Or - “Major Spoilers, Major Time Crunch!  I Blame Stephen!”

 

There’s a couple of reasons why I do what I do here at Major Spoilers…  The first is, I love comics, and I know you do, too.  (See what I did there?)  I want you to look at Wednesdays the same way I do, with a combination of joy, expectation, and “What in the world will they do next?”  Basically, I want to share the love.

Also, and possibly more importantly, I’m an attention whore.  Problem is, I actually have two jobs other than this one, both of which tend to suck a lot of time out of my day.  I’ve fallen waaaaaay behind in my daily reviews (or, honestly, my thrice-a-week reviews, lately) and in order to keep from reviewing things that came out three or four weeks ago, I’ve decided to give you some extra bang for your buck, with a smorgasbord of reviews that I’ve fallen behind on.  It’s something like Friday nights when I was a kid, where you’d have whatever was in the fridge for supper, because nobody’s going to waste their time cooking for ya.  Heck, if it works out, we may do this on a semi-regular basis to remind you of the comics that I probably couldn’t honestly see devoting a whole review to.  And now, ON WE GO!

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New Mutants, robots, viruses? It must be a sneak peek of Nova #12 direct from Marvel Comics.

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An all new story for the last member of the Nova Corps begins in Nova #8. Richard Rider has been through hell since this latest series began, and now following up on Annihilation: Conquest, Nova finds himself at the edge of the universe.

Take the jump for the sneak peek from Marvel.

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Or - “THERE’S The Richie Rider I Remember…”

One of the great dangers of having a favorite character revamped is the nature of the comic industry, where ‘different’ is used as a synonym for ‘better.’ The All-New All-Different X-Men came around in 1975, but the tradition was decades old by that point. Even so, the reliance on ”Everything You Know Is Wrong!” has become a standard storytelling crutch, and with it comes the tendency to jettison everything from the characters’ previous appearances, collateral damage in the race for sales revenue. Luckily for me, Abnett & Lanning remember the same Nova that I do, and now, at his lowest point, they’re ready to remind us all (including Richie himself) of what that means…

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Here it is, the second half of your Marvel Sneak Peeks of titles arriving in stores this week. This installment brings you previews of NOVA 7, PUNISHER 51, PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL 12, RUNAWAYS 28, SPIDER-MAN/RED SONJA 3, WOLVERINE 58, WORLD WAR HULK: FRONT LINE 5, X-FACTOR 24, and X-MEN: DIE BY THE SWORD 1.

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Or - “This Is Highly Irregular, Dave…”

You can’t blame Marvel for trying to recapture the magic of Annihilation… A sprawling cosmic saga starring characters who have been dormant, mistreated, or disrespected for decades doesn’t seem to be an instant winner. But the readers really responded to Nova, Silver Surfer, Super-Skrull and Ronan’s adventures, and the use of nearly every character in Marvel’s space-faring arsenal was a lot of fun for the amateur historians among us. Annihilation: Conquest hasn’t quite put the lightning back in the bottle, but at least some of the same fun is present, even if the Phalanx aren’t quite the villain that Annihilus was. Then again, MOST 90’s characters aren’t up to the standards of a Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four antagonist…

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Time for the second half of Marvel sneak peeks arriving in stores this week. Today we bring you NOVA 6, PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL 11, SPIDER-MAN FAIRY TALES 4, THE LONERS 5, THOR 3, ULTIMATE POWER 7, ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN 113, ULTIMATE X-MEN 86, X-FACTOR 23, and X-MEN: EMPEROR VULCAN 1.

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Or - “It’s Not Namorita, But I’m Not Terribly Disappointed…”

The first Annihilation miniseries was a huge hit for Marvel, relaunching a number of concepts thought long-since rendered pointless, including Super-Skrull and Richard Rider’s Nova career. Nova’s history is full of ups and downs, in terms of power, story, and setting, so it’s good to see Rich return to his roots as a Centurion, and this is the first attempt to do the character in flat-out space opera (unless you count his series of cameos in ‘Rom’ and ‘Fantastic Four’ in the 80’s.) Not surprisingly, and probably not unexpectedly, there’s more than just a tinge of Green Lantern in this treatment, but with a totally Marvel twist on things. Normally, I might complain about the similarities between the two stories, but when they’re both actually GOOD, I tend to let it slide…

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Yes it’s going to be another huge week for Marvel titles hitting the news stands (something like 22 titles!), so we are once again breaking the weekend sneaks into two parts.

In this installment MARVEL ILLUSTRATED: THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK 2, NEW AVENGERS 33, NEW AVENGERS/TRANSFORMERS 2, NEW EXCALIBUR 22, NOVA 5, OMEGA FLIGHT 5, POWERS 25, PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL 10, ULTIMATE X-MEN 85, WORLD WAR HULK: FRONT LINE 3, X-FACTOR 22

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Or - “Worldmind Is A Fickle Omniscient Computer Program, Isn’t It?”

Reviewing Green Lantern and Nova back to back was an accidental decision, but one that ends up illustrating both the similarities between the characters, and the differences in direction of the respective concepts. Heck, if you really want to overthink it, you can use it as a metaphor for the big two comics companies: Green Lantern is about togetherness, about the gestalt, the Corps coming together against their opposite number much as DC’s characters are being forced to work together building up to Final Crisis. Nova is about the individual, the last survivor struggling alone in the ashes of a great war, muddling along as best he can, much as Marvel’s entire universe continues butting heads and fighting each other as much as any external threats. Neither approach can be said to be wrong, but they lead to very different takes on the same theme: interstellar war.

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I haven’t read this series, and know even less about the character, but apparently he is popular enough to warrant yet another sell-out issue from Diamond Comics Distributors according to Marvel.

“We can’t believe we’ve sold out 4 issues in a row, that’s fantastic. It just goes to show how many loyal fans of the Human Rocket there are out there.” said Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. “We hope the twists and surprises are still keeping everyone entertained, and judging from the ending of issue #4 you can bet there are some real shocks on the way as Nova finds himself–or should that be herself ?–involved in Annihilation: Conquest!”

Marvel also sent along a sneak peek at issue #5 that arrives in stores August 8, 2007.

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With ties to the Initiative and Annihilation storylines, Nova is probably a series to watch.

“We’d really like to thank all the fans who are sticking with us for the thrill ride that is NOVA!” said writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. “And to those who haven’t joined the fun yet, what’s keeping you? You’ve already missed out on alien battles with bugs from space, confrontations with Iron Man, a toe-to-toe slugfest with the Thunderbolts, plus all the fallout from the demise of the New Warriors and the rise of the Initiative!!”

To entice you further, Marvel has sent Major Spoilers a sneak peek to issue #4.

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Or - “It’s Always Sad When You Grow Up Faster Than Your Friends…”

I’ve always said that the original New Warriors series could be read as a metaphor for young adulthood, the time when we’re figuring out who we are and what we can do to screw up the world as an adult. If we read the Warriors as being like a super-hero college experience, (and if my experience was at all representative, it is even more so then “Freshmen”) then we can view the surviving members of the New Warriors as being roughly age 23 to 25, when the effects of the decisions you’ve made really start to catch up with you. But, is Richard Ryder going to take the path that leads to the little plastic retirement home, or will his game of Life end up flat busted?

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Ever since returning to Earth, Nova has had to deal with a world of confusion where his parents don’t recognize him, and Tony Stark is turning recruiting efforts up to 11.

Marvel Comics has sent Major Spoilers a sneak peek of issue #3.

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Or - “Turns Out You CAN Go Home Again, But Iron Man Will Probably Have It Bugged.”

Annihilation was a huge punch-’em-up cosmic-scale war in space, where valiant heroes fought against unbeatable odds, and pulled out a victory in the nick of time. Civil War was a huge punch-’em-up personal scale war in America, where valiant heroes fought against… um… other heroes and nobody really won except Iron Man. (Doctor Doom nuked Cleveland during the endless fighting, and remarked to the New York Post “It was easy! Nobody even NOTICED!”) Both battles took place relatively concurrently, and never the twain shall meet… until now. The winning generals of the two battles are about to have a little tête-à-tête (or perhaps helmête-à-helmête) with a result that surprised even me.

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