Nova is one of those cool Marvel Comics cosmic characters that just never gets a fair shake. With Marvel NOW! two of Marvel’s best creators, Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness, are starting a new era for the Nova Corps. The story is still new with Nova #2, so you have time to catch up!

In Nova #1, Sam Alexander finds himself holding a powerful helmet and he met a talking raccoon and green-skinned alien that are part of a super group calling themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy. In issue #2, Sam begins to try and learn about his heritage and just who the Nova Corps is!

Check out these advanced images from Nova #2 here below.

Marvel NOW! is progressing nicely overall with some solid titles, mostly The Avengers by Jonathan Hickman but the new Fantastic Four is also quite good. Coming in April Brian Michael Bendis and Frazer Irving bring Uncanny X-Men into the NOW! with an all-new story starting with issue #5 that follows the mission of Marvel NOW! completely. The idea is that books in this initiative will start new stories and directions for characters so that lapsed readers can jump back in but current readers will still appreciate the story because it still exists within current continuity.

Uncanny X-Men #5 finds Cyclops deep in the caverns of the old Weapon X facility training the next great generation of Mutantkind in the Charles Xavier School for Mutants! With new mutants popping up all across the Marvel Universe, Cyclops and his team must race to recruit. Cyclops has a new team and a new master plan and it all begins to unfold in April when Uncanny X-Men #5 hits comic book shops and digital apps.

Check out the cover for Uncanny X-Men #5 here below.

The teaser ending of Marvel’s The Avengers featuring the cosmic entity known as Thanos got many Marvel Comics fans excited, to put it mildly. If you’re new to the scene or just never followed the character before, now is your chance to learn who he is and what sort of threat he could be posing in both comic book and film form.

Thanos spent most of his time loitering in cosmic-related books such as Fantastic Four or the various incarnations of Silver Surfer and sometimes visiting the X world. Marvel is launching a new limited series as part of Marvel NOW! titled Thanos Rising which promises to give us the skinny on one ticked off bad guy. The creative team of writer Jason Aaron (Thor: God Of Thunder) and artist Simone Bianchi (Wolverine) have been tasked with telling this epic story in just five issues.

Check out the cover for Thanos Rising #1 here below.

Avengers #1
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Jerome Opena
Cover by Dustin Weaver
Marvel Comics
Release Date: December 5, 2012
Cover Price: $3.99

Perhaps the most exciting new entry on the Marvel Now! series of comics is Avengers. Jonathan Hickman has taken over this series from the very capable hands of Brian Michael Bendis. Hickman made a name for himself with his work on Ultimate Fantastic Four, then the regular FF bock, and then the Future Foundation series. Hickman brought a sense of science fiction to the Fantastic Four which fit that series perfectly. Fantastic Four has always been a sci-fi series, sort of Lost in Space, Star Trek, and a family dramedy all in one. He has big shoes to fill stepping into the Avengers and now with issue #1 of the series we get a look at what his big plans are.

Rather than step out of his science fiction comfort zone, Hickman has brought those sensibilities to what has been a fairly earthbound book. The initial reaction I had is, awesome! The new villains are very reminiscent of something you’d see in one of the cosmic books such as Silver Surfer or even Fantastic Four and in this first issue it was interesting to set Earth’s Mightiest Heroes up against them.

In what has to be one of the oddest cross promotions Marvel Comics has executed, the company’s new brand Marvel NOW! will be a featured category on the television quiz show Jeopardy! this Thursday.