Favourite comics: Nova #1 John Buscema , Marv Wolfman - A new hero or Spider-Man in space?

By 1976/77 I was 16 going on 17 years old and my interest in superhero comics was starting to wane. I needed something new that would be a fun and exciting read to retain my interest in the genre and that happended in June 1976 with the first issue of Marv Wolfman's brainchild, “The Man Called Nova” ( cover above by Buckler/Sinott). Of course the main selling point about Nova was that he had more than a passing resemblance to a certain Peter Parker, with a bit of Green Lantern in his origin. The fact that issue 1 ( and #2) was illusrtated by John Buscema and Joe Sinnot added even more fun to this origin issue.

From issues 3-14 the equally great Sal Buscema took over the art chores (with Tom Palmer and Frank Giacoia on inks) and from issue 15 until #25 (the final issue) Carmine Infantino was the artist. Although the first 4 issues showed great promise with issue 5 the storyline ( for myself anyway) took on a bit of a dip by trying to emulate Lee/Kirby/Ditko's trick of trying to bring the character into the "real" world by having him visit the Marvel bullpen in order to get them to give him his own mag - unlike Stan Lee's simialr storys this failed big time, and my interest in Nova began to wane- although when I saw the above cents copy on sale recently, it didnt stop me picking it up to replace my long lost 10p UK original .