Nova #2

The first issue might have been a little too much set-up, but Nova #2 is a hell of a lot of fun. Sam Alexander wakes up in the hospital to find the fictional characters from his father's bedtime stories, Rocket Racoon and Gamora, standing at his bedside. Like any rational teenage hit with a crazy ass situation, Sam freaks the hell out (especially after the "talking raccoon" tries to shoot him).

Later that night, after initially deciding to get rid of it, Sam puts on the Nova Corps helmet keyed to his father's DNA, becomes the new Nova, and watches the final message from his father. The rest of the comic features Sam processing all that has happened over the past few days and experimenting with his new powers before crash landing on the moon at the feet of a Watcher.

Once again Ed McGuinness delivers some great art (although I like my Rocket Raccoon a little more cute and less feral) with so much of the heavy lifting done last issue Jeph Loeb writes a much tighter story with some great humor.

Although the origins of the Nova character are little more than a ripoff of Green Lantern (human given magic artifact by dying alien to join an intergalactic space peace keeping force), the choice here to use a less dickish version of the Ultimate Spider-Man TV-show's Nova works really well. With Sam's origin now established, I can't wait to see where things go from here. Best of the week.

[Marvel, $3.99]