Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuiness’ introduction of Sam Alexander as the new Nova of the Marvel Universe is over. Make way for Zeb Wells and Paco Medina as they bring Sam into the Marvel NOW! world, post-”AVX”, and chart a new course for him.
Written by Zeb Wells
Illustrated by Paco Medina
• Now that we’ve seen his origin, there’s only one thing standing between Nova and being an Avenger…
• He needs to ask his mom.
Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness’ origin for Sam Alexander was a fun adventure romp, a great all-ages comic, and managed to blend humour and heart excellently. All in all, a surprisingly good comic. Yet, after only five issue we have our first creative team change in the form of Zeb Wells and Paco Medina. How does the title fare with the change-up? Like nothing even happened, honestly.
This new creative team have made the transition as smoothly as possible by staying true to what made the Loeb and McGuinness issue so enjoyable. Wells and Medina pick up Sam’s story after “Avengers vs. X-Men” (which finally gives a timeline for Loeb’s “Point One” stories) as he tries to ask his mom’s permission to join the Avengers. As you might have guessed by the fact that Sam hasn’t shown up in an “Avengers” book since “AVX”, it doesn’t go well. This is actually what really makes this issue work; Wells’ masterful handling of Sam’s relationship with his mom. Their relationship was really the emotional heart of the first five issues and that hasn’t changed here. Having the Nova helmet, bequeathed to Sam by his father, be a stand-in for Sam’s ever-growing need for freedom against his somewhat overbearing mother really works and creates the emotional dilemma of the issues which takes the place of the space opera-esque adventure that it plays out against.
While Wells handles the writing taking over the writing side of the issue from Loeb well enough, the transition from Ed McGuinness’ art to Paco Medina is near flawless. Medina faithfully keeps the style of the book going while making it very much his own with expressive characters that really help convey Wells’ sometimes over-the-top family arguing. Medina’s two-page spread that serves to catch up with what Sam took part in during “Avengers Vs. X-Men” is especially impressive as it both conveys the awesome action from the last issue of “Avengers Vs. X-Men” and serves as a catch-up page in one. If there’s any downside to Medina’s art it’s that while characters are expressive, sometimes it feels like their face operates on a different plane from the rest of their head. It makes for a strange panel when it feels like a character’s head should be turning judging from the angle of their facial features, but their head is in fact still.
In fact, if there’s any one downside to the issue as a whole, it’s the fact that it operates as a soft reboot and basically turns into another #1. We saw Sam grow from a normal kid in a nowhere town to a Nova and take part in grand space adventures, yet here we’re back to square one. While it helps those who perhaps missed out on the first issues as a way of letting them catch up with Sam and the book’s supporting cast, but it feels like a step backwards. More than that, it feels like the issue stops dead just as it was about to get going with Sam flying off into the night as Nova. Now, that doesn’t make it a necessarily a bad issue. It just feels like it stops as it was about to get going and instead of feeling as excited about the next issue as I possibly should be, it makes me wish this issue had gone somewhere different other than a retread of first issue material.
“Nova” has worked so far because it managed to marry the teen superhero trying to learn responsibility that Marvel Comics have had on lock since 1962 and grand space opera adventure that made the Cosmic line so engaging. Except here, only lip service is paid to the latter which is why it feels sadly lacking as an issue. It feels like #1 material except we’re at #6 and the title feels like it should have progressed beyond were it is right now. Hopefully, this is just teething problems for an otherwise good issue that will sort itself out as Wells and Medina get settled in. “Nova” should really be taking it’s place beside the original “Amazing Spider-Man” issues and Miles Morales’ “Ultimate Spider-Man” issues in the hall of fame of teenage superhero coming of age stories. Hopefully, one day, it’ll get there.
Final Verdict: 6.5 – This should be better than it is, but it’s good for what it is.
