well, that is very underwhelming... For some unknown reason, Nabu was banished to Earth, and took the form of an Earthman, and eventually his host wore out and he waited and waited and waited, deep in mystical healing, but it wasn't enough. So he set a trap for Kent Nelson, knowing that his father would die, and sucked the childhood right out of him. And Wotan has been his foe since ancient times.

Pretty much everything I've written that included Dr. Fate has some kind of continuity flaw in it. It does explain, though, how Wotan was right on the verge of being a Lord of Chaos in his own right, after battling Fate for so long, so his transformation from Wotan, powerful evil sorcerer to Wotan, Lord of Chaos, is a reasonable evolution.

Though, Lord of Chaos sort of seems to be a self-assigned title rather than one that is granted to you. You decide you are powerful and bold enough to BE a Lord of Chaos, and you announce it to the universe, and either the existing Lords of Chaos will let you go on using the title, or they will strike you down. So I'm thinking that maybe Wotan realized he just needed a tiny bit more power, just a smidgeon to put him over the top...

If he was exiled the assumption is that it was done by some group (if not all) of other Lords of Order.  Nabu might have been more powerful than any pne of the others, but possibly not more powerful than a combination of two or more. Plus Nabu may have had a plan that required being exiled (or the belief by others that he was) which is why he never made any effort to restore his pre-helmet status. Maybe a pure Lord of Order being on our plane of existence had a draeback that was lessened or nullified by acting through a host body- conjured (as Nabu) or otherwise (Kent wearing the helmet)

It says in All Star Squadron 47 that he trained for a period of time - long enough for motor vehicles to have evolved significantly enough for Kent to notice. But Nabu still stole his youth - he essentially changed Kent into an emotionless robot while he trained him, and then restored his emotions when the training was finished. And it seems pretty clear to me from the art that he was a pre-teen at the time of his father's death, and Inze looks to be (a very ripe) 21 or so, and it seems likely that Kent is about the same age. So he was probably in training for 12 to 15 years. Some of those years, Nabu might have instructed him in medicine and surgery - Nabu certainly had the required knowledge and could have magically produced all the certification required. (or Kent could as well).

So anyway, I'm offering the following for group commentary, Dr. Fate is recounting a short version of his story to some humans. What do you think?

---

"Who is Malignon? the <humans> asked anxiously. Dr. Fate began a tale of triumph and woe.

"Long before the great Big Bang, there was chaos in the air... Long before the sands of time, there was chaos... everywhere!"

"Hey, Doc, that was pretty catchy!" Human #1 noted, snapping his fingers to the rhythm. "You outta cut a record..."

"Cut it out, Hu! This is serious business!" Human #2 slapped him gently. Dr. Fate nodded his thanks, then gravely continued his story.

"Malignon was one of the eldest and most powerful of the ancient Lords of Chaos. Whispers spread that he had outlived the previous universal cycle and survived the Big Bang. Some were even convinced that he was the architect of the Big Crunch that destroyed the previous universe."

He shuddered and continued: "As a new Lord of Order, driven by a lethal combination of ignorance, naivety, pride, and sense of duty, I took on the task of trying to minimize Malignon's chaos in this new universe - though none could defeat him, such was his immense power. For countless ages, we battled each other. Most times, he emerged victorious as he was in the fullness of his strength while I still had much to learn. Yet, I remained steadfast in my mission and did manage to limit his successes." There was a hint of pride in his voice at the valiant and steadfast efforts of the young Lord of Order.

"Eventually, it was inevitable that I would suffer a devastating defeat. The other Lords of Order met to decide my fate. Powerful divination spells were cast and each one pointed to Earth as my destiny. I was exiled to Earth - forced to remain there - and expected to hone my skills and increase my power in preparation for my final showdown with Malignon. If I emerged victorious, I would once again be free to shape my own destiny in the universe."

In his quest for order, Nabu didn't seem to really give a damn about human rules or norms. Whatever he had to do in pursuit of his goals, he did.

It gets worse. According to some Post-Crisis continuity (which has been adapted into Earth-2 continuity thanks to some early Doctor Fate stories published on the Five Earths Project), Nabu was never supposed to have possessed Kent Nelson like he did with the Helm of Nabu. Instead, Kent Nelson and Inza Cramer were supposed to be joined as one being to become Doctor Fate, with Nabu's full power but independent of Nabu's control. But because Nabu was unwilling to give up control to mortals, he decided to take possession of Kent Nelson, while Inza Cramer was relegated to the role of sidekick.

The idea of Nabu as a control freak was really introduced by Martin Pasko in the 1970s and 1980s in his solo Doctor Fate stories, which showed how the personal lives of Kent Nelson and particularly Inza Nelson (nee Cramer) had become almost unbearable because of Nabu's control over Kent. In the original golden age stories it was a lot simpler.

My assumption would be that the Lords of Order usually act as one in their decisions. Dissent would be a form of Chaos. So it was probably all the Lords together who exiled him

It is very likely that Kent breezed through medical school with the knowledge Nabu taught him. Nabu has either been wearing the same (giant) human body and healing it for untold thousands of years, or he created his human body from magic, so he must know more about the human body than pretty much all the doctors who ever lived added together, and he presumably passed a good part of his knowledge to Kent. Additionally, Dr. Fate has some control over time, and presumably if he needed it, there must be some ancient magic that makes learning easier. So he undoubtedly has a legitimate PhD in Medicine, and the time he spent actually in classes and medical school activities didn't cut too deeply into his adventures as Dr. Fate. It even seems possible that he created a magical duplicate to attend classes for him when there was a conflict. 

Dr. Fate's backstory is hardly linear and uncomplicated; in his initial appearance, he was actually manipulating energy at the atomic level and what he did wasn't actually called magic... although the effects of his manipulation appeared to be magical. Wotan wasn't his eternal enemy but was originally a one-off villain; when Fate was finally give an origin in More Fun Comics, Wotan wasn't part of it, though in ALL-STAR SQUADRON #47 Roy shows that Wotan has been Fate's nemesis since Fate was banished to earth a million or so years ago. And apparently Wotan was once a human female.

So I think I'll skip lightly over Fate's actual backstory...