The Black Dragon versus Dr. Fate

I jibed at yesterday's Starman story for its vague applications of the "star power" from his "gravity rod", but Starman seems like hard sci-fi compared to the mystic operations of Dr. Fate. Who knows what magical shenanigans we're in for!  Let's dive in, shall we?

Like Starman, Dr. Fate is too important to wait around for NPCs to give him the information he needs to locate the stolen invention and simply STARTS at encountering it.

If I didn't know that was Kent Nelson, I'd suspect Speed Saunders was under that helmet.

Fate Fact: Somehow, Dr. Fate's body is composed of pure energy, but he still needs oxygen to breathe.  I guess that's why he shortened the helmet.

Forgot? You... literally just SAID so, in the previous panel.
I think your helmet might be a little tight, doc.

Fate Fact: the more two-dimensional your racial caricatures are, the easier it is to knock them around like cardboard cutouts.

Having knocked out the pilots and acquired the super-tank, Dr. Fate's job (and story) is done.

OR IS IT...!?

I like that the writer works in the backstory that Dr. Fate WAS clued in by the government where the stolen invention might be; we simply caught up with him at the moment he found it.  That's tight writing.

But Dr. Fate's usurpation of the tank has not gone unnoticed, for, nearby...

By the way, you know where a tank is absolutely useless?
In a desert in the middle of nowhere. ALL YOUR CACTUS ARE BELONG TO US.

Swiftly, the Black Dragons call to heel the cliff-dwelling natives who are their unwilling accomplices.

And I do mean "natives".

I love this guy and his outfit.  You just know that if Roy Thomas had ever noticed him, he would wind up being Super-Chief's grandfather or some such.

Anyway, Captain Caricature sends Chief Noble Savage and his tribe off to capture the tank BACK from Dr. Fate.  This is at least an interesting variation on the previous formula where The Hero just makes mincemeat out of the Black Dragons.  

Turns out these warriors are no dummies; they have no illusions that their arrows can down a tank.  But they CAN take down Dr. Fate!

Glass vials full of knockout gas? I take it back; this guy is clearly the grandfather of Man-of-Bats.

Ah ha. That's why pains were taken at the beginning of the story to establish that Dr. Fate is vulnerable to breathing-related attacks.

Natives 1, Mystic Master 0.

Dr. Fate may not deserve his own comic, but I'd read "Glass Arrow" Comics, for sure.

So now we get the Searching The Desert sequence we skipped before.

Dr. Fate doesn't do stupid puns and he's not flippant with or about his foes.
He's got class.

Dr. Fate pays the warriors a surprise visit, reminding us that he is impervious to fire.

I like the fact that only one of them reacts with surprised "superstition" before being corrected by Grandpa Man-of-Bats.  This tale is not kind to the Japanese, but I appreciate the respect given the natives.

Once they all get on the same page, Dr. Fate goes to rescue.

TO THE JAPCAVE!

At the cave, Dr. Fate doles out beatings and weak puns, but I'll mostly skip that part because it contradicts my earlier assertion the Dr. Fate is above such things.

That flag looks AWESOME when they turn on the black light.

The Indians join in the set-to.

Ugh, indeed.

Well. That's awkward.

Yeah... maybe it's time to rethink having a flag that's a giant target.

The Black Dragons having been defeated, the natives are reunited.

The Indians get to share credit for capturing the Black Dragons, which is nice after having been used as their pawns.

We will always remember you, Nameless Brave.

Then Dr. Fate has a great--

well, he has AN idea.

Because what could prepare you better for fighting in The Asiatic Jungles than being a horse-riding Desert Cliff-dweller?

I bet in Roy Thomas's private universe, these guys pitched to help the Blackhawks on Dinosaur Island at some point.

Note that, other than being fireproof, Dr. Fate did nothing mysticky at all. And he didn't need to be fireproof for the story to work either, he could have just NOT walked in front of the flamethrower and NOT jumped into the campfire.  Honestly, he might as well be Dr. Asbestos.

Next up, things even MORE doctory, with that benighted knight, Dr. Mid-Nite!