Pierce Brosnan's Doctor Fate will debut in the DCEU film Black Adam, but the character may face an uphill battle due to the similarities between his origin story and that of the MCU's Moon Knight. Marvel and DC have many characters with similar backstories and powersets. Throughout the years, fans have compared Namor with Aquaman, Green Arrow with Hawkeye, Batman with Iron Man, and Thanos with Darkseid. Sometimes, the similarities are so evident that they present a problem to a character's live-action adaptation.
Doctor Fate is the moniker that several DC characters have adopted after receiving the Helmet of Nabu and the Amulet of Anubis, granting them a wide assortment of magical powers and mystic weapons. Kent Nelson, the original Doctor Fate, was a key member of Golden Age teams such as the All-Star Squadron and the Justice League predecessor, the Justice Society of America, acting as the world's principal protector when it came to sorcery. All of these characteristics make Doctor Fate the direct DC equivalent of Doctor Strange, but it is the success of the MCU Disney+ series Moon Knight that Brosnan's character has to worry about.
Kent Nelson first formed a mystical connection with the cosmic being Nabu while he explored a tomb in Mesopotamia, where his archeologist father died. Nabu took Kent under his wing and chose him as his host, making him a new avatar for the Lords of Order. Nabu also provided him with a costume, a cape, and a helmet, and took control of his mind and body, leading Kent to question reality. Several hosts later, Khalid Nassour, one of Kent Nelson's descendants, was chosen by the Egyptian gods as a new avatar, which could be accessed by Nabu through the Helmet of Fate. This is all incredibly similar to Marvel's Moon Knight, down to the ancient tomb, the manipulative deity, and the psychological effects the hero goes through.
Doctor Fate's mythological background is not the main problem. Egyptian mythology is a source of great creative inspiration that arguably hasn't been explored thoroughly enough in Hollywood. It's the rest of Doctor Fate's story that is far too similar to Moon Knight's. The success of the MCU series and its closeness to Black Adam's October 2022 release date could make Brosnan's Doctor Fate seem like an MCU copycat, despite the character debuting in 1940, predating Marvel's Moon Knight by 35 years. Curiously, Doctor Fate also predates Doctor Strange by 23 years, as Marvel debuted their Master of the Mystic Arts in 1963. If any character could be considered the "original", it would be Doctor Fate.
Doctor Fate and Moon Knight's blatantly similar origin story, mythological background, and character arc urge Black Adam to put a new spin on the classic Golden Age character. Luckily, Doctor Fate has more than 80 years of comic book history and eight different iterations of the character to pull from, with many complex (and often conflicting) storylines that can provide Black Adam's Doctor Fate with an original twist that sets it apart. At the very least, Black Adam can take advantage of Doctor Fate's role in the DCEU's Justice Society to differentiate him from Moon Knight.
