Man called Nova 10, was by Marv Wolfman and Sal Buscema, with Frank Giacoia on inks. It opens with a b/c list villain called the Firefly getting his face kicked in by Nova. Nova drops him off with the police, who inform him that all charges for his recent actions have been dropped and he nips off home. He’s reminded that he’s been waiting on his mid-term results and to alleviate the boredom uses information from the original Nova’s ship to find one of his earliest villains, the Condor. He finds the Condor, Powerhouse and Diamondhead all attacking the forces of the Sphinx. The Sphinx is unconcerned with this threat, unlike his minion Kur (Seriously? This guy called himself Kur?) but eventually, the Sphinx enters the fray.
Nova arrives on the scene and is blasted by Condor, covering him in what looks exactly like a pink chewing gum bubble. When Nova flies away, Condor tries to do the same to the Sphinx, but fails. Powerhouse also doesn’t do to well and Diamondhead ends up buried in the side of a mountain.
Nova flies to the power plant where he fought Firefly and waits for the unstable reactor’s heat to melt the bubble and he flies back to the fight and battles with Powerhouse, while still trying to get Powerhouse to leave Condor’s service. Powerhouse holds Nova and drains him to unconsciousness. Meanwhile Condor flies back to battle the Sphinx and with the interference of Kur is shot in the back by a blast meant for the Sphinx. Angered by Condor’s demise, Sphinx changes him into an actual condor. Sphinx curses Kur’s foolisness and then walks away to blast Powerhouse, now having both him and Nova at his mercy, ready for him to take their memories.
Relevance: Not much in and of itself, but the characters in this kept coming back and played a greater role in the Marvel Universe.
Notes: I do enjoy this series, it was fun and interesting with relatable characters and an intriguing back story. This was one of those trying to recapture the lightning that was Spider-Man type of characters, like Blue Beetle III, Firestorm I and so on, but this was one that I followed quite extensively, through New Warriors, his own series and into the Abnett/Lanning Marvel Cosmic stuff and it was enjoyable from the beginning and this series was the reason why. Where there problems with it? Yes, the tech and science stuff was pretty ludicrous, the Sphinx has undefined powers that were only plot relevant and not explained any other way, but like good comics from this time, it didn’t stop it being a good read and I came back for the rest of the series.
Next Time: Far far away, long long ago….. You can guess the rest
My Marvel Life 