Nova is back for yet another ongoing title.  This would be his fourth, and none of them have yet made it past issue #25.  You'd think that would be a warning sign.

Still, if nothing else, the Annihilation crossover proved that with appropriate promotion, any character can sustain at least a miniseries.  Even the Super-Skrull's book sold in respectable quantities.  Choosing Nova as the cast member to get an ongoing series seems reasonable enough.

The series starts off with Nova as the last survivor of the Nova Corps, the rest of whom were wiped out in Annihilation: Prologue.  This handily removed one of the major problems with Nova - the distressing similarity between the Nova Corps and the Green Lantern Corps over at DC.  Now, Nova has all the power of the Nova Corps to himself, which means that he's become ridiculously powerful.  In theory he should restart the Corps and share the power out, but in practice he can't bring himself to ignore the distress calls long enough to get that done.

Most of the first issue is about re-establishing Nova's status quo.  Curiously, though, the story ends by bringing him back to earth.  It's difficult to see how this fits with what came before, and it reads worryingly like an attempt to shoehorn in an Initiative crossover issue.  Which wouldn't be so bad if the series didn't have a crossover with Annihilation: Conquest scheduled almost immediately afterwards.

I'm reminded of Warlock and the Infinity Watch, a series that was launched after the success of Infinity Gauntlet, and then spent its first two years in almost constant crossover.  I really do hope that Nova isn't going to fall into that trap, because it has a perfectly good premise that's worth exploring further.  It just needs the space to do so, and it doesn't look like it's going to get it.

Still, the first issue is an effective introduction to the character, and artist Sean Chen manages to make the new spiky costume work.  There's a lot to like in this issue; I just can't quite believe that the series will get the chance to develop it properly.

Rating: B+

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