When Nova Fought Megaman On Star Trek!!

You know who really freaked me out as a kid?

THIS guy freaked me out.

 All right, all right, make your Capcom video game hero jokes. Get it out of your system. This was a full decade earlier!

So who was Mr. No Face?

Well, about 6 months ago, Caps Cooper and his uncle Nat were hiking in the wilderness, when they stumbled upon one of those incendiary time-portal pools that you hear so much about:

Fortunately, when he wakes up a kajillion years in the future...where Marv Wolfman...ahem...homages...about three different Star Trek episodes:

That "we don't know how to rebuild humans properly" is straight from The Cage/The Menagerie...

Well, Nat manged to sneak away and come back to our time, where he called himself Megaman, and tried to get back with his awful wife and family.

Let's emphasize that the helpful molecule was a female molecule, just so we can crib from another Star Trek episode, Metamporphosis...

After a couple of issues of pointless fisticuffs, we completely and totally using the ending from Charlie X:

For comparison...the end of Charlie X:



All righty then.

Megaman turned up quite awhile later in a Quasar story, because of course Mark Greunwald lived to revive obscure Marvel characters. Then he had a teeny tiny cameo during Secret Invasion. Since then...nothing.

C'mon, Marvel...bring back the no-face who freaked me out as a kid. There are generations who haven't been freaked out yet (and hundreds of more Star Trek episodes to borrow stories from)!!

From Nova #8-9 (1977)

Manic Monday--The Man Without What Now??

As most of you have seen, Marvel is running these odd promos:


"Who Will Be The New Man Without Fear?"

So far they've put out teasers featuring Nova, Kraven, Gambit, Black Panther, and Falcon.

Apparently, Daredevil is going to lose that "title"...but really, what does that matter?

It's not a title. It's not like he's Sorcerer Supreme, or Protector Of The Universe, or Green Lantern Of Sector 2814.

It's not a job description--there no extra duties involved, no special powers, no cosmic jewelry.

It's just a nickname, something people occasionally called him (and inside the book, in the stories, Matt Murdock was very rarely called that, anyway).

So why is Marvel wasting this much time on these silly promos, if it doesn't mean anything? It would be like Iron Man getting new armor, and Marvel running a week of promos, "Who Will Be The New Golden Avenger?" or when green Hulk was gone for awhile teasing us, "Who Will Be The New Jade Jaws?"

So who really cares, Marvel?

And even if the meaning of the promo is that some other hero will end up "policing" Hell's Kitchen in Daredevil's place, why do they have to take the silly nickname??

Sometimes I think Marvel's publicity department is a little overstaffed, and they have to keep doing these ridiculous drawn-out promos constantly to keep the layoffs at bay.

Lot of publicity drama for what will surely be a pretty boring reveal...unless, of course, said new "Man Without Fear" is going to have his fear center surgically removed, and have to cope with the dangers of not having normal fear reflexes, and...

PS. Who should be The Man Without Fear? Duh. The Vision. Next!

Things That Make me Smile--Cosmo

You know why I love comics books?

Because this week's issue of Nova features a dog.

A talking dog.

A talking Russian dog.

A talking Russian dog with a devastating sonic bark attack.

A talking Russian dog with a devastating sonic bark attack fighting zombies.

A talking Russian dog with a devastating sonic bark attack fighting superhero zombies.

A talking Russian dog with a devastating sonic bark attack fighting superhero zombies INSIDE THE FLOATING HEAD OF A DEAD CELESTIAL!!!

Thank you, Dan Abnett, for teaching us the true meaning of the holiday season.

This moment of joy brought to you by Nova #9. Dan, you had me at talking dog.