Worth checking out
The old Secret Origins series is a bit of an oddity. Now more than twenty years old, most of the stories have been retconned or rewritten, but for those venturing to the past, they will find some great writing. This issue was no exception, I picked it out because Dr. Fate is one of my favourite characters, and one I feel is all too often poorly written,except in the original Kent Nelson form. In this issue the traditional Doctor Fate story is told, or rather retold. As far as an origin story goes, it was actually pretty weak on the origin and pretty heavy on action (he was fighting Wotan throughout - which make sense though as Wotan was telling the story.) I thought the story was well written though and I did enjoy it. What I wasn’t expecting is that I would like the Blue Devil story so much more. I am not so much up on my Blue Devil history, but I am pretty sure that Cain is not one of his supporting characters. So it surprised me when Cain runs into some random people’s house and starts telling them the origin of the Blue Devil. I recognized him from the old House of Mystery comics, and also from Vertigo later, I just never expected to see him in such a weird role. The story is told as Cain argues against the people, each having their own version of what happened to create the Blue Devil. In the end there is another surprise visitor who shows up to tell them that Cain is pretty much right. Overall I thought this issue was pretty fun and I was even surprised that I was somewhat let down by the Dr. Fate story after reading the first one.