What I Bought 11/20/2025

They've created all these stupid new systems at work, for things I could not give less of a shit about. This has not stopped people from sending me e-mails expecting me to learn procedures or do stuff related to these things, which makes me either want to scream at them to just leave me alone, or throttle them.

Nova: Centurion #1, by Jed MacKay (writer), Alvaro Lopez (writer), Mattia Iacono (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - With funds limited, Nova was forced to house the Worldmind in a less mobile mainframe.

Richard Rider's back to (still?) the last Nova, housing all the Nova Force. He's still determined to save every life he can, still getting chided by the Worldmind about putting it at risk by rescuing ships full of rich dumbasses from a black by doing crazy shit. But the Worldmind, wherever he's keeping it, comes with a cost. A financial cost. And people won't pay for help after you've saved their stupid asses.

Enter Pip the Troll (never a good sign.) For the low, low cost of 10%, he'll get Rich paying jobs to keep the Worldmind running. Paying jobs like hunting down the one responsible for stealing a bunch of that magic mineral stuff Krakoa was pumping out from a interstellar gang called "The Kree-Skrull War."

That is the stupidest gang name I've ever heard. Yes, you're Kree and Skrulls working together, and your leaders talk like a particularly condescending rich couple "It has pride, my love." "It" also has enough gravimetric power to incinerate you dipshits, and probably should. They're gangsters, doesn't that make them criminals? Shouldn't Nova Prime be taking down criminals?

Anyway, Rich takes the cash, and the accomplice left behind, Cammi, and gets ready to hunt down Ravenous. We only see him in a flashback to partway through Annihilation, so I don't know if half his face is still metal after Ronan crushed it.

It's not a bad engine for storytelling. Throw Richard into conflicts where he has to decide how much he's willing to compromise his values and what he feels being a Nova stands for, in exchange for the funds to keep the Worldmind - and the last vestige of Xandarian culture - alive. Although I've never seen anything of Xandarian culture except the Nova Corps. They got any decent poetry, films, anything except the desire to create an interstellar peacekeeping force that was not terribly effective? Certainly weren't doing anything about the Shi'ar routinely being run by nutsos like D'Ken, or the Kree and Skrulls from fighting all the damn time.

Do not love Rich sporting a goatee with a beard. Just looks weird. Would have preferred Lopez highlighted the facial scar Nova got in his first fight against Annihilus, but outside of Sean Chen drawing a small nick in his upper lip, nobody drew that after Annihilation. Guess it got erased via the magic of outer space medicine.