“Nova” means “explodes and dies”

In writing about webcomics and the development of superhero characters through use, I had a weird flashback to 1976.

So we’re cuttin’ alllll the way back to my tween-teen transition and the siren call of a new title at Marvel: The Man Called Nova, by Marv Wolfman and John Buscema. I bought it, and if memory serves, stuck with it for about a year.

Living comics

I’ve been thinking about when and how superheroes are “alive” in the culture. Swing a stick right now, and you’ll hit someone telling you that all is roses. Superheroes are in! They are arrived! They are (gasp) cool at last! … whereas all my little eye sees is that they are in the cage. They have “arrived” in the sense of at rest. They are tamed at last.

Balancing what exactly

I nipped back to the States for GenCon, to learn it’s culturally way too soon for me to set foot back there, but also to have some good times. I did see the full solar eclipse, but alas, gained no super-powers.

I like him anyway

This was my favorite character in the exact mid-1970s, age 12-13. Why? That’s a question that gets more interesting the more I try to answer, and also less and less easy to answer,