Comic Title: Doctor Fate #17
Publisher: DC (DC Comics Inc.)
Address: 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
Cover Date: May 1990
On Sale Date: April 3, 1990 Shipping Date April 3, 1990
Source: Previews, #13

Shipping Date April 3, 1990
Source: Amazing Heroes, #178

Shipping Date April 5, 1990
Source: Advance Comics, #15

Copyright Date April 3, 1990
Source: Library of Congress, Copyright Office 1990

Frequency: Monthly
Cover Price: $1.50
Page Count: 32
Editor: Art Young

Title: "Afterlives"
Pages: 24

Feature(s):
Doctor Fate (Eric/Linda Strauss Post-Crisis)

Writer: J. Mark DeMatteis
Artist: Shawn McManus
Letterer: Todd Klein
Colorist: Lovern Kindzierski

Feature Character(s)

• Linda Strauss (last appearance in Justice League America #40; next appearance in Doctor Fate #18)
• Eric Strauss (reincarnated into the body of Eugene Di Bella; last appearance in Doctor Fate #13; next appearance in Doctor Fate #18)

Other Character(s)

• A guide in the afterlife (last appearance in Doctor Fate #13; next appearance in Doctor Fate #22)
• Henry Strauss (Henry's father; in flashback; earliest chronological appearance; next appearance in Doctor Fate Annual #1)
• Eugene Di Bella (a book store manager; dies in this story; next appearance in Doctor Fate #18)
• Wendy and Raina (Eugene's wife and daughter; next appearance in Doctor Fate #18)
• Francine (a book store employee; no further appearances)
• A group of cavemen (in flashback; no further appearances)
• Rebecca Strauss (Henry's mother; in flashback; no further appearances)

Comments:
This story continues in Doctor Fate #18.

Synopsis:
Eric Strauss is guided through the afterlife. He witnesses a moment shortly after his own birth involving his own parents. His mother calls him an old soul, and his father sees something in the eyes of his infant son. Eric is then taken into a prehistoric time inhabited by caveman. He witnesses a man saving a woman. He realizes that he was the man in another life, and the woman's soul was Eric's father.

Next Eric is taken to the 1950s, where he lived as an old woman. She was told that she would have one more life before moving on to an eternal afterlife. That life was Eric's. Now he is taken to the heaven's where he experiences eternal love. However, he needs to express it. With the guide's help Eric returns to Earth once more where he trades places with the soul of Eugene Di Bella, the victim of a traffic accident. Eric is reincarnated in Eugene's body. Linda feels that Eric has returned.