FW Team-Up: The Thing and Nova

Siskoid and Ryan Daly’s coverage of Marvel Two-In-One (Cosmic Heroes order) brings them to issue Annual #3 of that series (1978) by Marv Wolfman, Sal Buscema, Frank Giacoia and Dave Hunt, as the Thing teams up with the Man Called Nova against a threat that… really recalls something famous Wolfman will do at DC later!

Listen to the Team-Up below, or subscribe to FW Team-Up on iTunes!

Relevant images and further credits at: FW Team-Up Supplemental

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7 responses to “FW Team-Up: The Thing and Nova

  1. All right here’s my idea for a Nova team up .
    Do to being caught in another super Nova . Nova is sent back in time and to alternate time line . Lands in home and specialty the garage of on Ted Theodore Logan . Yes it’s Nova teaming with bill and Ted . So now bill and Ted must figure out how to send send Nova home . While hanging out with there favorite marvel super hero . Most excellent!!!

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  2. the orginal NOVA Felt like it was influenced BY EVERYTHING A slight dimmer Peter parker (with a genuis younger brother) he fought very Spider-man bad guys (heck he fought sandman) then he basicly fights DARKSIDE

  3. I’m really starting to love these old comic covers littered with over the top, dramatic dialogue and images of scenes that rarely actually happen in the book. Someone is dead (not really) or it’s the end of the world (world’s fine) or the hero quits (they don’t) or this is totally the final battle between the hero and the villain (it isn’t).

    It reminds me of the time I went to watch The Illusionist with my girlfriend, who was very excited to see it, which surprised me. Didn’t seem like her kind of thing. The movie starts, and the first scene is blanketed in dead silence. Edward Norton is on a stage in an old theater, bathed in sepia tone, staring intently at a potted plant for what felt like forever, and she leaned over to ask me what the hell we were watching because this didn’t look anything like the trailer. It took a few minutes to figure out that she thought we were seeing The Prestige. I couldnt help but laugh out loud. She was ready to fawn over a Victorian Wolverine and she ended up with a bearded Giamatti. That how these covers feel. They’re a trailer to a different movie.

    And as a side note: I love the 70s comic lingo. Has anyone ever actually said “blue blazes”? Is that the English translation of sacred bleu?

    Nova is a menace. Knocking over construction workers. Vandalism. Unlawful entry. Narcissist. Horshack slander. I’m glad his book got canceled.

    Lastly, This felt like one of those pre-FF, early 60s, Lee/Kirby Marvel monster/alien stories. The kind that had to use a ton of exposition to introduce new protagonist characters and some creature of the week in a story that had to be resolved by the end of the book.

  4. Sorry to post late but I’ve been listening to the show from Ep. 1 on and I’m almost current. I just had to say that there’s something very odd in the analysis of this issue. You were able to glean the obvious parallels between Nova and the Silver Age Green Lanterns. And you had an alien race that were really synthetic life forms. And, yes, Marv Wolfman would go on to use the name Monitor to much greater effect at DC. But I can’t believe you missed the much stronger tie to DC storylines. Just as Wolfman and Len Wein began at DC as teens before working at Marvel and would eventually go back, Steve Englehart left Marvel in 1976 to work at DC. Specifically, he left the Avengers after Gerry Conway, fresh from DC, replaced Wolfman as editor. At DC, Englehart scripted JLA (Conway’s old title) and in 1977 turned in a two-parter involving the Manhunters [#140(Mar/77)- #141(Apr/77)]. That Manhunters story has even closer parallels to this annual than Crisis OIE.

    1. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The 70s are a big blind spot for me. I was only ready French-language comics. Ryan is 10 years my junior. We count on commenters to fill in the gaps. But it’s not “odd”. No more so than not knowing what the hell is happening in the X-Men books today. I think we probably all have our blind spots.

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