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| Images copyright MARVEL COMICS |
"IN THE MARVELLOUS TRADITION OF SPIDER-MAN!" said the first cover of THE MAN CALLED NOVA - and Spidey himself eventually showed up on the cover of #12, bringing things full circle as far as my limited collection of the title goes. I'll have to re-read them some day and refresh my memory as to their contents, but the fact that I recall little about them suggests that they were far from memorable. Not all comics can be instant classics, of course, but there seems to have been fewer of them during the '70s than in the '60s. In fact, now that I think about it, there hasn't been as many in any subsequent decade either, come to that.
So, while I ponder what I'm going to hit you with next, I'll leave you to enjoy the following covers and splash pages. Can you recall what you were doing when you first set eyes on these images so very long ago? (Apart from reading the comicbooks they come from, obviously. No need to be a wise-guy, Charlie!)
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6 comments:
I remember all these from Rampage weekly so at the time I was in the first year of comprehensive school - the Nova/Spidey cover was on Super Spider-Man & Captain Britain, I was looking at it online a couple of weeks ago. Kid, you said a few days ago that the Nova covers by Jack Kirby were examples of his worst artwork but I rather like the first one here,it looks quite dynamic I'd say.
It's still hardly Kirby at his best 'though. Kirby wasn't designing the covers, incidentally. I forget exactly who it was - either Marie Severin or John Romita (or someone else) - designed their layouts which Kirby then copied pretty faithfully. However, Thor on #4 is far from the best example Kirby ever did of the character.
Somehow I missed these as a kid but they're Kirby so even if they're not his best I. Still. Want. Them. Luckily they're available as collections from Marvel. Nova Classic volumes 1 and 2 are out now with volume 3 being published next month. The first two are on Amazon and with a bit of luck I'll be the proud owner of both by the end of the week. Thanks for highlighting these.
No problem, SD - glad the post inspired a purchase of the collected editions, and I hope you enjoy them. (I may look them up myself.)
It struck me that Nova was intended to be a more "kid-friendly" title- in a landscape of barbarians, vampires, death-worshipping Titans, Celestial Madonnas and baby-eating Martians.
Nova must also rival Captain Mar-Vell for number of revivals. The current version is the fifth by my reckoning, although it's the cartoon incarnation.
There was a nice comicbook a couple or so years back, which reprinted a few Nova stories, Dougie. In fact, it may even have had a new story of the then-current Nova. However, the first '70s story was nicely coloured in the modern tradition and looked very nice indeed.
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