PREVIEW: DC Sneak Peek: Dr. Fate

[Lee Stone]

No, it's something Muslims say. Like when Christians say "God be praised."

No one is going to convert their faith because of a mainstream superhero comic book.



Just their religion.

Or more aptly, "Thank God", which is a common exclamation.
I even say it.

Or "bless you" when people sneeze.

I think the expression the person is trying to convey is pushed aside when someone takes offense to the words the person uses to express it.
It doesn't matter whether they were being sympathetic or comforting, as now they are shunned because the words, that they took no thought to have to guard, offended someone.

[Lee Stone]

I feel like all the family of the artist has logged on saying how great the art is. This will be one of the first cancellations.

I would think not.
It looks pretty strong to me.

[NerdyBird]

Originally Posted by Raptor13 View Post

And I like reading about different lifestyles, just not my preference to be seeing blatant teaching of another religion.

Raptor13, you are entitled t your views. I'm hoping you can explain the quote above because I just don't understand your viewpoint.

Why is having a (for the sake of argument) Muslim character who (for the sake of argument) is unashamed of his religion blatantly teaching another religion? Why isn't it instead having a (for the sake of argument) Muslim character who (for the sake of argument) is simply unashamed of their religion?

Would it be blatantly teaching a religion to have a Christian character who is unashamed of their religion?

Thanks,

[Dylan Davison]

I have no problem with the art or the writing. I like both people who are on this book, and enjoyed the preview. However, I am still not sure if I want to get this due to the fact that Anubis is the villain. There are way better are darker gods to go with for a story like this, Apep for example. But like I said, I enjoyed tell preview, so I may get it. It depends if my like of the comic will outweigh my nerdy love of Egyptology haha.

But it's something new, and I always think DC needs to try new things, so I hope this series does well.

[Raptor13]

Raptor13, you are entitled t your views. I'm hoping you can explain the quote above because I just don't understand your viewpoint.

Why is having a (for the sake of argument) Muslim character who (for the sake of argument) is unashamed of his religion blatantly teaching another religion? Why isn't it instead having a (for the sake of argument) Muslim character who (for the sake of argument) is simply unashamed of their religion?

Would it be blatantly teaching a religion to have a Christian character who is unashamed of their religion?

Thanks,

I'm certainly willing to explain

I see it as promoting (a better word than teaching, my apologies) the viewpoint if the character is shown to be the protagonist, which, given the title of the book and the historical association of Dr. Fate, seems likely, especially if the character or the characters around him attribute success to the viewpoint, whether it be a religion or a political view)

As for your final question, if it met the criteria above, I do believe that it would be blatantly teaching Christianity.

If there's anything else I can clarify or expand upon, let me know

[ultradav]

why on earth would i stop reading comics? i love the medium. visual art is a beautiful gift from God. telling good stories through art is the point that I often see, and if you see more, I would love to hear your interpretations

it has nothing to do with ignorance. I love the muslim people just as much as I love everyone else. Taken a few classes on them and plan to go to north africa in the next couple years for additional study. But I'm not going to put my financial support towards saying something is normal or okay that I don't believe is, as the choice to be muslim falls under.

1.) Based on these text pages, we don't know Khalid's religion, so this is a strange objection. Nowhere does it say his religion.
2) Even if he were Muslim, and it's a part of his character, how does that constitute to showing it as "normal"? It's just a part of the character, it doesn't have any positive or negative aspects to it if written well, it's just his reality.

[Silvanus]

Having been awhile since directly reading the text from them, would you say that Green Lantern/Green Arrow was promoting social justice, even though, again if I remember correctly, it was just the character of Oliver who was pushing it, not the text boxes?

If Ollie's point of view was expressed simply by two or three words of dialogue, like "Fight the power!" or something, I don't think we necessarily would have accepted it as the point of view of the book. I don't remember whether text boxes ever backed him up, but I think I remember that there were other contexts and choices in the writing and art that cued us to accepted Ollie's message as the message of the book, most of the time. These cues including the following:
--Ollie was given relatively eloquent, impassioned speeches (with supporting visuals, as in the last panel below)
--there was not much persuasive opposition to Ollie's position
--events unfolded in ways that validated Ollie's points
--Hal was eventually persuaded.
--at least one other character supporting Ollie's position--the one who famously pointed out that he had supported "the blue man," "the green man," and every kind of alien, but not "the "black man."

glga.jpg

I'm sure there are other examples, that is just the first that came to mind. And again, this is not an attack on you by any means, I'm just saying there are ways to display things without promoting them, yet sometimes there are those who try to really push their view through these mediums. (Not saying that Green Lantern/Green Arrow was promoting a wrong view, just using it as an example of getting your point across through the medium)

No offense taken, and there are certainly many ways to get a point across. But just having the hero's father say "praise Allah" while he's talking about the weather, or whatever it was, is not a way of "pushing a view," in my opinion, any more then having a similar character say "Praise the Lord!" in a similar context would be. And "praise Allah" especially doesn't seem like the book's point of view when other characters (the Egyptian gods) express a different, non-Muslim point of view at more length and with more emphasis (though I'm not convinced that their point of view is the book's overall point of view, either.)

I agree that just mentions of those don't necessarily mean the writers are doing anything but writing good dialogue in the context,...

OK, cool.

Again, I would love to be proven wrong, and will still at the very least read the first issue in order to see where it actually stands, but if the tone that I got from the preview is turns out to be the tone of the book, it will be a book that I'm not interested in financially supporting.

OK, we'll see. Personally, I wouldn't mind if it were written from a Muslim point of view; I'm not Muslim, but I'm happy to read work that expresses other people's religious beliefs. But I don't see any real indications that it's going to do that--just indications that it's going to portray a person from a Muslim family background as a hero, which clearly is fine with both of us.

[Dopliss]

I'm certainly willing to explain

I see it as promoting (a better word than teaching, my apologies) the viewpoint if the character is shown to be the protagonist, which, given the title of the book and the historical association of Dr. Fate, seems likely, especially if the character or the characters around him attribute success to the viewpoint, whether it be a religion or a political view)

As for your final question, if it met the criteria above, I do believe that it would be blatantly teaching Christianity.

If there's anything else I can clarify or expand upon, let me know

Im pretty sure a LOT of superheroes are Christian and they don't seem to be ashamed of it.

[Doctor Kent Nelson]

I'm sorry you feel this way. However, you are making a lot of assumptions here, that I would like to address.
Second, I mentioned that I didn't want yet another replacement character. I was very much beginning to enjoy Khalid Ben-Hassan as part of an ensemble cast, and was somewhat hoping that this title would either be focused on him in the new earth 2 or, for prime earth, why not Kent Nelson again? Have an older character, why not?

Well this is the new generation's Doctor Fate and of course DC are trying to diversify!

[K. Jones]

The talking animals is what got my attention.

The unabashed New Yorkiness is what sold me.

The art is lovely. Charming, but certainly capable of bringing the weirdness once the magic starts flying.

[Sirius Pi]

I Won't Be Too Surprised If DR. FATE Gets The DR. STRANGE Treatment Ala MARVELS CINEMATIC UNIVERSE, Well Sometime In The Forseeable Future Anyway. p.s., There Are Articles About A Possible "JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK" Featuring Most If Not All Of DC COMICS SuperNatural (see; Magickal) Characters, And Possibly With Benicio Del Toro As Director Possibly Folks., just some food 4 thought. fin (:

[Silvanus]

I see it as promoting (a better word than teaching, my apologies) the viewpoint if the character is shown to be the protagonist, which, given the title of the book and the historical association of Dr. Fate, seems likely, especially if the character or the characters around him attribute success to the viewpoint, whether it be a religion or a political view)

Does it seem likely that Levitz, who is Jewish, would write a book with the
the intention of promoting a Muslim religious viewpoint? I can see him promoting the "political" point of view that diversity should be celebrated and the dignity and potential heroism of Muslims should be appreciated; but it seems like we share that viewpoint.

[DIVINITY]

The talking animals is what got my attention.

Funny, but true..

[Adekis]

There is absolutely nothing about this I don't like.
Well, Khalid's life seems to suck a bit to be honest, and I do have to admit it seems kind of strange for his father to say "God" in Arabic ("Allah") but speak in English the rest of the time. Not that I have a problem with it necessarily, I just think it's a little bit clunky compared to (for example) similar exclamations in Ms. Marvel, which are more likely to be entirely in Arabic. Strikes me as a it more believable that way, but I digress.

Having a Doctor Fate of Middle Eastern descent strikes me as a great idea- cultural diversification of the super-heroes in the DCU is totally a good thing!

And I love Doctor Fate, so I can't wait to pick this up!

[Baggie_Saiyan]

There is absolutely nothing about this I don't like.
Well, Khalid's life seems to suck a bit to be honest, and I do have to admit it seems kind of strange for his father to say "God" in Arabic ("Allah") but speak in English the rest of the time. Not that I have a problem with it necessarily, I just think it's a little bit clunky compared to (for example) similar exclamations in Ms. Marvel, which are more likely to be entirely in Arabic. Strikes me as a it more believable that way, but I digress.

Having a Doctor Fate of Middle Eastern descent strikes me as a great idea- cultural diversification of the super-heroes in the DCU is totally a good thing!

And I love Doctor Fate, so I can't wait to pick this up!

Actually that is pretty realistic, I live and was born and bred in England and know many people like myself who say Allah when they are speaking normal English.