Nova #5 – Review

By: Jeph Loeb (Writer), Ed McGuinness (Penciler), Dexter Vines & Ed McGuinness (Inkers), Edgar Delgado (Colorist)

Review: A strange thing has happened. I think I’ve actually enjoyed a Jeph Loeb comic book. I don’t know if the events over in Age of Ultron somehow impacted on our own universe, but something is definitely up. This is not the natural order of things.

After reading Nova #5 – the finale to Loeb’s scene-setting inaugural story arc – I’ve been surprised to come away with a keen affection for its eponymous hero. He’s young, headstrong and cocky, three character traits that usually leave me feeling cold. But Loeb’s vision for Sam Alexander is fuelled by an infectious sense of energy and an emphasis on a certain Silver Age approach to superheroics (one that’s proved rewarding for Waid’s Daredevil and Fraction’s Hawkeye); these heroes enjoy the day job. There are tensions and tribulations outside of the mask but freedom and escapism behind it. Sometimes it’s just nice to sit back and watch a superhero have a good time.

Nova #4 – Review

By: Jeph Loeb (Writer), Ed McGuinness (Penciler), Dexter Vines (Inker), Marte Gracia (Colorist), Comicraft’s Albert Deschesne (Letterer)

Review: It’s a mystery to me quite how this happened, but Nova is undoubtedly the best cosmic book Marvel currently publish – this issue seals it. I never expected that from Loeb. I thought this’d be a big, dumb, brash piece of fluff – and it is, I guess – but it’s also filled with the fun of sci-fi, of explosions in space, of weird aliens aboard even weirder ships. Guardians of the Galaxy could learn a lot from this.

This issue starts with out with Sam Alexander, AKA Nova, apparently unconscious, left drifting through space at the mercy of the incoming Chitauri armada. Just as they’re about to scoop him up he blasts away with a glib cry (“Suckers!”) and weaves through the Alien hordes before crashing into the mothership: “All I have to do is find the generator or the power core or the thingy thing that runs this beast – and problem solved – Nova style.”