Everything Changes Baby, That’s a Fact…: Nova #1

It’s incredibly hard to separate yourself form something you love. What I mean to say is, when you’re a fan of something, whether it’s a film series or television series or comicbook series, change is not your friend. In fact, change is the scariest thing possible to think about.

“This thing I used to love is no longer the thing I loved and I’m really, really not ok with that!” Not surprisingly, these were the words uttered when I saw that a new Nova series was being announced. I have been an incredible fan of Richard Rider and his adventures as the last of Nova Corps of Xandar dating back to the New Warriors. After that series began to die down, I tried to follow where Nova would appear next throughout Marvel, catching a reboot here and there with nothing really turning up that rivaled my enthusiasm for those first appearances in from my youth.

That is, until Dan Abnett , Andy Lanning, and Keith Giffen unleashed the potential of Nova and the rest of Marvel’s cosmic characters with the massive “Annihilation” series of stories. Spun out of that event came the ongoing series Nova by Abnett and Lanning that set a new standard for cosmic action and showed the versatility of a character long thought to have hit a wall of potential. Nothing lasts forever, though, and Marvel was forced to end the Nova series after all. But not, thanks to the Marvel NOW initiative a soft reboot is on the table.

This series, written by industry veteran Jeph Loeb and drawn by one of the most successful “fun” artists, Ed McGuinness, is a situation for a fan to have to separate him from love of a previous incarnation. Richard Rider is out of the picture and Sam Alexander is the new human rocket. Who is Sam Alexander and how did he become a Corpsman? Well, that’s what the series will fill us in on over the first few issues taking place six months ago. I hesitate to admit, I’ll be along for the ride.

Right off the bat, there were hurdles I knew I would have to overcome to give this comic a shot. What this series reminded me the most of was the first issue of Kyle Rayner’s inheritance of the mantle of Green Lantern. Having had no attachment to Hal Jordan or his adventures, I was able to embrace Rayner without being fazed. Here I am now feeling exactly like a member of the rabid Hal Jordan fans frothing at the mouth over the lack of acknowledgement for my favorite bearer of a mantle whilst some young punk kid takes up the name and goes off to have adventures. On the surface, I was ready to dismiss this series and move on… but something was hidden beneath the surface of this issue that held my attention past the point of anger at the consequences of change.

Loeb does some stories very well and some stories very poorly. The stories he does well are the personal ones. Superman for All Seasons, Batman the Long Halloween, Daredevil: Yellow, etc were all great but that was because Loeb is sometimes able to tap into a poignant moment that is between two characters trying to relate and see through each others eyes. In this book, it’s Sam and his father, a former Nova commando (or Supernova), who has retired to raise his family in a small town as a janitor. Sam has little respect for his father while his kid sister worships the man and his stories of fighting aliens and rescuing the Guardians of the Galaxy. Sam is pulled into his father’s world when his old man is kidnapped and realizes it might not all be fairy tales and galaxies far, far away when Gamora and Rocket Raccoon of the Guardians show up.

The moments between Sam and his classmates, his father, and his sister resonate at a level that make me want to see him succeed and follow the progression of his story. The art by McGuinness and Dexter Vines is, as always, pitch perfect to a wild and fun series packed with action. Where Loeb stumbles is the dialogue. One issue that has plagued his work is an attempt at banter that he is not shown much aptitude for. I can’t really tell if it’s attempts to find modern slang or nuance that is his fault or just that he can’t really find the voice of certain characters, but it’s an obstacle that threw me out of the story more than once. Hopefully, if he is able to get more comfortable with the characters, he’ll find their individual voices and be able to make the dialogue more natural and less “old man trying to write hip.”

Change is difficult for fans to accept but when you throw your lot in with characters that are not yours to command and dictate the directions of. It’s a natural dilemma all of us face but every time a new version is introduced, separating one’s self in order to give it a chance is a worthy effort. Loeb succeeds in finding an aspect of this new character that I as a reader was able to relate to and thus let the faults of poor dialogue a pass for now. It helps to have a truly winning art team at his side and I look forward to more adventures of Sam Alexander.