The MAN CALLED NOVA COVER & SPLASH PAGE GALLERY - PART ONE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Looking back, it seems to me that the sizzlin' '70s was a great time to be a teenager.  Great movies, great programmes - and great comics.  Whether NOVA was one of them, I'll leave you to make up your own mind, but it sure is one which conjures up images of long, hot, seemingly never-ending summers in the myriad mazes of my memory.  Surprisingly, Nova, created by MARV WOLFMAN & LEN WEIN, first debuted in a fanzine called SUPER ADVENTURES back in 1966, before his MARVEL COMICS appearance ten years later.

JOHN ROMITA Sr. tweaked the costume design, though it was JOHN BUSCEMA who performed the art chores for the first two issues.  RICHARD RIDER, Nova's teenaged alter-ego, bore similarities to SPIDER-MAN, although his origin appears to have been 'borrowed' from GREEN LANTERN.  The comic lasted for 25 issues, of which I have the first dozen, so let's now wallow in nostalgia for our lost youth as we gaze again upon the cataclysmic covers and sensational splash pages of - The MAN CALLED NOVA! 

See you in Part Two - coming soon!

Not one of Kirby's best, it has to be said...

...nor is this one.  Jack had lost his magic, alas

HOWARD The DUCK COVER & SPLASH PAGE GALLERY - PART ONE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

He had a 'walk-on' part in a MAN-THING tale in ADVENTURE Into FEAR #19 in 1973, appeared next in a couple of back-up stories in GIANT-SIZE MAN-THING #4 & 5, and was then awarded his own comic mag in 1976.  Created by STEVE GERBER & VAL MAYERIK, he eventually underwent a slight revision in appearance when DISNEY (who ironically now own MARVEL) objected to the character on the grounds that he was too similar-looking to DONALD DUCK.

The rest, as they say, is history - and it's a history we're now about to re-live by looking at the covers and splash pages of the first dozen issues (in two parts) of his own magazine.  Incidentally, I'll have to re-read these mags again as I don't recall too much about them - apart, that is, from #3, which is an absolute classic in comicbook entertainment.  A word to the wise - track one down on eBay right away - you'll be glad you did!

See you in Part Two - coming soon!