magnificent. Magic abounds, strange worlds, Lovecraftian menaces, and new and innovative ideas on every page. But then the book devolved into super-hero formula because formula sold better. Except it was being done better elsewhere with other characters and anything unique or interesting about Dr. Fate was lost (even the cool full helmet because it made him inaccessible to the readers or so they thought). Maybe he fared better in All-Star in the JSA stories (I haven' read but a handful of those as I don't have those archives-but the vast majority of Kent Nelson stories are not even about the Kent Nelson people think of, but about a flying medical intern with gas problems. There was nothing interesting enough about the Kent Nelson set up for it to even last more than a dozen Golden Age appearances before they abandoned it for a new take on Nelson.

And they can only do a good Kent Nelson book if they get a pitch from a creator who wants to do a Kent Nelson book. If no one pitches one, or if they ask for Dr. Fate pitches and they get non-Nelson identities for Fate, then what it's saying is the Nelson character isn't one that resonates or inspires creators. Maybe there were some great Nelson pitches, maybe not, but if there were, none of them seem to have caught the fancy of the people deciding what books to put on the schedule and none of them were so beloved by the people who did them that they have hinted/leaked the ideas on blogs, newssites, rumor-mongering sites where you read about just about every unaccepted pitch out there that creators loved.

I'd love a great Kent Nelson Fate book, but it has never sold-the 1st Issue Special tryout book didn't sell well enough to get a follow up, the back up in Flash didn't garner enough interest to get a solo or even to continue past a couple of story arcs, the Immortal Dr. Fate reprint series didn't sell well enough to launch anything from it, only Doc's inclusion in the immensely popular Justice League relaunch post-Legends got him another mini by Giffen that sold decently enough to get a solo, but that book floundered and had to reinvent itself every year or so until it died after 4 years, the Golden/Sniegowski mini didn't set the world on fire even though both have said they would have loved to do a Fate ongoing at the time, etc. etc. There's nothing in the characters track record that shows there's something strong enough to carry a solo title as is in the current market, so they geared the book to try to appeal to the section of the market that is growing, not the section of the market where such books have a continued history of failure and lack of support.

-M

That's pretty much my feeling as well, Fate had a cool visual look and even a great start story wise but then he became a weird Superman clone except he didn't have anything approaching Superman's personality or supporting cast. The best thing that happened to Fate was probably his use by Bruce Timm, but even then he was basically just a prop.