Wells, Zeb

AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:

3 out of 5

(1 book)

Nova: Rookie Season

(Art by Ed McGuinness, Juan Vlasco, Carlo Barberi, David Lopez, John Livesay and Terry Pallot)

Book 2.  Having helped the Avengers face the Phoenix Force, the new teenage Nova has to face an almost as terrifying foe; his mother's disapproval.  As he struggles to reconcile his home life with his new role as a superhero, Sam Alexander finds himself targeted by the minions of Thanos.

The core conflict in this book is a solid one that Marvel have been doing well with since Spider-Man first came on the scene; how can a teenager cope with all of the normal struggles of being a teenager as well as the challenges of being a superhero?  And the way Sam deals with it is fairly novel; blithely blustering through any repercussions like a child putting their fingers in their ears and going "La-la-la-la-la".  His youthful self-importance plays nicely off against the arrogance of the Superior Spider-Man (Doc Ock in Spidey's body, if you didn't know) and, well, let's just say they don't get along.

Unfortunately, this book doesn't hold together too well from a narrative standpoint.  It feels pretty fractured, lacking cohesion due to things like the 'Infinity' crossover event dropping into the middle of the book and then disappearing without a trace.  With a stronger core narrative, the themes mentioned above would've had a lot more impact.

Nice to see Speedball back in the game though.

3 out of 5

Collaborations & Anthologies:

Spider-Man's Tangled Web Vol. 3 (here)

Read more...

Marvel Comics (here)