NOVA #1 (1999)

I’m not sure what happened, but I thought the New Warriors were already broken up. But that seems to happen here in this issue, after a fight with Rhino that’s played mostly for comedy.

She-Hulk interrupts and takes over.

Then the team breaks up and we see that Namorita has a bad skin condition.

Gross.

Interspliced with the reintroduction (and de-team-ification) of Nova are flashbacks to remind you about his big bads (notably, Sphinx, who I thought was dead) and real-time intergalactic stage settings: Nebula wants to kill Nova (and she attacks before issue’s end). Firelord discovers that the Nova-Force home planet of Xandar has been attacked and Adora critically injured.

And there’s the brief return of the unfortunately named bankrobber Grinder. Oh, and Nova puts the abusive husband of his old High School girlfriend into a coma, and she’s pregnant.

With everything else jammed into this very full large-sized issue, that is the cliffhanger.

I appreciate all the esoteric characters and the effort to create a self-contained story that touches on both Earth and the cosmic parts of the MU, but for some reason this doesn’t work that well for me. It’s okay, it’s just not great–and it tries really, really hard.

Also, knowing that this series will have a seven-issue sunset, it’s hard to get very invested.

Leave a Comment