Oct 5, 2008

[Comics] Annihilation: Nova

Annihilation: NovaIf DC Comics has the Green Lantern Corp and the Darkstars, then Marvel has, well, the Nova Corps. I never really knew much about the Nova Corps before reading Annihilation - I had only encountered Richard Rider as part of the New Warriors, since they had a lot of run-ins with my favorite comic book character, Spider-Man.

What was rather interesting about how Annihilation involved Nova was really to put him back into the intergalactic setting instead of him being just another super-hero who can fly really fast. I didn't know much about Nova before this series and what I have seen I can certainly respect.

Nova (comics)Image via WikipediaWhen the Annihilation Wave broke into the "positive" universe from their home in the Negative Zone, one of their first casualties was the bulk of the Nova Corps on the Xandar. Well, perhaps saying "the bulk" were killed given that there weren't many survivors. In fact, there was only one - Earth's Richard Rider.

Quite injured himself, he is contacted by the central intelligence of the Nova Corps - the Worldmind - and tasked with ensuring the future of the Nova Corps. In order to do this, he takes in the Worldmind into himself along with the entire Nova Force - the source of the power for all of the Nova Corps. This gives him far greater powers coupled with the guidance of the Nova Corps Worldmind.

The rest of the series follows the tale of Richard Rider, how he comes to terms with his increased power, the constant prodding of the Worldmind in order to force him to simply flee the conflict and protect itself from the forces of the Annihilation Wave. He is eventually joined by Drax the Destroyer and his human companion, the child Cammi and eventually they work together with many others such as Quasar to help save as many lives as possible from the invading forces of Annihilus.

As with the rest of the Annihilation comics, it certainly does the trick of presenting high-stakes space action. You can't get away from the fact that in many respects, Nova plays a very central role in the overall series. He does have the entire Nova Force at this command, after all, and there are tales of how the entire Annihilation story started as a way to revitalize Nova - they just happened to expand the tale and take in a whole lot of other characters into the mix as well.

The best character brought into this storyline would definitely have to be the Worldmind itself - instead of just being a robotic computer mind that would just provide helpful information or take in commands about how to alter energy distribution and speed. Instead the Worldmind starts out rather overwhelming and oppressive and eventually learns to deal with Richard more along human terms. He even develops a limited sense of humor as he gains more and more experience with dealing with Nova directly within the confines of his mind.

Of course this is not the end of the tale but merely a story that builds up to the overall Annihilation conflict. That's where the real action is set to take place.


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