User blog:Hawkeye2701/Review4U: Sam Alexander the Newest Nova

Okay, this latest review comes courtesy of Dryankee17 who asked me to review Sam Alexander as the newest Nova. As with previous reviews, I should probably clarify my position on the Novas right now. I know nothing of any other Nova. Sam was the first one I encountered in the Ultimate Spiderman cartoon, he's the Nova during AVX, so I don't actually know about any Nova but him. This could be seen as both an advantage and a disadvantage. The character can stand on his own without having to live up to the others, but at the same time, he could be an utter disappointment and I'd never know it. So without further adieu... yeah, that looks right, here is Sam Alexander, the Newest Nova.

A Brief History of Nova
Sam Alexander was a kid in a small town in Arizona called Carefree. You can skateboard from one end to the other, nothing ever happens there and there is basically nothing worth doing. Sam's father, Jesse, is a janitor at the local highschool which, as you might have guessed, gets his teenaged son a lot of flak from the local bully. His father, Jesse Alexander, happened to be an alcoholic from every indication who doesn't do his job well, leaving Sam to stay behind after school and help clean up before dragging his father's drunken ass back home. All that Jesse seems to have going for him are fanciful stories he told his children about being a Nova, something his daughter still relishes, but Sam is now wearing more than a bit thin with. Needless to say, between a town in the middle of nowhere, a father everyone makes fun of and his parents generally thinking Jesse is a much bigger deal than Sam himself perceives him to be, the kid has a lot of teenaged angst to go around. One day, he comes back to find a hole blown in the side of the shed his father hangs out in and, thinking his old man has ran out of them, goes to pursue. With the textbook grace of a Marvel hero, he falls and cracks his skull. Landing his ass in hospital, Sam is in and out of consciousness for days until he wakes up at one point to find Gamora (The Hottest Space Lady in Marvel) and Rocket Raccoon (One of the Dumbest Space ideas in Marvel) standing in his hospital room trying to pass on Jesse's Nova helmet to him. Needless to say, he's more than a little surprised his father's drunken BS is standing on his food tray pointing a gun at him.

After some of the typical hijinks associated with this kind of origin story, Sam adapts quickly to the whole "I'm a Nova" thing. On his first flight into space, he ends up crashing into the Watcher, who strangely seems to be rather fond of Sam and not only helps him by pointing in the direction of incoming inter-stellar threats (Totally not interfering if he never says what he's pointing too, right?), but occasionally puts Sam in his place by playing back some of the things he's recorded. After a little training from Rocket and Gamora, he goes to intercept a Chitauri fleet the Watcher was pointing to only to encounter Titus, a seemingly Ex-Nova whom Jesse used to work with. The story Titus tells differs greatly from the gallant tales Jesse used to tell and the insane cyborg tiger man is now quite intent on wiping out Earth in a combination revenge/pre-emptive measure using a Ultimate Nullifier he created from the data stored in a Rigellian Recorder. Try saying that three times fast.

Anywho, Sam, being a teenager who has played video games, steals the nullifier and returns to Earth. Whilst there, he is once again attacked by Titus, the two of them destroying the local skate park. sam then flies them both right back to the Chitauri Fleet parked just off of Jupiter (Good thing he can move so fast, trips of several billion miles make me car sick) Once there, he turns the Nullifier on the fleet, threatening them to go away. Titus of course, is having none of this and makes a grab for the weapon, unintentionally activating it. Destroying the entire fleet and Titus, Rocket and Gamora show up just in time not to be of any help at all. When they ask for the Nullifier to store it safely, Sam repeats back one of Rocket's own lessons, trust no one and takes off. He hands the nullifier off to the Watcher, saying he was the first person to believe in Sam, and that he thinks the watcher was probably meant to have it.

It's roughly around this point that AVX happens and Sam goes missing for two weeks. During this time he was being hunted across the universe by a Cosmic entity, losing track of days moving at seemingly beyond light speed and occasionally crashing into New York before finally, and quite epically, tackling a Dark Phoenix Cyclops to ground with a sorta witty one liner.

Returning home, he makes peace with his mother over the whole Nova thing, but insists upon two things. One, he's not joining the Avengers and two, 'Knowing Thor' is not a religion. So Sam sets off to make his mark. He soon finds this hero thing is a bit more difficult than he thought. When trying New York, Otto von Spiderman quickly gets pissed off with the young hero and demonstrates how little New York needs another hero by literally waiting ten seconds to see if one passed by. It did, it was Iron Man. Taking this as clear indication, Sam set off for Los Angeles, now believing Spiderman was kind of a jerk. There, he interrupts a movie crew shooting what I can honestly say was the single most tasteless piece of Cinema I've seen since Chucky, but since I'm not reviewing a movie, I once again digress. Running out of ideas, Sam returns home and starts helping fix the skate park he destroyed.

Having spent two months helping rebuild the park, Sam flies off after havng his secret identity made by his crush Carrie, only to take his helmet off like a moron and come crashing down at Nova speed into the now twice demolished park. After that massive screw up, he is abducted by what is quickly becoming the most unsettling Marvel Hero for me, Speedball, and his friend Justice. Looking to make Sam the newest member of their New New Warriors, which is sadly two guys with no money, no gas and no friends.

Anyway, they head back into town only to be greeted by Kaldera, a odd-eyed psycho from Thanos' army sent to take out the Nova presence on Earth. She gives Sam the chance to face her in honourable combat, fist to fist with no weapons, so Speedball, Justice, Sam, Kaldera and Sam's mom who was tied up all schlep back to the Donut store in the middle of nowhere that Speedball and Justice previously took Sam too (Seriously, the number of round trips in this comic is ridiculous) There, it quickly becomes apparent that Sam's lack of ability to do... anything without the Nova helmet is a crippling weakness when faced with a girl who, even without blades, is still a psycho. So Sam cheats, beats Kaldera up, who then teleports them both back to Thanos' meat ship. There, he put her down for having called him mother a cow. Heading home (Or rather being evicted) Sam heads back with the others in time to find his sister waking up and to convince her the crazy lady who held her captive was a dream.

Anyway, the New Warriors spend the night, having drafted up a contract agreeable to both them and Sam's mother should he sign. Unfortunately, Sam's ego gets the better of him and, blowing off the heroes and his mother, takes off to talk to the Watcher. Asking if he's being unreasonable, Uatu shows him the history of the old Nova, and Sam realises he was kind of an ass. Going back, he signs on to be a Reserve member of the New Warriors, though he's still grounded for storming off.

The Review
All in all, I like him. He's got a good, simple origin story, his background is clear, none of the mystery garbage that I've seen in a lot of them. Here we have a hero who didn't have his Dad's pathetic life turn out to be some rip roaring adventure he never knew about. His dad literally told him every day about this stuff and Sam just never believed, and I think that makes it really nice in a way, that Jesse shared all this with Sam. Sure Jesse isn't a prize, he has his failings like his drinking and choosing his wife over the lives of his friends, but you can tell he was a good man and he passed that on to Sam through these stories. Sam himself, while yes he wants to be a big hero and he kinda steps on the little guy (Ignoring the park, insulting the New Warriors) he does it cause he sees himself as a Galactic Hero, someone who takes care of big problems with what is honestly, a pretty phenomenal power. Nova does seem like the sort of hero who could be up there with the heavy hitters and that's what Sam sees in this, but he just tends to forget that getting there involves doing the small stuff first. He's still finding his feet as far as his hero career goes and I honestly can't wait to see what becomes of him.

I have no issues with the character as such, his initial contempt of his father is understandable, but a little irritating, if only because I, as a reader, am aware that what Jesse said is true unlike Sam initially was. He's got some character flaws, but nothing that's caused any real harm thus far and he's got a strong supporting cast between his mother, sister, Carrie, and the other teams who pop in now and then. His rogues gallery even, consisting of all of two people as it does isn't bad, I actually look forward to seeing more of Titus and Kaldera if possible as I really like them.

It's probably too early to tell what way Sam's character will progress, if he'll be a break out Nova and become a big time hero, or if he'll go the way of the New Warriors, but either way, even if he just keeps going at this sort of pace I think I'll really enjoy going along with him. So on behalf of Dryankee17, this is Hawkeye2701 signing off.