Profile: Inza Cramer Nelson

Inza Cramer Nelson
First appearance: More Fun Comics #55, May 1940
Creators: Gardner Fox, Howard Sherman

History: Inza Cramer is the girlfriend/wife of Kent Nelson, alias Dr. Fate, the sorceror who debuted in his role during the Golden Age, and she assisted him in his various adventures. She was written as being a university archaeology student, and a descendant of a ship captain named Ezra Hawkins from New England. After the Fate stories ended in 1944, they both went into limbo for 2 decades, and Inza reappeared around the mid-60s, now established as Kent's wife. She'd also make appearances in All-Star Squadron. Thanks to the magics of Fate and what she herself could learn, she remained youthful for a time. And she took up the costumed role herself at least once.

Was subjected to the following act of discrimination: during the long notorious Zero Hour crossover, Extant forcibly turns both Inza and Kent aged, and senile, and they were among those knocked off into the afterlife at the time.

What's wrong with how this was done? A lady character with potential, as much as her magical husband, was thrown to the winds for the sake of a PC direction that went nowhere, and all for the sake of introducing another protagonist, Jared Stevens, who took the Fate role in the mid-90s, yet was wiped out himself in the equally pretentious 1999-2006 JSA series written by awful scribes like James Robinson, David Goyer and Geoff Johns.

(Earlier, in the late 1980s, Kent and Inza were put in death limbo for a few years to be replaced by Eric & Linda Strauss - who took up their roles in the 1988-92 ongoing Doctor Fate series for half its run before being wiped out as well - then returned, but both characters were shoved into the afterlife yet again by editorial mandate of the aforementioned crossover, in a precursor to what Johns did with Hector Hall/Silver Scarab and Lyta Trevor Hall/Fury in JSA the following decade.)

Some of the worst story ideas and ingredients at DC in the 90s came as a result of the crossovers they vehemently refused to stop relying upon so heavily. Inza was but one of the biggest victims.