Nova #26 Review

NOVA #26
Written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Art by Andrea Di Vito

With Richard Rider back as the Nova Prime and that striking cover promising some pay back against the Shi'ar, I was expecting some high flying action from Nova this month. In that regard, I was disappointed, but that doesn't mean the issue was bad either. Far from it, in fact.

Abnett and Lanning took a much more logical approach to Nova's return by having him help with the extraction of the various Nova Centurions scattered about the numerous hot zones. There's a bit of clunky exposition during the opening of these scenes where they use several new recruits to verbally tell us what is going on, but otherwise it was a very well written sequence of events that culminated with Nova arriving on the planet where the former Nova Prime was captured and Richard discovers the platoon of troops were slaughtered by the Shi'ar - revealed by a rather large pile of empty and bloodied centurion helmets.

From there, we see the work of the Fraternity of Raptors (although they don't actually appear) with the Shi'ar waging war on the ceded territories of Ravenous. We find out Ravenous's forces have fought the Shi'ar to a standstill and this forced Vulcan to send Strontian, Gladiator's evil cousin, to assassinate Ravenous. Robbie Rider, Nova's brother and whom Richard was looking for, oddly enough shows up to save Ravenous, ending the issue with Strontian trapped in a forcefield of some kind. I doubt she's overly phased by this and we'll either see Robbie getting trounced next issue or Nova coming in for the save.

Verdict - Check It. While I quite enjoyed the issue, it was fairly laid back and straight forward in its execution and lacked any real tension or drama that would warrant a must read verdict. It's just sort of there and fans of the book will love it while those wondering what all the fuss is about the book will probably be left wondering, "that's it", if they jump in on this issue, so that's why it gets a check it from me.

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