For one thing, there have been about 8 different DC characters since 1940 who've been called Doctor Fate. The name "Doctor Fate" isn't so much a name as a mantle that's been chosen or bestowed upon someone by Nabu, the Babylonian god of wisdom. Doctor Strange isn't a mantle, it's the guy's name as Stephen Strange was a gifted surgeon until he suffered nerve damage to his hands. In the comics, Strange would eventually become what's called the "Sorcerer Supreme", the being that is generally viewed as the greatest mortal user of magic within the Marvel Universe. Rather than something bestowed upon someone by a god, it's ultimately achieved through mastery of mystic arts through years of study & training. For some reason, Fate has been consistently depicted as being able to undo or counteract magical spells that have already been cast and are in effect.
Magic itself is often depicted differently in DC & Marvel. In Marvel, the magic used by mortals isn't magic that's inherent within then, but is channeled through the universe, using mystical objects like Strange's Eye of Agamotto or by calling upon various completely original characters like the Vishanti, Cyttorak and numerous others.
Comparatively speaking, Doctor Fate is much more obscure than Strange. Over the years, Strange has been part of some big moments in Marvel Comics and has been featured fairly extensively in various animated series over the years. Truth be told, up until this thread, I'd forgotten all about the existence of Doctor Fate. Fate was one of the numerous characters that pretty much faded into obscurity after World War II and didn't really become relevant until after DC's reboot of their entire universe in the mid 80s with a woman named Linda Strauss and her stepson Eric merged into a single being by Nabu. It gets even more convoluted from there as they'd eventually die, as the original Fate, Kent Nelson, died and so on & so forth.
In all of comics, there are aspects of most characters that are similar, sometimes genuinely influenced, by characters who already exist. For instance, Superman was originally quite similar to and heavily influenced by the character Hugo Danner, who was the central character in the 1930 novel "Gladiator." Danner, in turn, was created with the influence of various science fiction characters created by the likes of H.G. Wells and Robert Louis Stevenson in that there were elements of some characters that influenced the overall conception of Danner.
