When The Man Called Nova came out in 1976, I was 13 years old and it hit me like a brick in the face--I was floored. But it was a good kind of floored-- and a good kind of brick.  These days it seems that there are a couple dozen first issues out every week but in 1976, the introduction of a new superhero in his own book was a relatively unusual occurrence. To a kid who had no prayer of ever getting all the back issues of his favorite Marvel mags (and I was a full-on Marvel Zombie, back when a kid could actually afford to get most of the Marvel line, Millie the Model notwithstanding) getting in on the ground floor of a bombshell like Nova was a dream come true! I loved it.

Marv Wolfman and Len Wein, like many funnybook pros (myself included) toiled away on amateur comic book publications called fanzines, in their formative years. They had created a hero called the Star who, in his later appearances, was updated to become a character named Black Nova.

Years later, when Marv was at Marvel, he dusted off this childhood creation and with a spectacular redesign from comic book legend John Romita Sr., The Man Called Nova was set to soar!  And soar it did-- at least at first. Big John Buscema and Joltin' Joe Sinnott drew the first couple issues at got the ball rolling in an awe-inspiring fashion. John's brother Our Pal, Sal Buscema picked up the artistic reins aided by Titanic Tom Palmer for the few that followed. Still, it wouldn't be long before the art teams seemed to switch on an almost monthly basis and in a new book just trying to get its footing-- that wasn't a good thing.

Marv was relatively new at writing superheroes, having crafted many fine issues of The Tomb of Dracula and in some ways, he seemed to have troubles as well. Stories sprawled, too many coincidences, a stupid Sherlock Holmes robot and that Sphinx guy kept coming back again and again. Slowly but surely, I watched as my favorite new Marvel mag fell apart. Soon, the book was bi-monthly. Then the characters went off on what promised to be an epic space adventure and shortly thereafter, The Man Called Nova came to an abrupt end. The book lasted 25 issues.

What made matters worse, was that Nova went all but ignored in the months and years that followed. He made a brief appearance in the Fantastic Four but after that-- nothing. When Bill Mantlo used him in an issue of Rom Spaceknight I was ecstatic but it was short lived-- the character had his powers taken away and was sent home in that very issue.
 
It was over.

In 1982 I published my own fanzine featuring a character called the Dragon. That fanzine lead to me getting some of my first paying jobs in the comic book field, which lead to me doing stuff at Marvel comics. My first regular Marvel assignment was The Punisher, which was, at the time, one of Marvel's biggest sellers. I hated it. I always thought of myself as a superhero guy-- a fellow who loved to write and draw bigger than life superhero action and here this guy was-- hauling around a carefully referenced gun in a realistic setting for months on end.

For five agonizing issues, I labored to make this book everything I possibly could but it was a losing battle. With no other prospects for employment, I made an attempt to get off of the book by submitting story ideas to other editors. I pitched an idea for a Hulk graphic novel to editor Bobbie Chase and to Terry Kavanagh, editor of the bi-weekly Marvel Comics Presents book-- I pitched a Nova serial.

It was accepted.

I quit the Punisher.

Then, my life fell apart.

Tom DeFalco had decided to introduce the New Warriors in the pages of Thor and in the process, my Nova story was killed--it just didn't fit into the scheme of things any longer. Worse, they called the character "Kid Nova" and gave him a new anything-but-cool costume. It wasn't long before Fabian Nicieza and Mark Bagley were up and running with an ongoing New Warriors comic-- I didn't buy it on principle.  Nova went from being the lovable loser that I dug as a kid to being a grunge slacker complete with plaid shirt, baggy pants and an unshaven face and a ponytail. Needless to say, I was far from stoked. Mark did, however, manage to get Nova back into a costume similar to the original-- even if it had a Christmas tree ornament on his forehead.

Meanwhile, I was drawing Amazing Spider-Man and life went on. Terry Kavanagh and I kept in touch and he gave me my first writing assignment for a Wolverine/Spider-Man tale that ran in Marvel Comics Presents #48-50. At some point, burnt out on drawing other peoples' stories, I left Amazing Spider-Man to do something else.

Anything else.

I wrote a pitch for a new Nova series and while it worked its way through the then-Marvel bureaucracy, I wrote, pencilled and inked a story for Spider-Man called Revenge of the Sinister Six which featured a cast of thousands that included (you guessed it) the man called Nova.

Eventually, the higher ups at Marvel decided that perhaps they'd be willing to take a chance of me doing a Nova mini-series but that an ongoing monthly wasn't in the cards. Having heard that, I decided to dust off my own fanzine character and do a Savage Dragon mini-series for a newly forming company called Image comics-- with the idea that I'd get around to Nova shortly thereafter.

Not exactly how things worked out.

Savage Dragon was a huge success and rather than do a mini-series back at Marvel, I opted instead to stick it out at this new company that I helped form and continue the adventures of Fandom's favorite fin-head.  Nova got a second series. Fabian Nicieza and Chris Marrinan launched ol' bucket-head into a second shot at the brass ring in January 1994. This time out, the hero "with an attitude" had the latest costume cliches of the month, straps aplenty and useless red Twinkies draped over his shoulders to make him look hip and contemporary (that's not to badmouth Twinkies-- I love as much Twinkies as the next guy but I like 'em in my face, not sewn onto my shoulders).

This new book started off with a bang but soon found itself in trouble as well. The parent book New Warriors had just gone through some personnel changes and was in a weakened state and as part of an expanding Warriors-related line Nova the book soon found itself part of multi-issue crossovers that wouldn't quit. Nicieza moved on and when that happened, he recommended that his successor on the title be a guy who was making a bit of a splash over at Marvel's newest competitors-- me. The problem was, at the time, Marvel had a policy that anybody who was on staff at a competing comic book company couldn't work for them-- and I was one of the owners of Image comics. That snag in place, the writing chores went to Chris Marrinan who did an admirable job of filling Fabe's footwear. To no avail-- Nova's second series came to an end after an 18 issue run. Soon after, the New Warriors folded their tent as well.

Later, Marvel rescinded its policy involving freelancers on staff elsewhere and soon Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee treated us all to the Heroes Reborn re-launching of Captain America, Iron Man, Fantastic Four and the Avengers.  After years of working just on Savage Dragon at Image, I must admit that I missed playing around with the cool characters at Marvel and DC. So I decided to try my hand at doing some freelance work for the two companies. I landed Aquaman at DC and had pitched a proposal at Marvel when Mark Powers tapped on me to take over writing Wolverine. It all came together.

Almost.

Glenn Greenberg was the guy who initially contacted me about sending in a pitch for a new Nova series. He was well aware of my love for the character and he did his best Princess Lea impersonation-- telling me I was Nova's "only hope" and that if the character was to ever get his own book again it would need a high-profile team to do it. The real beauty of the idea to me was that I wouldn't have to be following anybody else's lead. The New Warriors were history so that book wouldn't dictate and direction to me either verbally or visually-- I could do the book the way I wanted to do the book this time.  I had him a proposal in record time. It was given the green light almost as fast and I went about putting together my dream team
to make the book a reality...

Joe Bennett was my first choice as penciller-- I'd seen what he was doing on Amazing Spider-Man and I saw in him the potential I saw in many of today's most popular artists-- this guy is going to be huge, believe me.  Armando Durruthy was a former assistant to Scott Williams and his sample pages over Joe's pencils absolutely floored everybody. Expect great things from this relative newcomer. Chris Eliopoulos letters most everything I can get him to letter. I worked with him on Spider-Man and I work with him on Savage Dragon and Aquaman and he's everything one can want from a letterer as well as being a gifted cartoonist in his own right. At Marvel, Chris also letters Mutant-X.  Steve Oliff has been the standard by which all other colorists are measured. His work has inspired a generation of colorists and his pioneering in the field of computer coloring has made him the king of comic book color. Many of the fine colorists whose work you see were taught their craft by this legendary master. We're darned lucky to have him.

So here we are-- 23 years after the creation of Nova, launching his third ongoing series with his 44th comic, the all-new Nova, the Human Rocket #1. Although this series will use some of the characters from both of the old Nova series' as well as the New Warriors, it's not at all necessary to have read all of the old stuff to enjoy the new. I'll be filling in the gaps as we go along so that you can get caught up to speed on what you may have missed.

I'm really excited about doing this book-- it's a dream come true for me. I hope you enjoy this book as well.
I get the feeling that this time-- Nova's going to make it.

-Erik Larsen

Ps. Do me a favor-- send in those cards and letters so that I won't have to blather on like this again. Letters pages need letters!