Tom King and Mitch Gerads are one of the most celebrated creative teams at DC Comics - but even they get told 'no' from time to time by the publisher.

“We were supposed to do a Doctor Fate follow up book after Strange Adventures,” King revealed recently during a WonderCon panel. “We were like 'Hey, we got an exciting idea. We're going from Mister Miracle, we just did Adam Strange, now Doctor Fate!' And they (DC) were like 'No, Batman.'"

This comment caused the audience in the panel to chuckle. King didn’t mention which Batman project DC was referring to, but based on the timing he seems to be referring to the 2022 one-shot one-shot Riddler: One Bad Day, and now a serial in the upcoming Batman: Brave and the Bold anthology ongoing series.

“Bend my heart and tell me to do Batman,” Gerads joked.

Doctor Fate is currently featured in Danger Street, a Black Label maxi-series written by King and penciled by Jorge Fornes.

Gerads added that timing had been their enemy. “Had we pitched it closer to when they knew Doctor Fate was going to be in the (Black Adam) movie, that might have helped,” Gerads said.

“That pitch wasn’t locked down very much,” King recalled. Gerads agreed, adding that it was “pretty nebulous.”

King and Gerads seemed to take it well; in fact, Gerads recently re-signed an 'exclusive' deal with DC.

Will King and Gerads ever get to do their Doctor Fate series? Only the Helmet of Nabu knows for sure.

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