Nova #1-#3: You Can't Go Home Again

***** (five of five stars)

Favorite Quote:  “Peter Parker – the ‘Daily Bugle’ photographer – is Spider-Man?”  -- a stunned Nova responding to the news of Spidey’s unmasking

Summary
As the last member of the Nova Corps, Richard rockets around the Universe dealing with the aftermath of the Annihilation Wave.  As he does so – defeating a giant techno-organic creature on Turakis and a delayed pod of Annihilus’ minions on Halexa – Worldmind continues to voice its concern that he’s moving too fast and will burn out quickly.  After he almost kills the both of them by ignoring Worldmind’s navigational control and flying too close to a “super-gravitational event,” he relents and agrees to take some downtime.  Returning to Earth, he visits his parents, who give him the details on the destruction of the school in Stamford that killed Namorita and Night Thrasher and started the superhero "Civil War."  Dinner – and Richard’s dad’s diatribe about superheroes – is interrupted by Iron Man; SHIELD tracked Richard as a possible threat given his powerful power profile.  Iron Man is shocked by the new Nova, who gets upset with him when he realizes that the superhero community was so busy fighting its "Civil War" that it had essentially ignored the death of billions during the Annihilation Wave.  Iron Man tries to convince Nova to register, which he considers particularly important given that he’s a former member of the New Warriors.  Justice also tries to convince Richard to join.  At home, Richard’s dad is deeply disturbed when he discovers Worldmind controlling Richard’s body.  While Richard is on a walk to clear his head, he’s attacked by Diamondhead, who had staked out Richard’s parents’ house after Richard’s identity was revealed in the press after the Stamford incident (a result of his New Warriors connection).  Nova defeats Diamondhead, but attracts the attention of the Thunderbolts, against whom he holds his own.  Iron Man arrives to diffuse the situation, and Nova reveals his shock that villains like Venom are working for the government.  At home again, Richard’s father screams at him for fighting the Thunderbolts (“They’re the good guys!”) and his parents encourage him to register.  Angered by their implication that something is wrong with him mentally, Richard leaves the house, only to encounter Penance.  Robbie expresses his guilt over the Stamford incident, and Richard encourages him to move past it.  He then leaves Earth, telling his parents via a hijacked satellite feed that he’s needed elsewhere and that he’s the only one who can do the job he has to do. 

The Review
DnA cover a lot of ground here.  Richard goes on a full emotional and physical journey, beginning the story longing for home in space as he still deals with the aftermath of “Annihilation” and ending it seeking solace in space from the insanity of “Civil War” on Earth.  I couldn’t hope for a better start to this series.  I really hated Erik Larsen’s brief “Nova” series, the last time we got to see Nova in his own book.  This arc was repudiation, on all levels, of that series, showing us Nova as an adult hero.  To paraphrase the President quoting the Bible, Richard has put away childish things, and DnA get that point across clearly here.

The Really Good
1) I spend a lot of time overseas with my job, and I felt like I was reading a comic-book version of my life at points during this arc.  I was living overseas from 2000-2004, which meant that I wasn’t in the States for September 11th or its aftermath.  Every time I went home during that era, I eagerly awaited living in my own culture, of not being a stranger in a strange land.  But, just like Nova and the "Civil War," I found that the most disturbing part of going home in those post-September 11th years was that I still felt like a stranger in a strange land.  The culture was changing rapidly without me, and I often found myself surprised and occasionally disturbed by the changes.  For me, DnA really, really got that hue of shock down perfectly.  I should read these issues again right before I got home next summer, so I can prepare myself better!

2) If the "Civil War" was the macro-version of the expression, “You can’t go home again,” Nova’s fighting with his parents was the micro-version.  Everyone who’s ever left home inevitably goes back again only to find that his parents still view him as the person that left.  It didn’t matter that Richard led an intergalactic effort to save the Universe, he still found himself trying to explain himself to his father.  It’s a classic tale, but DnA still do a great job of making it poignant here.

3) Speaking of his accomplishments, I felt like DnA really got right the fact that everyone still viewed Richard as who he had been.  It doesn’t matter that Ronan the Accuser considers him a brother, Richard is still just the kid he was when he left, a member of the New Warriors, nothing more, nothing less.  Again, we all go through that moment.  No matter how successful you are in life, you’re never going to convince your First Grade teacher (or, you know, Iron Man) you’re not a kid with a runny nose who can’t figure out his Velcro sneakers.

4) Richard’s conversation with Robbie was really poignant.  You could feel Robbie’s guilt just exuding from him.  Richard’s comment – “Don’t let them turn you into something you’re not.” – was pitch-perfect.