Don't Forget To Call Your Parole Officer

As Nova was leaving Earth in Nova #3 this week, I had what I thought would be a particularly wicked thought.

No, not that it would be funny to see Iron Man call Nova for help when the Hulk smashes every poor schmuck Stark runs out there at him, or how funny it would be to see Nova reply that he's much too busy to help Tony with yet another "squabble".

No, what I'd like to see is Nova place Stark on Interplanetary Probation. What I mean is, give Stark some little holographic doohickey that informs him that due to past actions, the Nova Corps considers him a possible danger to the stability of the universe, and so if he wants to venture more than oh, let's say 300,000 miles from the Earth's surface (that'll let him go about 60,000 miles past the Moon), he has to use a certain frequency to contact the Nova Corps and inform them of his plans to depart what we'll call "Earth-Space". He has to provide the time he's leaving Earth-Space, and when he plans to return (so the Nova Corps can know to search for him if something goes wrong, naturally), where he's going and why, what or who he's taking along, and what those people or objects are capable of. Since Stark is head of SHIELD, this might extend down to all his agents as well, since he could send them out under his orders in his place.

Now you might be asking yourself what grounds Nova would have for this. Well, first off I'm assuming that the Worldmind, in the course of its search for the locations of other New Warriors, stumbled across records of all the questionable stuff Iron Man pulled during Civil War. If Floyd and Urich figured it out, there must be others who did as well, and somebody's got to have an electronic record of it, so the Worldmind should find it pretty easily. Now, seeing as the government has made no move to try Tony Stark for those actions (either because they don't know, or don't care), there's really nothing Nova can do about it personally. What he can do is make a record that, for example, Tony Stark used nanites to manipulate Norman Osborn into attempting to assassinate an Atlantean ambassador (sort of, since apparently the bullet wouldn't really do the job), so as to ramp up public concern, and increase support for his policies. If he did that to his own people, what's to stop him from trying it on some other world?

Look at it this way. When Ronan was Supreme Accuser, he went around trying and executing people left and right, with the full support of the Kree Empire behind him. Legally, the Nova Force couldn't do much, because Ronan was typically acting within the Kree Empire, enforcing Kree law. The Nova Force can't act there unless requested. But the Nova Force kept a file on Ronan (as seen during the Annihilation: Ronan mini-series last year), about stuff he'd done, his powers, protocols for if you encounter him. You might not be able to stop him at that moment, but there could come a day when he does something you can bust him for, and it's good to know his crimes and what he can do.

Besides, once upon a time, Tony Stark was advocating killing the Kree Supreme Intelligence. Yes, there were some extenuating circumstances (like his concern that the Kree and Shi'ar would destroy Earth in their war), but he was still plotting to kill a sovereign ruler of a galactic empire. Who's to say he won't decide to kill Ronan, or whoever rules that planet the Centaurians live on, for some reason or another? It just seems like it would be a really good idea to keep tabs on a person like that.

Sure, Tony could ignore it, but they could always make sure to mention that violating this probation could result in imprisonment, or death if Stark feels like resisting arrest. It's a little thing, and kind of petty, but Iron Man is more than just a guy in a suit now. He's Director of SHIELD, and in the current Marvel-616 Earth, he'll likely have to be involved in any meetings Earth governments (those that affiliate with SHIELD anyway) have with extraterrestrials. It probably wouldn't help matters if Iron Man has been blatantly ignoring the laws of the universal peacekeeping force. That makes Earth look like a backward planet, full of self-important apes that don't feel like they're beholden to the same laws other civilized interstellar species obey. Plus, once word gets around that Nova took care of Annihilus, he's gonna be quite the hero out there, so disrepsecting him isn't likely to earn you any points with anybody you'd want to make friends with.

Just a little something I thought of.