At long last. Fans have been waiting a very long time to see Nova in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and now it seems that will finally be happening. With the recent news that Marvel will be bringing the popular character to the MCU, a lot of people are probably wondering what that will mean for future movies.
Fans were introduced to the Nova Corps in Guardians of the Galaxy all the way back in 2014. The intergalactic police force operated out of the planet Xandar and aided the Guardians in the fight to keep Ronan the Accuser from getting the Power Stone. However, as we learned in Avengers: Infinity War, the planet was “decimated” by Thanos when he began collecting the stones.
Now it appears the most famous of the Nova Corps will be the subject of his own MCU project. But the question now is, which version of the character will we see?
There are two main primary iterations of Nova from the comics. The first is Richard Rider, a human from Earth who was chosen to be the new Nova Prime after the destruction of Xandar. Rider’s stories have seen him team up with the Guardians and several other cosmic heroes.
Sam Alexander is a younger hero and a more Earthbound version of the character. While his origin story is also tied to the Guardians of the Galaxy, he eventually teams up with Miles Morales and Kamala Khan to form the teenaged super group known as the Champions.
Both characters have roles to play in some major crossover story arcs, including “Secret Invasion,” “War of Kings,” “AXIS” and “Outlawed.” Perhaps the biggest story for Richard Rider’s Nova though is “Annihilation.”
In this popular story arc, the creature known as Annihilus comes from the Negative Zone with his Annihilation Wave to wipe out our dimension. Nova leads the final defense against this Annihilation Wave, teaming up with the Guardians of the Galaxy and former heralds of Galactus.
It seems very possible we could see either version of the character in this upcoming Nova project, or perhaps even both. Richard Rider is probably the most popular version of the character but Sam Alexander does fit with the ongoing trend of the MCU introducing younger heroes. It’s possible we get Rider serving as an intergalactic version of Nova, leading the new Nova Corps while Alexander could team with these young heroes and operate more on the street level.
Either way, it will be very exciting to finally see Nova in the MCU after fans have waited such a long time for the arrival of the character.