Nova #23

Overall- I guess I should have read Guardians of the Galaxy #12 before I read this comic book... Whoops. Oh well... Here's a quick review of Nova #23. Rich is(trying)to come to terms with the fact that within 48 hours he'll be dead, due to the fact that his body was holding the power of the Nova Corp Worldmind for so long. Basically, a human body wasn't meant to hold that sort of power, so now that the Worldmind has left Rich to inhabit Ego, Rich's body is breaking down. Rich tells Quasar(Wendell Vaughn)these facts and is actually pretty detached about the whole situation. Quasar is way more freaked out than Rich about the news. While Quasar is trying to convince Rich that there must be SOMETHING to help him, Quasar suddenly senses something and abruptly teleports away. Rich wanders outside the Project PEGASUS labs, where he was staying, and realizes the place is swarming with Norman Osborn's HAMMER cronies.

One of the HAMMER officers begins to accost Rich because he doesn't have proper identification. Before Rich gets arrested, Dr Necker(she's one of the scientist who was trying to help Rich)steps in and gets Rich out of trouble by claiming that Rich was helping her move stuff out of the Project. After Rich and Dr Necker leave, she reveals that Osborn was shutting the Project down and as such, she was fired. Dr Necker takes Rich to an old drive-in movie theater, which is actually a front for a secret laboratory. So that's why those old drive-in movie theaters are still around!

Rich figures Dr Necker must be an undercover SHIELD agent, until he realizes he's standing in an AIM base. Yep, Dr Necker is really an undercover AIM agent! For those of you who don't know, AIM is basically an organization of mad scientist types who dress in what looks like yellow beekeeper outfits. Necker tells Rich that she still wants to help him, but Rich refuses her help, since he doesn't want to owe AIM anything, even at the price of his life. Necker tries to convince Rich to take her assistance, but he staunchly refuses and leaves.

As Rich is walking away, Necker chases after him and gives him the Quantum Flask that stores Quasar's powers/essence. Rich gives Necker a kiss, and proceeds to throw the flask at a wall, not wanting it to fall into the wrong hands after his inevitable death. The Flask explodes in a blinding flash, and when the lights fade, we see Quasar standing there. Quasar is holding the Quantum Bands(see, THAT'S why I should have read Guardians #12 first...)and offers them to Rich. Rich is obviously confused by this entire scene, but winds up putting the Bands on, which produces another brilliant flash of light. When the light fades this time, we see Rich dressed in Quasar's outfit, and powered by the Quantum Bands.

The other part of this comic dealt with the "War of Kings" storyline. Worldmind is monitoring the increasing amount of hostilities between the Kree and the Shi'ar. After deciding that at the rate things were moving, a full scale inter-galactic war might break out, Worldmind decides to take the entire Nova Corps, via Ego, near the Kree inhabited worlds to see if the Nova Corps could help stem the violence.

I liked this comic. It wasn't as good as I've seen this series, but it was solid. The idea of Rich becoming the new Quasar is kind of interesting. I actually like the idea a lot, since it opens the door for a spin-off series. If Marvel wanted to, they could focus the Nova series on the actual Nova Corps, and have a new Quasar series dedicated to Rich, like how DC has a GL Corps series that is focused on the entire Green Lantern Corps and a solo GL comic that focuses on Hal Jordan. I know I'd happily buy both titles. Other than that, I wasn't especially blown away by the events of this issue and at times Rich's lack of emotion towards his plight bugged me... Rich, you're going to be dead in less than 48 hours! Show some emotion or something!!! For a score, I'll give this issue a 7 out of 10. This issue was OK, but it kind of left me wanting something more. Something seemed just a bit off here... Maybe it was the "War of Kings" tie-in stuff, but I just didn't enjoy this issue as much as I usually enjoy this series. Oh well, there's always next month.