Nova 9, Thunderbolts 17

Nova 9
Wells (w) and Medina and Vlasco (a) and Curiel (c)

Nova has arrived home to find that Kaldera, the slave of Proxima Midnight, has invaded and taken his mother and sister hostage. Kaldera's offer to Nova is that they fight for the lives of his loved ones without their powers. He agrees and promptly starts getting beaten. Of course, he's not particularly beholden to fighting fair with the psycho who attacked his family so he quickly puts the helmet back on, beginning to gain an edge in the fight again. As he attacks her, the two are teleported back to Thanos' ship, where Sam finds another Nova helmet (Kaldera had taken it as a prize after she had killed its owner) and it uploads itself into his. He goes on to strike down Kaldera before being sent him by her attendants, who worry that her failure to kill him will mar them all if Thanos discovers Nova was on the ship. Sam returns home triumphant while Kaldera is punished in space for her failures.

This was, I believe, Zeb Wells' last issue of Nova before handing the reigns off to Gerry Duggan. I'm a bit sad about this because I think Wells found a really good tone for Sam and his cast, one that won't be so easily replicated. I hope I'm wrong; I want to be reading a good book as much or more than the next person. Regardless, it's still a bit of a sad change for me. It's a nice final issue for Wells, though, as Sam bests someone it seems he had no right besting and is able to show his mom that he's a hero worthy of joining a team, even if she refused to allow him to join the Avengers. She changes her tone just a bit here as she excitedly asks him about the new team he's set to join, the New Warriors (which Speedball clearly gushed to her about while Sam was in space). There are nice pieces in this issue for sure, with more big moments for Sam and a couple of fun lines here and there. There's more focus on Kaldera here so we have a little less of the supporting cast who kind of had to sit in the background of this one, though they still have their moments, albeit fewer. Pretty good issue, nice little wrap-up for the arc.

Thunderbolts 17
Soule (w) and Palo (a) and Guru eFX (c)

Punisher and his team strike the Paguros' warehouse while Red Hulk and Leader try to deal with the invasion in the city as well as the new threat of Mercy in a city during an alien invasion, where people are wishing for death left and right. Leader's having some issues of his own and needs to connect to the internet to reboot his mind. Red Hulk gets him an iPhone with a connection and waits him out while his mind reconnects. It's then Leader's idea to get Mercy to attack Thanos' ship by making the people inside wish for death, something Red Hulk is able to do with relative ease. Meanwhile, Deadpool finally arrives at the pizza place and gets his much sought-after pizza as the Terrigen Mists flood the Earth. Among those they transform are the cowardly Nobili family, hiding out with the Paguros as Punisher, Elektra, and Venom attack.

This is a fairly long tie-in, maybe the longest that's not directly related to Infinity (like Avengers and New Avengers). Honestly, it might be longer than those. Regardless, it's still a pretty good story and a story that has mostly kept up its momentum. If anything, I'd say this issue is the weakest of the arc but only because Punisher's attack on the Paguros' safehouse has taken us this long to get to. It is exciting, at least, because now he's finally there and the three of them are really wrecking the place. In truth, though, I'd say that this plot ranks third of the three plots in order of interest for this issue, and that includes one plot where a guy gets pizza. Still, third of three good plots isn't a horrible place to be in and the characterizations still hold strong here as we get a pretty good look at, particularly, Red Hulk, Leader, Mercy, and Deadpool. Flash gets another pretty good look as he continues to argue (somewhat half-heartedly) on behalf of some of the criminals but it's a characterization we've seen pretty consistently in this arc from him. Still a strong book with very strong art and writing. My mild impatience with this one might stem more from wanting to see what Soule does with the team when he's not writing a tie-in, though, as far as long tie-ins go, this has been a good one. I'm anxious to see what happens next when we return to our regularly scheduled programming.