Nova 12, Inhumanity - Superior Spider-Man 1

Nova 12
Duggan (w) and Medina and Vlasco (a) and Curiel (c)

Nova has run afoul of Cadvian, collector of Nova helmets and other mementos, but quickly finds that he's not interesting to the hunter, who hunts for sport or profit and who deems Nova to be neither. He sends Nova out of his ship and Nova doesn't follow him, preferring instead to answer a distress call. He finds a Nova Corps transport ship under attack and fights off the aliens attacking it before being invited inside and helping the captain of the ship with a problem they have. The ship, of course, is filled with non-Novas who found the ship abandoned and have been using the energy from a dead Nova (died at his post, apparently) to keep the ship moving. The dead Nova, though, has seemingly run out of juice and the captain pleads with Nova to give them a jumpstart, recharging the battery as it were. Nova, though hesitant, agrees and manages to do the job well. He leaves the Nova ship to its own devices and returns home, never finding out that the captain of the Nova ship is actually a slave trader and the ship is filled with aliens ready to be traded. He's bound to find out soon, though, as some of the aliens on the ship are Korbinites and the ships that Nova fended off were led by Beta Ray Bill.

One of the things that the writers of this series (in twelve issues there have already been three different writers) have done pretty well has been to never forget that Sam Alexander is just a kid and kids are dumb. That's not necessarily a critique on kids (though it may be on some kids), it's just saying that they legitimately don't have the processing power nor the life experiences to always be top-of-the-game intelligent. Sam very clearly doesn't and Duggan is making no claims that he does. In this case, Duggan isn't really going far out of his way to hide that something is awfully suspicious on this ship but it doesn't really dawn on Sam to investigate any further. He takes things on face value and he buys into the captain's story without much problem, especially when he brings up a young alien girl who is "like a daughter" to him (she is, of course, revealed to be a captured soon-to-be slave). The end of the issue sends Sam home again, all smiles as he celebrates a great day of being a superhero. Fun issue with pretty solid pacing and enough plot and character to keep the book feeling fresh. Always looking forward to Beta Ray Bill appearances.

Inhumanity - Superior Spider-Man 1
Gage (w) and Hans (a and c)

In the aftermath of the Terrigenesis bomb and Thanos' attack on Earth, Spider-Man is helping the people of New York to clean up the area, which serves a couple of different purposes for Spidey. On the one hand, he's helping the city and being a hero and looking good in front of all of these people and, on the other, he's helping himself to a lot of fallen Inhuman tech. Among the tech that's fallen is a sort of suit that's fallen on the rooftop of a building in the city and that an unemployed man has taken for his own, sick of way the world has treated him and his wife, who is deep in the throes of cancer. The suit drains life from all nearby and gives it to the wearer and, in this case, the wearer's wife (that part's a little vague). It also messes with electronics in the area and thus leaves Spider-Man at something of a disadvantage here as he has to fight the man while weakening and unable to use his web-shooters. Still, he's prepared to finish off the man before the New York fireman who led Spidey there intercedes and points out that the wife has taken sleeping pills recently, likely because she knew what her husband was doing and didn't want to see it. The fireman talks the man down and Spidey assures him that he can both get the man out of any legal trouble and that he can get his wife into Dr. Wirtham's experimental clinic. As Spider-Man leaves the building, he hears one of his henchmen talking down to a fireman outside the building and Spider-Man disciplines him, telling him that today, the fireman is his superior.

This is a tie-in to the event that's been a little slowed down by trouble with the main title (INHUMANS) so it suffers a little in terms of weird timing but overall it's a really good read. Christos Gage always does a great job jumping into a title and infusing a lot of humanity to the character but that humanity never seems out of place. Even with the cold Doctor Octopus at the helm of Spider-Man, you understand the emotions he's going through as he works his way to a profound respect for the firemen and police in the city, the ones who go day-to-day through a city that could explode around them for no reason and who don't have the powers the superheroes do yet still go out and do everything they do every day, no matter the circumstances. It rarely, if ever, comes off as heavy-handed here and Doc Ock's temperance for these normal people is still balanced perfectly by his snide remarks and condescension. As much as I like the story and the writing, the real selling point for this tie-in is Stephanie Hans' incredible art. Each panel may as well be a framed painting for the fluidity and the beautiful colors that give everything an almost dreamlike quality. It's a really gorgeous book boasting a better-than-average tie-in story with a lot of great human moments. Not much more I can say to recommend this one.