Nova 1, Morbius the Living Vampire 2

Nova 1
Loeb (w) and McGuinness and Vines (a) and Gracia (c)

There's a very Back to the Future vibe here. This is issue one of Nova wherein a new Nova is born. I like the conceit more than I thought I would. I like the Richard Rider Nova a fair amount and I was a little disappointed to hear that this Nova series would focus on someone new. However, instead of replacing Rider, Loeb has introduced a new form of Nova Corps. It's a little like Avengers vs. Secret Avengers in that Rider's Nova was a member of the Nova Corps with gold helmets (nicknamed the Gold Domes) and Jesse Alexander was a member of the black helmeted and cleverly named Black Novas. They seem a little more covert than the regular universe police that is Nova Corps. One of their missions, Jesse recounts to his son Sam, was to rescue Rocket Raccoon and Gamora of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Jesse was a hero. However, he's been on Earth with his family awaiting the call from the Black Novas for fifteen years, long enough to have two children and lose many jobs while he tells his stories of former greatness.

So let's get back to the Back to the Future thread. First and foremost, the disciplinarian at the school is very clearly Mr. Strickland. The way he looks, the way he's dressed, the fact that he instantly compares Sam to his father (who, unlike BTTF, works at the school as a janitor). Then there's the fact that Sam is a bit of a loner kind of kid who has a love interest and skateboards everywhere while also disparaging his weak father. By the end of the issue, Sam, who doesn't believe his father's stories any more, is approached by Rocket Raccoon and Gamora who have news to deliver about Jesse, who has gone missing along with his Nova helmet. Sam will have to step up and likely fix the past before he can go home. Hopefully he has to make sure Jesse and his wife (who I'm pretty sure went unnamed but we can probably assume is named Lorraine) make it to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance so they can kiss and get married and have three kids and name one of them Marty and take it easy on him when he accidentally sets the rug on fire when he's eight.

Look. I love Back to the Future. Any comparisons I can draw between your comic and that movie are only going to be to your benefit. That aside (mostly), this book was better than I expected it to be after I learned about the barebones premise. Like I said at the beginning of this week, this is a solid creative team and I have an amount of trust in them to not disappoint me. I'm glad this series started on a high note because I did, regardless, come in with a bit of skepticism. Back to the Future did not hurt. OH MY GOD, CAN ROCKET RACCOON BE DOC BROWN PLEASE?

I don't typically double dip on cover art, but BOY Skottie Young sure is great.

Morbius the Living Vampire 2
Keatinge (w) and Elson (a) and Fabela (c)

I think this issue might have been a step in the right direction. Issue one left me a little cynical about the series as a whole, largely because it was the familiar story of an antihero trying to prove himself a hero and I didn't particularly warm to the style of it. This issue pulls back some of the quirky things Keatinge had done in the first issue, which I think helped, and gives a little bigger conflict to Morbius. Yes he still has the Hulk idea of "I just want to be left alone," but less so. Here he happily accepts the friendship of a fellow homeless person and quickly attaches himself to her. The story then revolves around a couple run-ins he had with locals of Brownsville, including the gang leader from last issue and a mother who worriedly kept herself and her son away from that gang leader (apparently her brother-in-law). Now Morbius, attached to new friend Becky who HAPPENS to be the babysitter of the son, gets involved again with Noah's gang.

The interesting part doesn't come from the quick friendship, necessarily, nor the need to hero about as Noah essentially kidnaps the little boy Henry. Morbius doesn't like Noah and is one of a very limited few in the town who isn't scared of Noah and his gang, but we never get the sense that he's involved in this because he's so heroic. There are times where he's stepped up to Noah because it was the right thing to do, but it largely seems like he would just prefer to keep to himself and lay low while trying to figure out how to get back to Horizon Labs to figure out how to de-vampire himself. Of course, if the book was all about the exploits of a low-laying kind-of vampire, it would probably not sell as well as Marvel would like, so instead he pretty rapidly gets embroiled in the tensions of the town. That's kind of interesting, but still not really the interesting part. The interesting part is that Morbius himself doesn't really know which way to go. He knows that he's never wanted to be vampiric and that his goal is to be less of a vampire. He also knows, as he points out to us a few times, that the world is not a great place. However, by the end of the issue, his concern isn't, like with most heroes, being better than the worst parts of the world at large, but maybe being worse. Instead of trying to rise above the situation with Noah, he dives below it and attacks Noah vampirely (new word, called it). It's the thirst for blood and the fear of the vampire he has all coming to the forefront in an attempt to defeat a bigger evil. Maybe he's not a good guy, he wonders. Maybe he doesn't have to be. Maybe the key to his survival in this world isn't keeping his head down and trying to do right by good people, maybe it's sticking his head up and trying to do wrong by bad people. Kind of a Punisher mentality but without the straightforwardness. Punisher never thinks he's wrong. Morbius might. We'll see how this series progresses, but this issue definitely helped the series on its way.