What I Bought 11/20/2025

They've created all these stupid new systems at work, for things I could not give less of a shit about. This has not stopped people from sending me e-mails expecting me to learn procedures or do stuff related to these things, which makes me either want to scream at them to just leave me alone, or throttle them.

Nova: Centurion #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alvaro Lopez (writer), Mattia Iacono (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - With funds limited, Nova was forced to house the Worldmind in a less mobile mainframe.

Richard Rider's back to (still?) the last Nova, housing all the Nova Force. He's still determined to save every life he can, still getting chided by the Worldmind about putting it at risk by rescuing ships full of rich dumbasses from a black by doing crazy shit. But the Worldmind, wherever he's keeping it, comes with a cost. A financial cost. And people won't pay for help after you've saved their stupid asses.

Enter Pip the Troll (never a good sign.) For the low, low cost of 10%, he'll get Rich paying jobs to keep the Worldmind running. Paying jobs like hunting down the one responsible for stealing a bunch of that magic mineral stuff Krakoa was pumping out from a interstellar gang called "The Kree-Skrull War."

That is the stupidest gang name I've ever heard. Yes, you're Kree and Skrulls working together, and your leaders talk like a particularly condescending rich couple "It has pride, my love." "It" also has enough gravimetric power to incinerate you dipshits, and probably should. They're gangsters, doesn't that make them criminals? Shouldn't Nova Prime be taking down criminals?

Anyway, Rich takes the cash, and the accomplice left behind, Cammi, and gets ready to hunt down Ravenous. We only see him in a flashback to partway through Annihilation, so I don't know if half his face is still metal after Ronan crushed it.

It's not a bad engine for storytelling. Throw Richard into conflicts where he has to decide how much he's willing to compromise his values and what he feels being a Nova stands for, in exchange for the funds to keep the Worldmind - and the last vestige of Xandarian culture - alive. Although I've never seen anything of Xandarian culture except the Nova Corps. They got any decent poetry, films, anything except the desire to create an interstellar peacekeeping force that was not terribly effective? Certainly weren't doing anything about the Shi'ar routinely being run by nutsos like D'Ken, or the Kree and Skrulls from fighting all the damn time.

Do not love Rich sporting a goatee with a beard. Just looks weird. Would have preferred Lopez highlighted the facial scar Nova got in his first fight against Annihilus, but outside of Sean Chen drawing a small nick in his upper lip, nobody drew that after Annihilation. Guess it got erased via the magic of outer space medicine. 

Sunday Splash Page #397

"Welcome to Knowhere," in Nova (vol. 4) #8, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writer), Wellinton Alves (penciler), Scott Hanna (inker), Guru eFX (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)

Richard Rider, aka Nova, was I think, Marvel's attempt to create Spider-Man in the '70s, via combining "teenager gets powers," with Green Lantern's "part of an interplanetary police force." Kyle Rayner, but 15 years earlier. Also less successful. Rich's first series ran just 25 issues, but I've not read any of it. There were two attempts in the '90s, running a combined 25 issues, the last (Erik Larsen's attempt) canceled after just 7. I've read a few issues of volume 2, the "Time After Time" crossover with New Warriors and Night Thrasher, but none of volume 3.

After, Nova's part of Jay Faerber's New Warriors, but he's written as overly concerned with his image. Trying to get a movie deal, resisting rejoining the Warriors because he feels it's a demotion. He's still banging that drum in Zeb Wells and Skottie Young's reality TV show mini-series. In neither book does he look competent enough to ever reach the "big leagues" of super-heroing to which he aspires.

And then, Keith Giffen made him a central figure in Annihilation. The only member of the Nova Corps to survive the assault on Xandar by Annihilus' Negative Zone army, Rich is forced to take on the entirety of the Nova Force, despite having seen up close (in the mid-third of New Warriors volume 1) how that drove Garthan Saal mad. But Rich has the Xandarian Worldmind, a vast repository of knowledge and experience, to help him use the power, and keep him on an even keel. Nova learns to fight a war. He learns to lead an army. Kills Annihilus by pulling his digestive tract out through his mouth.

Nova, volume 4, written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, is what he does after. In a universe reeling from a war that wiped out the Skrull Empire and tore up half of the Kree Empire, with all the destabilization in communication, trade, and stability that implies, there are lots of people that need help. Rich has the power to do it, but he's only one man. So there's a push-and-pull between the Worldmind, which wants to rebuild the Corps and be housed in a safe storage bank, and Richard, who wants to help the people in danger now, and needs all this power to do it.

Abnett and Lanning keep it from being as simple as Richard wanting to be the big hero. A lot of it is trauma from the war. All the people who died because there was no one alive to help, or there were other, bigger crises to fight. Plus, rebuilding the Nova Corps isn't as simple as just giving people power and a bucket-hat. You have to teach them how to use it, how to survive, else you're just creating corpses. That takes time to do properly. Time Nova doesn't feel they can spare because, again, people are dying now.

Most of the stories take place in outer space, against threats big enough Nova is still outclassed, or close to it, even with all the Nova Force. So, periodically, the plot takes Nova back to Earth. This includes the first 3 issues, drawn by Sean Chen, where Nova gets a look at his home post-Civil War. Spoiler alert: it sucks! Rich is as flabbergasted by "Speedball as Penance" as I am! We do get a bit where Iron Man, unaware of everything that went on in space, even though Nova sent a warning to Reed Richards, asks what happened to Annihilus. Nova's response? 'I pulled him inside out and saved the universe. What have you done lately, Tony?'

Alongside the issue of JMS' Thor where Thor beats the piss out of Iron Man over creating a cyborg murder-clone of him, it's my favorite example of characters giving Tony Stark the business for his bullshit.

Where was I? Right, the trip back to Earth serves to show how far Rich has come, with other characters reacting to how different he is, and how easily he handles problems. A Thunderbolts squad with Moonstone, Venom, and Radioactive Man want to try and arrest Nova for being unregistered? He can shrug off everything they throw at him. He can take out one of his old enemies, Diamondhead, in one panel. Iron Man shows up on his parents' doorstep with a few dozen SHIELD agents? Nova isn't freaked out, nor does he rush to an attack. He's calm, and very clear to Stark this better not happen again.

From there, it's back to space, straight into Annihilation: Conquest tie-ins, and Abnett and Lanning's biggest misstep. They introduce Ko-rel, the highest-ranking survivor of a Kree ship downed during Annihilation, trying to keep her crew alive while waiting for rescue, hoping to get home to her son. Worldmind taps her to protect Rich from the Phalanx when he's badly injured. She fails, her crew dies, and while trying to kill Richard and keep the Phalanx from getting the Worldmind, hesitates and is knifed in the back by Gamora. The guilt over this (plus the little bit of Nova Force he gets back with her death) is what finally gets Richard to shrug off the Phalanx control.

So she dies, so he can feel bad. Boooo. Abnett and Lanning do, sort of, bring her back later. When the Worldmind's been corrupted and needs a new sort of interface set-up, it picks Ko-Rel as the template. So the Worldmind becomes less clinical and drily sarcastic, but more prone to bust Rider's chops since he did, after all, get her killed.

Still, I think there was potential in having her help Richard so he could escape, even if reduced in power, and her doing her best as a lone rookie Nova trapped inside the bubble the Phalanx used to seal off the Kree Empire. A person on the ground view, from one not as accustomed to the craziness as the rest of the characters. After that, you can have her kid alive, where Ko-Rel wants to be decommissioned and Rich is for it while the Worldmind objects, or she can stick around as the first trainee if you figure the kid is already dead.

This is also where the book's struggle to maintain a consistent artist starts coming into play. Chen draw parts of each issue of this story, with Brian Denham handling the rest. Chen's art is solid, a heavy line, squared-off characters, a little Sal Buscema in it, where Denham's is slicker, thinner lines, glossier color. Chen shows Nova's speed and power by having the ports on his uniform almost constantly venting orange smoke, like rocket exhaust. Denham gives Nova more of a fiery aura, like Cannonball's blast field. The division of pages seems to be set so each artist handles a different perspective. If Chen draws pages focused on Ko-Rel, Denham draws pages focused on Gamora. (Denham also, during a scene set in Richard's mind, shows us there was a Nova Corps member who was a blue Pikachu, which was a cute touch.)

Richard regains control and escapes Kree space, but these are still unofficial Conquest tie-ins, since a Phalanx-controlled Gamora and Drax are on Nova's ass as he tries to find a cure for the transmode virus raging inside him. (In this case, rather than pit Nova against an outer space threat where he's outclassed at full strength, Abnett and Lanning nerf him by having most of his energy spent holding back the infection.) At which point Wellinton Alves becomes penciler. Alves draws the two issues that introduce us to Knowhere, the mecca set within a severed Celestial head floating at the edge of the universe, and Cosmo the Spacedog, head of security for Knowhere and a very good dog. Alves will remain primary penciler for most of the next 14 issues, minus the two set on the Technarchy homeworld drawn by Paul Pelletier.

Alves has a thinner line than Chen, his Nova is slimmer, more angular. The energy tends to crackle from his ports along his body like lightning, and there are also a lot of faint, arcing lines visible. Like someone faintly traced over the page with a Spirograph. Never sure what those were meant to convey. Scott Hanna inks, and goes heavier on the shadows for Alves than he did with Chen, but Alves, in the early-going, is drawing more horror-themed stories. The visit to Knowhere coincides with an alien group of heroes trying to dump their worst foe off the edge of the universe, and somehow being turned to zombies by him instead. Once Conquest is finally done, Nova ends up trying to save a world's inhabitants from Galactus. Not the world; he accepts that's doomed, but to give the people a chance to escape.

The Surfer lends a (reluctant) quiet hand, but Nova doesn't want to abandon anyone, so he stays, against the Worldmind's suggestion, seemingly trapping them and dooming them to die. I didn't really get that part. OK, something about Galactus' machine makes forming a stargate impossible. Nova is a Human Rocket; he can't fly fast enough to hit escape velocity? Anyway, there's also a creature that trails after Galactus, feeding on the psychic terror he causes in the worlds he visits, drawn as jagged black lines floating above its victim, which is the horror element as Rich tries to apprehend it for murder.

Rich escapes the planet, but the Worldmind seems to crash, leaving Rich on his own to make it home when he learns about Secret Invasion from Super-Skrull. That leads him to Project PEGASUS, where his little brother Robbie is working as a scientist, and Darkhawk is head of security. (Another opportunity for Nova to show off, as he's much calmer and more tactical than Darkhawk.) It's also when we and Nova learn the Worldmind has been secretly recruiting new Novas and setting itself up inside Ego, the Living Planet. (A page of that was going to be my fallback if this double-page splash didn't turn out well.) During this stretch, Geraldo Burges is co-penciling the book with Alves, but either his pencils are very similar, or Hanna's inks mute the differences to where it isn't always easy to tell.

This is where the ideological conflict between Richard and the Worldmind comes to a head. Richard worries the Worldmind is recruiting too many people, plucking them directly from the streets, including his little brother. It's too fast, and feeding combat info into someone's head isn't the same as them knowing how to fight. But maybe Richard just likes being the big hero too much. Doesn't want to go back to just being another Nova, same as all the others, including his much smarter little brother. Maybe he's just too traumatized by all those deaths to recognize one man can't do it alone. Especially a reckless man who regularly endangers the Worldmind and all that it holds.

Rich is stripped of Nova Force entirely, and learns his body was altered from holding so much power, he can no longer survive without it. Too bad Worldmind-Ego took off for deep space with all its Novas, to get involved in War of Kings. The book has a real weak spot, not necessarily its fault, that it constantly sprints from one status quo to another, with little time to explore any of them. The effects of Annihilation are really only addressed in the first issue, and Conquest barely gets any play before War of Kings, and what issues there are, most are spent on Earth dealing with Secret Invasion. There's always another event banner to slap across the top of the cover.

And now, here's Andrea Di Vito as penciler. Di Vito is the closest the book gets to a regular artist, drawing 10 of the final 15 issues. (Alves drew parts of 12 issues, but was only credited as sole penciler for 6 of those.)  His style is cleaner than Alves or Chen's, closer to Pelletier's, but not as exaggerated in body types or facial features (Pelletier does a great job drawing Warlock as extremely expressive with his body.) The colors for Di Vito's issues are also brighter shades and tones. Which is perhaps an odd choice for issues about a bunch of rookies being thrown into a war where neither side wants them there, and Vulcan has a black ops Imperial Guard that commit war crimes like killing surrendered enemies. The image of a pile of empty, busted Nova helmets is effective.

Richard makes it to the fight with an assist from Quasar (currently a being of quantum energy), gets the Worldmind free of Ego's influence (this is when Ko-Rel "returns"), and reclaims the title and power of Nova Prime. Then rockets into battle to find his brother, who is trying to bring in essentially a female version of Gladiator on his own. This also gives us a funny scene where Nova talks his way out of a fight with Blastaar by loudly praising his kingly wisdom, while whispering threats he'll do to him what he did to Annihilus. Sadly, we never got a showdown between the two.

Most of the Novas are sent home, minus a handful who ask to stay and get proper training. There's now a huge tear in space-time, and a ship drifts out of it. Kevin Sharpe (who drew one fill-in during War of Kings) handles a two-parter involving an old Nova lost in another universe for decades, Monark Starstalker, and a gang of Mindless Ones, called the Black Hole Sun Gang, led by a not-so Mindless One. The gang is dealt with by dumping them inside an awakening Ego, Starstalker sets out to do his own thing, and Zan Philo (the Nova Centurion) sticks around to train the new kids and offer wry comments, while his ship acts as the Worldmind's new home.

(Abnett and Lanning also start a subplot involving the Shi'ar named Nova Prime in Rich's absence, who is captured by Gladiator and apparently forgotten by the Corps, being approached by Garthan Saal about starting their own "Super-Nova Corps." That never went anywhere, probably just as well. The book didn't need its own Sinestro Corps.)

The series wraps with Nova running into 2 versions the Sphinx within the tear in space-time, fighting each other over the power of 2 Ka Stones. Abnett and Lanning use the odd properties of the Fault to bring back Namorita, albeit one I'm not sure could have existed. She's very affectionate with Rich, which didn't kick off until she left the team in the middle of volume 1 and started physically changing, but she's in the classic white, blonde, green swimsuit look. But hell, I was just glad Millar's nonsense was undone one way or another.

Then the book was canceled, and Thanos Imperative kicked off. Like I said, the book never really settled into a status quo long enough to dig into it. Always on to the next event, but it was also selling pretty low, so do what you must for survival. Better to get three years of good issues, even if it leaves some untapped potential on the table.

At 36 issues, plus an Annual, this is the most successful run Nova's had so far. Jeph Loeb created a new kid after Thanos Imperative, Sam Alexander, who found out his dad was part of some black ops branch of the Corps. That lasted 31 issues. Sam got a second volume post-Secret Wars, which ran 11 issues, and looks to have been derailed by Civil War II tie-ins. Another volume, pairing Sam with a returned Richard Rider, died after 7 issues. I didn't even stick with it past issue 4. Sam got some run as a Champion, and on at least one New Avengers squad. Richard has mostly stuck to space, appearing in various Guardians of the Galaxy books. Plus, he was on Mars during some of the Krakoa stuff. But he's getting another shot at a solo series starting next month. Jed MacKay's writing it, so it'll probably last at least a year.

Random Back Issues #45 - Nova #34

No, but I didn't take you for being rude, either, Karla.

Our first Random Back Issue was from Nova, and now we're back, with an issue from about 10 months later. By this point, we're out of War of Kings, and into Realm of Kings, which was basically just what Cosmic Marvel was like after War of Kings. Less an event than a vague tagline they could stamp on the top of the cover.

There's a giant tear in the fabric of the universe called the Fault as a result of the most recent Kree/Shi'ar war. Nova went in there after Darkhawk (accused of killing Empress Lilandra), and they got caught up in a war between two versions of The Sphinx, something possible because normal rules of reality don't apply in this place which isn't technically within reality. The old one is riddled with time cancer basically, from his fucking around with his own timeline, and is trying to convince his younger self not to make the same mistakes. That didn't work, so now they're fighting, using proxies.

Old Sphinx has Nova, Darkhawk, and versions of Black Bolt, Reed Richards, and Namorita from earlier time periods. Young Sphinx brings in a bunch of people whose powers are derived from mysterious gems, same as him. Moonstone, Basilisk, Man-Wolf, Ulysses Bloodstone, and Gyre, one of the Fraternity of Raptors Darkhawk's been struggling with. One-on-one combat, best-of-five.

Nova draws Moonstone, fighting in his old high school playground, and seems to be struggling despite the fact he fought her and three other Thunderbolts when he got back to Earth after Annihilation. But he's also trying to talk to her, as well. I assume because he thinks Young Sphinx is controlling his proxies via their power sources, but still. Boooooo! No talking! 

Namorita squares off in swordfight with Man-Wolf in 'the Floating Fortress of Arisen Tyrk', in the Other Realm. There's also undead soldiers there, so a mermaid princess and a wolfman are swordfighting while being attacked by zombies. Richards ends up against Bloodstone in Vanaheim. I forget which of the Nine Realms that is. Looks like Arizona with active volcanoes. Reed's playing to subdue, but Ulysses has time-delayed exploding shells and is out for the kill.

Black Bolt ends up against Basilisk in the ruins of Attilan. he finds his own grave marker, and basically stands there dumbfounded until he's turned to stone and shattered, giving Young Sphinx the first win.

The Inhumans, fucking useless as always. This is why nobody likes your people, Boltagon.

Darkhawk (who Old Sphinx somehow didn't even perceive) ends up fighting Gyre at the Fraternity Tree in Null Space, where all the crystals that house Darkhawk armors sit. Or something. Honestly, I lost track of all the retconning they did to Darkhawk long before Chris Sims and Chad Bowers did that shit about how the Darkhawks were meant to be an 'anti-Phoenix' or something. Fuck, that was stupid. Anyway, Chris has figured out how to force the A.I., or disembodied mind in the crystal out of the body it's using, and he does that to Gyre, netting Old Sphinx his first win.

Even so, Young Sphinx is feeling cocky. He says Nita's only seconds away from being beaten by Man-Wolf, and Bloodstone is about to slit Reed's throat. I call bullshit on an Atlantean losing to John Jameson dressed as a furry. Reed's able to fend him off, and mess with the fuses to the shells so they explode on Bloodstone's belt. I feel like Reed could have picked that up from Johnny and Ben's prank wars.

Meanwhile, Moonstone is going for the blunt force approach of crushing Nova under 150 times Earth's gravity and rising. Goku and Vegeta are not impressed. And neither is Rich, who ultimately pulls out the win by hitting her with a 'compressed grav pulse'. Pencil-thin bit of gravity energy, I guess. Precise application rather than broad-based.

So, it's a 3-1 win for Old Sphinx. No one is quite sure what that means, until Darkhawk marches up and rips the Ka Stone right of Young Sphinx' head. Well, OK then. Unfortunately, because Darkhawk's crystal is apparently also one of those old stone power sources, Old Sphinx can control him and gets two Ka Stones. Well, shit.

The book ends two issues from now as Thanos Imperative kicks off. So we aren't quite at the end of the Abnett/Lanning Cosmic Marvel, but it's close. Probably only a year or so from Bendis taking over Guardians of the Galaxy. Yeesh. Also included in this issue a preview of Jeph Loeb and Frank Cho's New Ultimates series, spinning out of the trash fire that was Ultimatum! 

Written by the same guy who is responsible for said trash fire! Plus with 9000% more butt shots in the art, courtesy of the guy who gave us Naked Lady Ultron!

It's a miracle any of us still read comics at all.

[8th long box, 38th comic. Nova (vol. 4) #34. Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Mahmud A. Asrar (penciler), Scott Hanna (inker), Bruno Hang (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)]

Random Back Issues #1 - Nova #24

I have all these back issues, and I hardly ever discuss them. So, via the magic of die of varying numbers of sides, we're going to randomly grab a comic and see what we get. First up, Nova (vol. 5) #24! The cover, by Daniel Acuna, is Gladiator plowing through a bunch of Novas. Two issues later, he'd do a mirror of it, only with Richard doing the same to the Imperial Guard.

This was the Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning run, which reached 36 issues, the best Nova's ever managed (whether it's Richard or Sam Alexander wearing the bucket). Today we're smack in the middle of a War of Kings tie-in, where the Shi'ar (led by Cyclops' lunatic brother Vulcan) are attacking the Kree (recently conquered by the Inhumans). War of Kings was my least favorite of the four cosmic events Marvel did during this span, precisely because it focused on the Inhumans and the Imperial Guard, both of which are terrible, but the Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy tie-ins weren't bad.

This issue's mostly table-setting, though. Rich has been stripped of the Nova Force, because he disagreed with the Worldmind mass-conscripting a bunch of people, then throwing them into the middle of an intergalactic war. Rich contends they won't be properly trained, so it's just adding to the body count. Having already seen the Corps wiped out except for him during Annihilation, he's not eager for a repeat. Worldmind (now having set up shop inside Ego, the Living Planet) says Rich has grown addicted to having all the Nova Force, and doesn't want to share. So it left him behind on Earth. Oh, and his body had adapted to housing the Nova Force, and he's dying without it.

DiVito's work is maybe too pretty for what's apparently such an ugly war, but it does kind of capture the chaos of people zipping around all over the place with little clue what they're doing or why. Most of the Novas fighting are Earthlings with no clue what this war is about or who's on either side, or why it matters. As it turns out, the biggest development of this issue is the Imperial Guard curb-stomping a bunch of the rookie Novas, then the "Praetorian Guard" kills them after they've surrendered, and Gladiator's bunch flew off. (Strontian there is from the same race as Gladiator, so basically Supergirl. Or maybe that angry clone of Supergirl they had in Justice League Unlimited.)

This is a good reminder Gladiator is a complete tool. Vulcan's a genocidal lunatic, but he sits in the big chair, so Gladiator is just following orders. Of course, he switches sides halfway through the event because Lilandra makes puppy dog eyes at him. Again, complete tool.

There's a brief bit between him and the guy who replaced Rich as Nova Prime, who is Shi'ar and can't believe they've let Vulcan drag them into this war. I'm not sure if he objects to the war or who's leading it, since he describes Vulcan as a usurper and madman, a human masquerading as Shi'ar. He's not incorrect about any of that, but D'Ken was nuts, too. So is Deathbird. Crazy leaders are not a new thing for the Shi'ar.

While all that's going on, and Richard's brother Robbie is gearing up to do something stupidly heroic, Rich is preparing to storm Ego with the help of the Quantum Bands Wendell Vaughn's loaned him. Phylla-Vell did have them, but lost them because of a trip to the Realm of Oblivion and some other developments that would ultimately prove depressing. (Rich comments the Bands aren't something you hand to just anyone, but a lot of people have worn those things. Maelstrom had them for a hot minute before Drax cut his hands off.

Rich actually seems to have a pretty good handle on the basics of using them, which surprises me a little. The Bands usually seem like the equivalent of a Green Lantern ring, while the Nova Force seems more like a suit of powered armor. At least, Rich mostly used it for flying fast and blasting people with energy beams

Wendell's quantum energy at this point, but he'll be back to physical form soon, and Richard would sort of return the favor during Thanos Imperative by giving Wendell some Nova Force to use in addition to the Bands.

[7th longbox, 48th issue. Nova (vol. 4) #24, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Andrea DiVito (artist), Bruno Hang (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer)]

Sunday Splash Page #32

"FATALITY", in Annihilation #6, by Keith Giffen (writer), Andrea DiVito (artist), Laura Villari (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer)

My scanner is just a little too small for double-page splashes, so I didn't quite get all of "This is for the Nova Corps!". There's a couple of single-page splashes in this issue alone I like better. Like the one where we see the Kree can actually shoot their buildings like surface-to-air missiles. But after the page I used for last week's entry, I figured I needed to show the rematch between Nova and Annihilus, and this was the only option.

Anyway, after the mixed bag of the four lead-in mini-series, we got to the main show of what is still my favorite Event Comic. Giffen is good here at ramping up the stakes. Each time the resistance seems like they might be be turning a corner, disaster strikes. When Firelord captures one of Annihilus' admirals (also one of his queens), they learn Annihilus and Thanos have teamed up, and made a deal with two Elder Beings to take down Galactus and the Silver Surfer. Things are bad enough Nova has to not only rely on Ronan as an ally, but Ronan's an essential leader as someone who actually knows something about warfare for the Kree units. And Ronan willingly (if not happily) works with Super-Skrull later on.

DiVito and Villari's artwork is bright and clean. It's not a gritty, bloody war book. There are a few pages that sell the injuries as more severe, but a lot of times injured translates to, "outfit torn, maybe some scratches". Even in scenes like above, I'd describe my reaction more as, "Oh, wow" than "Ouch", if that makes sense. It's a very pretty book, with a lot of very cool, big scenes in it. Most of the characters involved get moments to be awesome or make a key contribution. It made for a nice escape from the dreary mess that was Millar's Civil War.

Sunday Splash Page #31

"Round 1," in Annihilation: Nova #4, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Kev Walker (penciler), Rick Magyar (inker), Brian Reber (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer)

The point where Abnett and Lanning start writing Nova. Rich lands in the "Kyle Rayner" role as the last member of the Nova Corps, tasked with carrying not only the entire Nova Force, but also the Xandarian Worldmind, which is constantly trying to get him to do what it wants. Which is rarely what Rich wants. Rich, traumatized by the initial attack on the Nova Corps, alternates between revenge and apathy. Or fear, because he's afraid the power is going to drive him nuts (as it did the last person to hold the entire Nova Force). On top of that, he's got Drax the Destroyer and Cammi following him around, telling him to nut up, essentially. Also, Cammi keeps making fun of his helmet and complimenting his butt. That's awkward. This was my intro to her and this version of Drax, and I became a fan of hers pretty quickly.

This was also my introduction to Kev Walker's art, at least as far as I know. It's scratchier here than it is in his more recent stuff. Quasar shows up as a fairly calm, confident hero, but he has as many lines on his face as Robert Redford does these days. At the time, I joked everyone was getting skin damage from all the stray particles and cosmic radiation out there in space. Walker tends to ink his own work now, which probably accounts for the difference. 

I love the version of Annihilus here, though, much more shadowy and ominous than he appears in a lot of other stuff. This looming hulk with spindly limbs, sharp points coming off everywhere, barely illuminated by that Cosmic Rod around his neck. He never really hurries, just advances steadily. He pushes through Quasar's shield with ease. He deals Nova a scarring blow with a casual backhand when he isn't even looking in his direction. It sells him, personally, as a threat far beyond what the Wave itself represents. Drax states the Wave is a hive mind, so you just need to take out the head to stop the whole thing, the head being Annihilus. Yeah, good luck with that.

What I Bought 3/8/2017

Was only able to find half the books I was looking for this week. Also overheard the guy who runs one of the comic shops in town say there are only three Marvel titles selling more than 10 issues at his store currently. I suspect the fans want more books with certain characters and aren't getting them, but I wonder if the sheer number of books Marvel's putting out is dragging things down. Diluting sales, sort of. Probably not.

The Unbelievable Gwenpool #13, by Christopher Hastings (writer), Alti Firmansyah (artist), Gurihiru (artist/colorist), Rachelle Rosenberg (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - Batroc, when she asks for help, she doesn't mean rooting her on.

Gwen and her team battle Deadpool, and initially win because Gwen employs boss battle tactics against Deadpool. But then she makes the mistake of gloating about him being a guest star in her book, and Wade figures out what he's dealing with, turning the tables. But they realize how stupid it is to play Arcade's game, team-up, quickly dispatch Arcade, and the story moves on to other things. Gwen wants to try and make things up to her friends, but most of them are doing OK. Except Cecil, who is a ghost. So time to bring him back to life.

Firmansyah draws most of the issue. Gurihiru draw the part where Wade takes control of the situation. Firmansyah's style is a little looser than Gurihiru's exaggerates expressions more for comedic effect. It works fine, fits with the established tone of the book. Although at times Gwen's skull seems abnormally large. A bit of a mushroom head thing going. But I like the mental chessboard that appears as she devises her strategy, and that Wade's also able to see it when he grasps what he's up against.

So there's a surprise reveal in this issue which I will not spoil here. You can ask in the comments, or find the post about this issue on Scans daily if you care. But it was effectively surprising, so good on Hastings there. I would never have expected it. Beyond that, the different ways in which Gwen and Wade approach being in a fictional universe was very interesting. It made me reconsider some things about Deadpool, and also has me wondering about Gwen's continued presence. Wade knows he's in a story, knows there are genre conventions governing certain aspects, but mostly accepts these. He goes with it, Gwen is more inclined to exploit the loopholes or gaps. But I wonder how long she can exist in a fictional universe before her actions are controlled by outside forces as well, assuming it isn't already happening.

Nova #4, by Jeff Loveness (writer), Ramon Perez (writer/artist), Ian Herring (color artist), Albert Deschesne (letterer) - Something about that cover looks strange. Maybe just because they're paused as they move in to kiss, or something about the shading. Not sure.

While Rich and Gamora spend some time together, and Rich keeps putting off explaining what's happened to him, Sam goes on a date with Lina. He's awkward, but it could have gone worse. But his little sister tried messing with one of those Nova helmets he has in the garage, the ones the thing from the Cancerverse was hiding in. So that's bad.

I have to admit, this armor plates look Gamora is sporting the last few years isn't bad, though her past costumes set the bar pretty low. Keeping the cloak and hood was a nice touch, though I am a mark for costumes with a cloak and hood. The two page spread contrasting the two couples' evenings was nice. The pair just getting to know each other, not really understanding how this works, versus the pair that have some history, but it isn't Sam learning the difficulties of maintaining the secret identity on a date, but also bringing some of the experience he's picked up along the way. It also feels like Herring is using different background colors for the two threads. More reds, purples, oranges for Sam and Lina, more blues and a tan for Rich and Gamora. It's not a perfect split, there's overlap but the colors when Sam confronts the punks attacking the homeless man are very different from the ones used during Rich and Gamora's fight. Of course, those two are mostly having fun, defending themselves from schmucks, while Sam's trying to protect someone. The stakes are a little greater in his case.

I would really like for Perez and Loveness to get to the point of this Cancerverse resurrection. Deal with that mystery, and establish where the series goes from there. But you know, I didn't realize Rich had a safe house under the monument from the World's Fair. Is that left over from his original ongoing, or one of the ones Erik Larsen did for him in the '90s?

What I Bought 2/1/2017

Hey, comics from just last week! Almost timely! A new book enters the fray! I officially dropped Deadpool - for at least the next three months. We'll see what the May solicits bring, assuming we aren't all dead by then!

The Unbelievable Gwenpool #11 by Christopher Hastings (writer), Myisha Haynes (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - I would never have pegged that as David Lopez' art on the cover. The skeleton cat's a nice touch.

Gwen has apparently lost all her friends and cronies and is back to solo merc work. Taking a job to protect a small town from a single vampire, she learns the vampire is actually Blade, who is there because a necromancer has been resurrecting all his old friends as they passed away. Blade is convinced to let them be because they aren't harming anyone. Then Gwen finds out the necromancer is stealing the life energy of his friends' children to power his magic. Isn't that just like those fucking Baby Boomers. They'll probably justify by claiming their kids don't buy enough dish soap or something.

Bit of strange place to come into the book. Gwen being alone and a little depressed, and maybe the luster of running around the Marvel Universe is starting to wear off. And her awareness that trying to fight Blade is a bad idea, because he's an important enough character she probably can't kill him like she could some faceless, irrelevant vampire. That seems to be one of the major conceits of the series, how Gwen's understanding of how comics work dictates a lot of her actions, and it's a good hook. But speaking as someone who argues with his internal monologue, her description of that as 'crazy' is hurtful to me. I like the idea of the necromancer just being lonely and missing his friends, but still, he's a frickin' necromancer.

It took me too long to figure out why Gwen was wearing that thing around her neck. First I thought it was a neck brace, maybe because she hurt herself holding that snotty kid when she jumped out of the airplane. Then I figured maybe it was a scarf, because upstate New York is cold. Which you'd think would prompt her to get some pants, too, but comic book logic. Then it dawned on me she's wearing it to protect her neck from bites. Duh. The sheepish skeleton who admits he might be the reason Blade heard about them was adorable. He just wanted to be friendly while he gardened! Haynes' art is properly expressive for the comedy bits. There wasn't really enough fighting for me to tell how she does with action sequences, but that's OK.

The book has made a good first impression on me, and next month, Christopher Hastings gets to write Arcade in the book, which I am really stoked for. Oh, the deathtraps that combination should conceive of.

Nova #3, by Jeff Loveness (writer), Ramon Perez (writer/artist), Ian Herring (color artist), Albert Deschesne (letterer) - It loos like Rich is practicing yoga. Don't force the stretch, Rich.

The assassins are here for Nova helmets, and have put a bomb in the brain of the Celestial head that is Knowhere as a failsafe. Rich buys Sam time to try and reach the bomb, but when Sam can't contain the blast, Rich eats the energy by releasing his inner Many-Angled One. Which Sam missed because he was busy being unconscious. So Rich is definitely fully aware of how he's back from the dead - I'm assuming deal made with what was left of the Many-Angled Ones - and is hiding it. Which will totally not come back to bite anyone in the ass. Speaking of biting asses, he's going to encounter Gamora next issue, which is not the old flame I would like to see him interact with, but if he's potentially evil, better to keep him away from Namorita, anyway. It's sweet that Gamora at least smiled in the second photo, though I don't remember her wearing the fishnet outfit when she and Rich were together. Although it's an improvement on the thing she did wear.

The sequence where Rich clocks the tiger with his helmet before donning it, and Sam zooms off, the arc of his flight taking him from the panel it starts in, back towards the panel before (where Rich puts his helmet on, so that we see those things are happening simultaneously, that these two are on the same page), and then Sam's movement draws our eye to the far right side of the page where Death's Head is losing an arm to Rich, and that gets us into the brief fight. That was pretty well laid out. It feels like it could have been confusing, but Perez and Herring made it work. Herring's color work is still nicely vivid and attention-getting. Lots of bright blues and deep reds, that ashy purplish color Rich's skin turns as he starts to change. There are a lot of panels with not much in the way of backgrounds, but the colors mostly compensate.

I still don't love the book, but it's like I said Monday, it's got potential.

What I Bought 1/12/2017 - Part 1

The beginning of the year has been pretty Marvel-heavy. I expect that'll change over the second half of the month.

Nova #2, by Jeff Loveness (writer), Ramon Perez (writer/artist), Ian Herring (color artist), Albert Deschesne (letterer) - Inside, it's more Sam rescuing Richard than what you see here.

Sam finds Rich under attack by the Cancerverse thing that came out of him last issue. The two drive it back into a tear, then Sam takes Rich to the Champions to confirm Rich is who he says he is. Although I'm at a loss as to where Sam got a sample of Rich for Amadeus to compare the live person to. That's pretty creepy, like Tony Stark keeping Thor's hair to make a cyborg clone creepy.

As usual, the heroes of Earth are morons who have no clue Richard saved the damn universe like 17 times while they were busy punching each other over legislation. He attends Sam's family get-together, which seems a little odd - 16-year old kid brings mid-20s(?) guy to family thing - but it seems to pass without comment, and they fly to Knowhere to visit Cosmo. Then Death's Head attacks them, along with two other guys I don't know.

I like how Richard and Sam play off each other (and putting them together neatly eliminates my complaint from last month about there not being enough Rich). Richard is the veteran, but he's been away, he's a little confused, a little unsteady, and Sam gets to be the stabilizing influence. Perez and Loveness are managing a nice balancing act there, so far. And we'll have to wait and see why Richard is unwilling to admit the creature came from him. I'm sure it's part of the reason he's alive again, why he saw the "tear" to drive it into and Sam didn't, but Rich ought to know hiding that stuff doesn't help anything.

OK, I know I said last month I liked Perez drawing Rich's shoulder things as being modular, and I do, but they're getting a bit large. As in, they're starting to reach Cable-level shoulder pad size, and that's not a good sign. The variety of aliens in the bar was nice. I especially like the gooey thing with the one eye in the center of the panel on page 17. And Sam;s body language in that panel where Cosmo tries to explain calling Rich his favorite Nova. But hey, Rich did kill Annihilus like a boss. And he was a New Warrior, and that's much cooler than being an Avenger. Those dorks let anyone join, including Sabretooth.

Ms. Marvel #14, by G. Willow Wilson (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Ian Herring (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer) - Well, gee, I'm not sure I'm rooting for Kamala after she made Richard sad in our last book.

Kamala's online RPGing takes a worrying turn when one of her guildmates says something that suggests he knows where she lives. She tries tracking the guy down, but the player claims his account was hacked. Soon, someone who can control machines is attacking her remotely with cars and construction equipment, and knows Kamala is Ms. Marvel.

Kamala is making the classic Batman mistake of distancing herself from her support network when she;s under stress. Granting that Bruno is gone, and Mike is in a bad way, she turns away from her family, and I guess going to Nakia or Zoe is out. At least as Ms. Marvel. She could have gone to her friends as Kamala, and asked for some help. Yeah, I don't know what they could do against this guy, but she barely even considers getting help, which is a bad sign. I'm also not sure she should have dismissed Maxwell as a suspect so quickly. It probably isn't him, but if this enemy is as good with technology as they appear, they could easily figure out she was trying to track them and pretend someone hacked them.

Interesting choice for her to ride the ferry in Embiggened form. Keeps people at a distance, but also makes her more visible, a more obvious target. Also, her deciding to deal with the car attack by getting bigger and meeting it head-on seems a little unlike her. The way there's a panel that focus on her arm and torn costume after she jumps out of the excavator doesn't seem like a coincidence, either. Overall, she isn't acting like herself, at the time all the things she thought she could rely on are crumbling beneath her. Around her? They're crumbling, regardless. She can't seem to fix any of it, can't patch things up with Bruno, help Mike, trust Tony Stark or Carol Danvers, she's angry, she's frustrated and impatient, and she's trying to deal with things directly that don't seem like they can be.

What I Bought 12/7/2016

So I did manage to find half the books I was looking for last week. The two Marvel entries. We take what we can get.

Nova #1, by Jeff Loveness (writer), Ramon Perez (writer/artist), Ian herring (colorist), Albert Deschesne (letterer) - Sam really looks like Viewtiful Joe there. Who Rich would be familiar with if Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 were in continuity. And maybe it is. Who can tell with Marvel these days?

Sam is helping Ego with an infestation, but has to hurry to school, but forgot to wear clothes under his Nova suit. So he humiliates himself in front of a girl, then does it again when he tries talking to her. Meanwhile, Richard is trying to adjust to being alive, and his father is dead now(?!) But it seems like whatever enabled Richard to be alive again is an infection, that may have escaped. Some remnant of the Cancerverse, or more specifically, the Many-Angeled Ones would seem the best guess.

OK, the problem here for me is this issue is 70% Sam, and only 30% Richard. Now I'm not one of those Richard Rider fans who hates Sam. Although I do tend to consider the fact he was a Jeph Loeb created character a strike against him, much like Red Hulk. That aside, I got nuthin' against him. However, in the words of Bulldozer of Easy Co., I got nuthin' for him, either. I suppose I should be grateful. His family and school related hijinks seem more similar to what I was expecting from the current Blue Beetle than that book is providing. But I'm not really into watching Sam strike out with a girl. If the book could do more of the outer space action stuff, that would be fine.

Ramon Perez and Ian Herring's combined art efforts are the high points. Perez switching to a more cartoonish style, similar to Chris Eliopoulos' maybe, for Sam's daydream sequence was nice, but just in general. The fight scene on Ego worked pretty well as a small piece of the issue, the design on the Sidri was nice, the way the colors make them this swirling shadow monster. Plus the "PLOIK" sound effect as Sam ineffectually tries blasting it. I like how Perez draws Richard's version of the costume. He still has the shoulder spikes he had after getting all of the Nova Force in Annihilation, but now they shift and mold depending on where his arms are. So they don't stab him in the neck when he extends his arms forward. It's a little thing, but it's a nice touch, and shows an attention to detail.

Will the book be pretty enough for me to stick with it long enough for Richard to get some more page time? We'll see.

Deadpool #23, by Gerry Duggan (writer), Matteo Lolli (artist), Paolo Villanelli (artist/inker), Christian Dalla Vecchia (inker), Guru-eFX (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer) - Wade, I don't think Santa was the one who developed the bioweapon.

Wade and Preston are cleansed of any traces of the virus, Wade more painfully than Preston, and try to figure out who Madcap got it from. They fail utterly, and then accuse Adsit of hosting Madcap. But no, he's just stress-eating. So Wade calls a time-traveler to produce a cure for the virus - Stryfe. It's never a good thing when Stryfe starts showing up in your comics. Perhaps this is a ploy by Madcap to hurt Deadpool some more - by killing his audience.

I don't know why Wade shot Adsit's telescope. Because he's stressed and reverting to bad habits I guess. That's been happening for awhile already, as the Avengers gig falls apart, or because Wade can't keep this many balls in the air successfully for this long. Or maybe because he just doesn't care enough.

The artwork is fine. Lolli and Villanelli draw everything fine. Nothing feels terribly inspired in the art, but this whole issue feels like padding anyway. Here's a panel of Deadpool and Preston attacking wizards. Here's a panel of Wade harassing some poor jamoke at the Hellfire Club. Like being forced to dress in those stupid period outfits with the frills and powdered wigs isn't punishment enough. Point being, let's just get the fucking big showdown started already. Let's have a little more of Madcap versus Deadpool in this story about Madcap versus Deadpool. I would like to say something more about the art, but there's nothing that jumps out at me. Nothing that I really like or hate. It tells the story, everything is easy to follow and understandable, but nothing extraordinary.

31 Days of Scans - Day 12

This took a while to decide on. If a location is going to be worth visiting, it probably has super-heroes and villains around which makes it exceedingly dangerous. Who in their right mind wants to go to Gotham City, or Marvel’s New York? You’d be dead in minutes, if you’re lucky. I considered Cynosure, but I go around the wrong corner and I’m in a dimension actively hostile to me. Then I thought of it. A most perfect, wonderful place. Give me the choice of where to go, I’m going nowhere.

Sorry, I mistyped that. I meant Knowhere.

Knowhere! A mecca set at the edge of the universe, floating within the head of a decapitated space god. A place where beings from all across time and space come to contemplate, to study, to buy and sell anything and everything. You can get it there, no matter what “it” is, or how distant the backwater world it hails from.

You can get anywhere, thanks to the teleport capabilities of the Continuum Cortex.

If there are any problems, it has the number one top dog in all the universe running security. What more could I ask for?

Drax learns the extent of wares available in Guardians of the Galaxy #2, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Paul Pelletier (penciler), Rick Magyar (inker), Nathan Fairbairn (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer). We get our first true look at Knowhere in Nova #8, and Cosmo explains their transport system to Rich in Nova #9, both written by Abnett and Lanning, penciled by Wellinton Alves, colored by Guru eFX, and lettered by Cory Petit. Scott Hanna inked issue 8, and Wellington Dian and Nelson Pererra inked issue 9.

31 Days of Scans - Character I'd Bring Back From The Dead

Well, most of the characters I like are either still alive, or not technically dead. Cass Cain never officially got killed off, she just got lost in the reboot shuffle. There is someone who is officially dead I'd like to see back, and that's this guy.

Richard Rider, the late Nova Prime.

Rich had a decent (if obviously and awkwardly shoehorned in) heroic death at the end of Thanos Imperative. It was him and Star-Lord, giving their lives to keep an unkillable Thanos trapped within the collapsing Cancerverse. Except Hickman brought Thanos back (though if he hadn't, I'm sure Starlin would have), and Bendis brought Star-Lord back. Nova's the only one still dead, and that's stupid as hell (every account I've read, Bendis' attempt to explain how that happened in Guardians of the Galaxy's Original Sin tie-in was as bad as I'd expect). So there's no reason for Rider to stay dead.

This isn't me trying to get rid of the new kid, Sam Alexander. I may not have anything for Sam, but I don't have anything against him, either. He can be Earth's Nova (or the New Warriors' Nova), while Rich has all the fun, cool adventures out in space. Or Sam can drive Rich nuts by doing typical impulsive teen hero things. Whatever. I don't want Sam gone, I just want Rich back

I miss this guy. He believes in what the Nova Corps is supposed to stand for, to the point he won't abandon prisoners to an army that will almost certainly brutally kill them for sport. He has enough experience under his belt to know how to talk his way out of it. But he still has enough of that old cockiness he can't resist poking the bear a little bit, because he's confident he can back it up. And he's powerful enough I want him to poke the bear, because I want to see that fight. I was always disappointed we never got to see any payoff between Rich and Blastaar.

First image is from Nova #3, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Sean Chen (penciler), Scott Hanna (inker), Guru eFX (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer). The other two are from Nova #28, Abnett and Lanning (writers), Andrea Divito (artist), Bruno Hang (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer).

The Story I Would Have Loved To See

I mentioned when I was talking about Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, that I prefer stories where villains fight each other with the heroes caught in the middle, to the more recent trend of heroes fighting each other, while the villains make hay off the circumstances. Which reminded me of an idea I'd had years ago, that I only ever really laid out in the comments of a comics review post back in 2009. It wound up being irrelevant, because I was operating off one idea of what was going on in War of Kings, and the truth wound up being different, but whatever.

The Magus was in charge of the Universal Church of Truth and its billions of fanatical adherents, whose faith energies were ramping up his powers considerably. Star-Lord was supposed to have stopped that with the Cosmic Cube he got from Kang, but Magus outsmarted him and then kept himself in the shadows for awhile. So figure Kang shows up, either with his usual forces, or the army of Starhawks he'd compiled from across the multiverse (as the Magus' ascension was somehow going to spread to dominate all timelines), ready for war against the Magus. Maybe Kang stops to kick Star-Lord's butt for being useless and reclaim the Cube, or maybe not.

One of the end results of War of Kings was the Fault, the result of the explosion from the Inhumans' Terrigen Bomb tearing a huge hole in space, leading to a place where anything was possible. Nova and Darkhawk eventually encountered not just one Sphinx, but two, one young and one old. The old one was struggling to correct past mistakes, the young one didn't see himself as making any mistakes. And each of them had an immensely powerful Ka Stone, and if either got both, well, that would be a serious problem. So have one of the two emerge from the Fault more powerful than ever, with the Sphinx' usual plan to become a living god over all humanity. Clearly not something either of the other two would-be despots is going to tolerate.

In the middle of that, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Nova, Darkhawk, Namorita (who was brought from an earlier point in her life by the Sphinx, and then Nova kept her from vanishing when the whole place fell apart). Commenter Sean Greyson had mentioned wanting to see a Guardians of the Galaxy/Young Avengers team-up, so throw them in there. This story involves Kang, which is who Iron Lad became (and who that version of the Vision's brain patterns were based on, if we want to use him instead), so there's a reasonable justification.

I also wanted to throw in the outlaw Avengers team Justice was leading back on Earth - this was concurrent with Dark Reign, when Osborn handed over control of the Initiative school to the Hood. One wonders how that got through Congressional appointment hearings - because that would have been about as close to a New Warriors reunion as we were likely to get. Besides, even with that many heroes, they're still seriously outgunned, both in raw power and sheer numbers. Hell, find some justification for the Agents of Atlas to get involved (have Namora find out her daughter is alive and she'll charge out into space in a second).

Then factor in the Inhumans, reeling from the loss of Black Bolt, dealing with some hostility from the rest of the universe, since it was their bomb that caused the Fault, the Shi'ar having lost Emperor Vulcan and Lilandra, now a pale shadow of their old selves. Blastaar is out there as a king, looking to establish himself, get whatever he can, and settle some grudges (both Nova and Star-Lord had pissed him off recently). The sheer number of players, conflicts, uneasy alliances, the scale of the battle which could be taking place on different worlds across the universe, I would have been willing to spend so much money on something like that.

Patience Has To Pay Off Sometime

I was talking on Thursday about how it used to be common for me to keep buying books for a long time after I'd stop enjoying them. Some of that I'm sure was inertia - I'd been buying the book for awhile, and it was just routine by then - but most of it was that treacherous foe, hope. You know, thinking "It's gonna get better any minute now." So I keep buying it, and it keeps not getting better, and eventually I catch on that things aren't going to improve.

Here's my question for you. Has staying with a book you were disappointed/dissatisfied with ever paid off? Has one ever actually gotten better for you?

I've been trying to think of one myself, but it's tricky. These days most titles don't last long enough for it to be an issue. They either get canceled before quality hits a lull, or before they've been in a rut long enough I can think about dropping it. For a lot of the rest, I ended up dropping them, so if they turned around, it didn't happen fast enough.

I considered Nova, because there was a stretch when he returned to Earth for Secret Invasion that persisted for several months that I wasn't a huge fan of. I'm pretty sure there are multiple issues I reviewed where I mentioned how badly I wanted him to get back into space. Eventually DnA did send Nova back into space, and the book picked up for its last year. That being said, the book wasn't ever in any danger of being dropped, because it wasn't bad, just not as good as it had been.

The best example I could come up with was Ultimate Spider-Man. There was a period, '04 and '05, something like 20-30 issues, where the book went through this dark patch I didn't love. Ultimate Carnage, Gwen dying, Peter breaking up with MJ, the Hobgoblin arc, the Warriors arc. Those last two weren't bad, but they were too padded out, even by Bendis' standards. Warriors was an 8-part story that could have been 5, easy, and Hobgoblin could have 4, probably even 3, and I think that killed the impact of what could otherwise have been a pretty affecting story. The one slightly more upbeat story in there was that Freaky Friday deal with Spidey and Wolverine, which wasn't a bad idea for a 2-parter, but doing it immediately after Gwen died was poor timing.

There was definitely some dissatisfaction there, but the Silver Sable story was a little better, I really liked the Deadpool story (even if I hated Ultimate Deadpool, which looking back, maybe that was the point), There was a Morbius story that was, not bad, and hey it was only 2 parts, so it wasn't stretched out! Clone Saga was, well, that was overlong and kind of a mess, but it had some good parts to it, and I liked the Ultimate Knights arc that was Bagley's send off. It's not my favorite stretch on the book (I think that might be the 20 issues between Ultimate Venom and Ultimate Carnage), but it was a significant upswing, so I'm glad I stuck around for that. If X-Factor is any indication, once I drop a book, it's even harder to start buying it again than it was to stop.

That's my story, but what about you?

The Human Rocket, The Scientist, And The Killer Robot

Recently, I put in an order for some trading card sets. I get that bug occasionally, and this time I indulged. So pretty soon I had the complete Marvel Universe sets 1, 2, and 4, to go along with 3 which I already had.

I was flipping through Series 4, and I reach this set of characters I don't really know. I guess they were from a Marvel UK line, or something to that effect. I remembered seeing Motormouth pop up in Peter David's Incredible Hulk run at some point*, and I may have seen some of the others at some point, but they weren't ringing many bells. I'm looking at the back of Death's Head II's card, and first I see it's name is "Minion". An unimaginative name, but OK. Then I see it's origin.

'Cyborg created by Dr. Evelyn Necker of A.I.M. in the year 2020.'

The name rings a bell. Fortunately, I'm in the same room as all my comics, so it's over to Nova, and yeah, there's a Dr. Eve Necker working for Project PEGASUS. A Dr. Necker whose pet project is a series of defense robots titled Project Minion. A Dr. Necker who is an A.I.M. mole placed within PEGASUS.

Then it took a few minutes poking around online to learn that hey! Death's Head II's series was an Abnett/Lanning joint. The Internet's great for random stuff like that, you know? Otherwise, I'd either have to travel to a comic store (about an hour both ways) and hope they had back issues (or employees) that could enlighten, or suffer in the cold shadows of uncertainty.

It's not something I was expecting, for a trading card from '94 to add another angle to a series I greatly enjoyed that came out 15 years later. I'd have to read DHII's series to see her motivations for the project at that time, but it'd be interesting whether her experiences with Richard Rider changed her (for better or worse**), or if the experience of seeing what her 'bots could do with a little Nova Force and the Worldmind guiding them spurred her on.

Maybe it changed nothing, just one more strange experience she had during the years she worked on her project, but no particular significance.

* It was #409. Thanks Grand Comics Database!

** Rich was a good guy around her, but he also turned down her offer to help because she worked for A.I.M., regardless of the fact it was Eve, and not A.I.M. offering to help. Assuming we take her offer at face value, and DnA didn't give me any reason to doubt her sincerity.

I Will Die Waiting For Closure, Won't I?

I've been thinking about Abnett and Lanning's Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy work, and I keep thinking of all the stories that were hinted at but never came up. I don't know whether they decided not to pursue them, or if the roughly annual cosmic events kept changing things too rapidly, or if the books were canceled too soon.

In Nova, we never did find out what happened to Ko-Rel's son, who she'd been separated from since sometime in Annihilation*. Considering how guilty Richard felt about her death, I was always surprised he never tried to hunt down the kid. Heck, ask Ronan to look into it, he owes Rich plenty, that would be the least he could do.

There was the surprise appearance of Garthan Saal (who had previously held all the Nova Force, gone CrazyEvil, and supposedly died) during War of Kings. He appeared before Malik tarcel, who was briefly Nova Prime after Rich was booted, but got beat down and imprisoned by Gladiator. Considering Saal's history of conflict with Rich back during Rider's New Warriors' days, that seemed ominous, but nothing ever came of it. The book brought Monark Starslayer in, and then the Sphinx, and then it was canceled.

I don't even know what happened to Tarcel. Hopefully he wasn't on one of those Shi'ar ships that was obliterated by the T-Bomb going off, but he's another character lost in the cracks.

Over in Guardians of the Galaxy, there was the brief emergence of the Badoon in the months before War of Kings started. They're apparently regarded as a second-rate power, but there were up to enough mischief what was left of the Guardians stepped in. The Badoon had been a major foe for the earlier versions of the Guardians of the Galaxy (the ones set in the future), so there was the sense something might be building there. Especially considering the Kree/Inhuman alliance was still working out the kinks, the Skrulls were basically exterminated, and the territories Annihilus' forces held were pretty torn up from the Phalanx. The Badoon had been largely unscathed, so perhaps it was their time. Again, never came up again.

The one that really surprised me was when Starhawk told Jack Flag he was fated to die saving existence, when half the team was bouncing from reality to reality. It ended up Star-Lord and Nova (probably) died saving the universe by preventing an enraged Thanos from getting back there. Jack could still end up making the ultimate sacrifice (maybe he'll show up in Heroes for Hire), but it seems that the timeline shifted enough with Thanos' reemergence it'll never come to pass.

I really do wonder what the reasons were for not pursuing those story arcs. If nothing else, I'd get a better idea of the creative process, which I'm idly curious about.

* Then she died during Conquest, which I still think was a major misstep by Lanning and Abnett. They did sort of bring her back, since her personality is the one the Worldmind assumed after its old one was too corrupted by Ego, but it's not really the same thing. She's never shown any interest in hunting him down since then, which kind of suggests the Worldmind adopts only parts of the base's personality, and ignores things which would interfere with its work.

So Nova's In Secret Avengers

What do you think?

Brubaker seems aware of the idea Rich isn't necessarily going to fit for every mission the group undertakes, so he's going to be used on a case by case basis. That makes sense. Before I read the recap of his comments on Comic Book Resources, I was wondering how Nova would fit. Although, if Rich can keep the Worldmind in the loop while he's on Earth, it could be handy for infiltrating vital information systems. I can't imagine there are too many computer safeguards that could hold up against the Worldmind.

It sounds as though Nova will be the "big gun" of the team, called in when they have a really big threat. Perhaps similar to how Busiek frequently used Thor for his Avengers' work. It's encouraging, because I was afraid he might get nerfed. He still might, but it sounds as though there's recognition that Nova's one of the most powerful heroes on Earth. When he's on Earth, anyway.

I'll be curious to see the difference in the threats the team faces w/Nova vs. without. Will it be a matter of power, or will Nova be called in for anything extraterrestrial in nature? Are the team's activities focused on Earth, or will they try and meet incoming threats away from home? Will Nova be calling them in on some of his work?

Also, what's Nova's standing with the team going to be? He's been doing the hero thing for a shorter amount of time than several of his team members*, and most of them have been on more high-profile teams than him. At the same time, Nova's been up to his neck in crazy "the universe is about to die" stuff for the last couple years, but nobody on Earth realizes it. I know Steve Rogers will respect him, because he's Steve Rogers, but hopefully the rest aren't going to treat him like some relative rookie.

I guess I'll be adding this to my pull list, eventually. I still wish they'd paired Brubaker with either Immonen or Romita Jr., and put Deodato on one of Bendis' books, but it's not a perfect world, and Deodato's done work I enjoyed in the past. I would have added the book already if Marvel hadn't been cagey about who was on the team for the first two issues**. I'll have to decide whether to try and grab spare copies of the first two issues, or wait for the first trade.

* Steve Rogers, Black Widow, Sharon Carter, Beast, for certain. I'm not sure about Valkyrie, since I'm not sure which Val this is. Brubaker's comments suggest it's the one Moon Knight worked with briefly on the Defenders, who would have seniority, but I thought Busiek and Larsen said she went back to Valhalla, and there was a different Val running around. I'm pretty sure Nova has Jim Rhodes and Moon Knight beat, but they both saw combat long before they became costumed types, so that might offset. The only one I'm positive he has service time over is the Irredeemable Ant-Man.

** I like Brubaker, but on his own, not enough to get me to buy a title. Pairing him with Deodato wasn't enough either. The roster was what clinched it.

Considering A Thread From Nova That May Have Been Dropped

Last year, Garthan Saal showed up briefly in Nova #26. Garthan Sall was the last person before Richard Rider to house all of the Nova Force, and it drove him mad, since he didn't have the Worldmind along to help him. Saal was talking to Malik Tarcel, who had taken over for Richard as Nova Prime, only to be roundly thumped by Gladiator in the early stages of War of Kings.

Since then, Saal's made nary an appearance. Today, I was thinking about that and a couple of other threads Abnett and Lanning have started in the cosmic books that haven't paid off as yet. I was thinking perhaps these will be more of those storylines we never see any resolution of. You know how that goes, the book's direction gets hijacked by bigger events, it's canceled, the writers leaves, the writer decides to go a different way. It happens.

Then it occurred to me, what if Garthan Saal is from the universe on the other side of the Fault? The Fault itself didn't exist yet, but there were other tears in space-time before then. The Guardians of the Galaxy had been dealing with some of them in the first arc of their title. Once the war started, there were even more, caused by Vulcan and his reckless use of Nega-Bombs. At the same time this story was going in Nova, Adam Warlock had been sealing up just such a hole in Guardians of the Galaxy. That was a large rupture, and Warlock handled it before anything emerged. However, with possibly multiple large rips in the universe, it's possible a few smaller ones were missed, or were deemed low priority. If so, there's an opportunity for someone to come on through. Garthan Saal perhaps.

We know the other universe has versions of characters common in the Marvel Universe, so there could easily be a Garthan Saal. There's no death in the universe, so no matter how crazy the Nova Force might have driven him, he couldn't have been killed. He could easily still be active in that universe, and could be acting on orders from the higher powers in his universe, or he could have simply seen a tear in space and decided to investigate. Remember, he may be as crazy as the 616's Saal was, so that might seem a perfectly reasonable idea.

Happy Reunions Which Are Followed By The Punching Of Villains Are In Now

If the solicitation for this month's Nova is accurate, he, Darkhawk, and Quasar will be hustling Earthward to warn all the heroes there about the horrific creature about to emerge from the Fault and eliminate death in their universe.

I'm hoping Namorita will be out of that 'self-protective fugue' she was in at the end of last month, and come along as well. She can't survive in space on her own, but there's no reason the Nova Corps couldn't hook her up with a space suit (maybe even a bit of the Nova Force?), or Quasar could make a protective bubble.

My reason for wanting this is simple: If Namorita goes back to earth, she can have a reunion with her mother, who was dead the last 'Nita knew (and 'Nita is dead as far as Namora knew). It's easy. They arrive on Earth, head right for Reed Richards and explain the situation. It's dire enough they round up everyone, and since the X-Men and New Avengers know Atlas isn't really a bunch of crooks, and can be quite formidable, they show up.

Plus, we both the X-Men and Atlas involved, Namor ought to put in an appearance, so we might get a panel of him gobsmacked at seeing his 'little cousin' back from the dead. How often do we have the opportunity to see Namor struck speechless? The speechlessness would be followed with Namor no doubt being furious at whoever is playing a trick on him until Nova or Darkhawk can explain what happened.

My goal with this would be Atlas goes into space to help, pitting whatever is coming through the Fault against the two coolest teams in the Marvel Universe*, Atlas and the Guardians of the Galaxy. The universe saved, 'Nita heads back to earth for some bonding with her mom, and we get a mother-daughter butt-kicking, crimefighting team.

Which is not something I can recall too many examples of at Marvel or DC. Wonder Woman and Hippolyta have worked together on several occasions, and I think Jean Grey had to work with Rachel at some point**. Supergirl and her mother worked together during World of New Krypton, right? I can't think of any others, so there could be an opportunity for some fun stories. It could involve typical Atlas stuff, or defending the scattered people of Atlantis stuff, or old-school New Warriors stuff. How does 'Nita react to having a mother again (and being alive in a world where she died making the error of appearing in a Mark Millar written comic)? How does Namora handle having a daughter older than she remembers, who's been through even weirder adventures than Namora has? I'm just throwing possibilities out there, you can suugest your own.

* Fine, two coolest active teams in the Marvel Universe, since NextWave seems scattered to the four winds.

** There was an issue of Excalibur after Colossus left the X-Men where they were both on Muir Island and had a nice talk, but they didn't fight Acolytes together.

I Am Concerned

Scrolled through Marvel and DC's solicitations for May.

Worryingly, Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy are absent, least as far as I can tell. This makes me think they've been canceled. I know their sales were getting close to the level where Marvel tends to kill books, but I'd hoped they were still high enough to be OK. Maybe they're both just taking the month off? Yeah, I'm sure that's all it is. Sure, that's all.

Dang, now I'm depressed. I'd be angry, tossing expletives left and right, except I'm not sure the titles are actually done. The hope keeps me from acting the fool. Well, acting the fool in that manner, anyway. Still, it's not as thought my pull list was all that large before this, and I'm not seeing much that piques my interest* to replace books that end.

Perhaps they'll try a relaunch in a couple of months, thought I can't see that having much effect. If anthologies did better, I'd suggest just going for one big monthly comic, with lots of cosmic-themed stories for 5 bucks, or whatever. Similar to those 96-pagers Marvel puts out occasionally, like Amazing Spider-Man #600, or Deadpool #900. Except those were special events, and Marvel/DC readers aren't be big fans of that format on a monthly basis.

Oh well, life as a comic fan sucks sometimes. Let's end with a happy comment. I'm happy to see the Showcase Suicide Squad trade is back again, provided DC doesn't yank it like they did last time they solicited it. That was bullcrap, got my hopes up for nothing.

Hmm, not quite as happy as I'd like.

* Marvel's not helping with the all first issues are 4 bucks policy. I have to be sure I want to buy the book ahead of time for that not to serve as a deterrent. If I'm on the fence, that's a push away.