Marvel NOW! Review: Marvel NOW! Point One

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Marvel NOW! Point One
Nick Fury by Nick Spencer, Luke Ross, and Lee Loughridge
Starlord by Brian Bendis, Steve McNiven, John Dell, and Justin Ponsor
Nova by Jeph Loeb, Ed McGuinness, Dexter Vines, and Marte Gracia
Miss America by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Mike Norton, and Matthew Wilson
Ant-Man by Matt Fraction and Mike & Laura Allred
Forge by Dennis Hopeless, Gabriel Hernandez Walta, and David Curiel

The short of it:

Where to even begin? The sequences involving Fury offer the framing sequence, so it’s as good a place as any. Maria Hill calls in Fury and Coulson to talk to this guy who showed up at the New York Stock Exchange and started moving tickets for minor hedge funds and within three hours was flipped five billion every fifteen minutes. How does he do that? Mutant powers? Magic? If your guess was time travel, you get a cookie, and that’s also why Fury is there. Personally asked to talk to the our resident nepotism hire on top of that, Anyway, the mysterious man starts talking mild crazy talk, and his statements foreshadow the mini-stories that make up the rest of the issue. Eventually ending with a random hail of gunfire and a new mystery surrounding the man’s presence.

Star-Lord’s origin story is recrafted in this issue, showing how a young Peter Quill went on the run from aliens who killed his mother. Not much is really answered, and it’s the definition of a teaser. If I didn’t know what it was for, I’d wonder what the point was.

Nova travels across the country stoked at being asked to join the Avengers before being attacked by a villain of the old Nova that is not too pleased his former nemesis is gone. Diamondhead is still packing a grudge from Nova taking his hand off after Civil War, and he teaches our new hero a thing or two about being cocky against a villain familiar with your power set. In the end, Diamondhead’s own arrogance costs him the fight, and Nova leaves him stranded and heads home.

Loki and Miss America having Korean Barbeque is a minor game of cat and mouse, with Loki trying to get into her head, and Miss America…letting him. Our manipulative trickster God, the one responsible for the Avengers in the first place, is trying to work the whole magic on a younger generation.

Ant-Man is a story about a man who came back from the void to lose the only thing he cared about, and who now seeks revenge on the man that took his heart from him. For those fortunate enough to have skipped the Children’s Crusade; Scott Lang is alive, and Doom killed his daughter. Now, he’s not about to challenge the Doctor himself in this few page mini story, but he definitely can pull a prank that Doom will not overlook.

Finally, a story of Forge…whom I assumed to be dead, actually. Not dead, completely loopy crazy though…that much I actually did remember. He lost his mind after Bishop smashed his skull during Messiah Complex. In this story he finds a machine he doesn’t recognize and begins to fix it, only for the result of it working again that a giant BRAIN MONSTER attacks him. Forge versus THE BRAIN!

What I liked:

  • Mike Allred drawing Ant Man was freaking awesome. The entire story was brilliant in execution, but his art just brought it to a completely different level. He’s selling FF to me more than anything else.
  • Nova was fun, I mean, the new kid is definitely likable and I love that he loves the job. At the same time, I’m a Rich fan. This may be the best avenue for Nova though, taking a teenager and giving them the power and starting from scratch.
  • The last time I saw Forge he was crazy, evil, and I for some reason presumed him dead by mercy killing. Forge here is still crazy, but it works for the story he’s in. Really, it’s just a cool way to reintroduce the character after his past few times popping up were….well, they were terrible.
  • Young Avengers confirmed what I already knew; that I’d be buying the book. Fun characters, great art, and Loki being awesome. I still need to read Journey into Mystery (sorry Glazer!).

What I didn’t like:

  • This book cost $5.99.
  • The Star-Lord story did absolutely nothing to convince me to buy the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy book. I mean, we got an origin vignette with no context, the kind of thing I’d much rather have seen interspersed into an actual issue of the book so that I could side by side Peter’s past and present. As it stands, anyone on the fence about Guardians isn’t going to be sold by this.
  • I paid six bucks for this.
  • At no point during this book did I have any clue what was happening with the Nick Fury stuff. I mean, does the guy tell Nick all the stories we read? If he actually from the future? The hell did that word mean? Nothing really made a lot of sense.
  • I appreciate the free digital copy (that I can’t even use through the Comixology app, I have to use Marvel’s separate app) but would the book have been $4.99 without it? Actually, no, that’s not even better. $4.99 with the code, maybe. Or how about just do it digital? Why doesn’t Marvel do anything digital exclusive?

Final thoughts:

Anybody remember Marvel’s last big oversized and overpriced Point One? Me neither. I know Scarlet Spider and Age of Apocalypse got previewed there, but Nova (who has a feature here) debuted there…and then only ever appeared in AVX otherwise. There were those twins…don’t remember their names, haven’t seen them since. Oh yeah, Hitch drew the Age of Ultron prelude that Bendis has been teasing for years and apparently is still in the future despite him leaving the Avengers.

It is nice that everything in this book is going to be an ongoing within the next few months, it makes the issue feel like it matters…even though only a few stories really took advantage. The best parts of this book were the complete stories told in the shortened format, while the glorified teasers were horribly weak.

My first words when I saw the cover of this book? “$5.99? Fuck you Marvel.” After reading it, I stand by it.

The Guardians story was a waste of great art. If someone weren’t familiar with the Guardians of the Galaxy then this story would fail to make any real sort of sense. It’s just too vague for a stand alone teaser.

The Sam Alexander Nova is going to be the Kyle Rayner Green Lantern of our day. That is he’s going to be an incredibly accessible character that opens up the concept and franchise to new readers by streamlining the concept of the complicated mythos. At the same time, by doing that, it’s going to turn away long time fans who enjoyed the complicated mythos. In the end? He’s a long term solution that will be, most likely, the only Nova for the near future, and I don’t think Rich Rider has a fanbase as vicious as Hal Jordan’s.

Cable had two giant sized normal arms when we last saw him, but one of them is super microsized here. I get the logic, that since that arm has really never existed (don’t forget that when he died in Second Coming he really just lost his already cybernetic arm, which regrew) that it might not have the same definition as his other one. Plus, it means he gets a new metal arm without the drawbacks of the techno virus!

This book would have been a six and a half if it was two bucks cheaper. I’m bitter for the overspend that I got suckered into, just like last time.

Overall: 5/10

A lifelong reader and self proclaimed continuity guru, Grey is the Editor in Chief of Comics Nexus. Known for his love of Booster Gold, Spider-Girl (the real one), Stephanie Brown, and The Boys. Don't miss The Gold Standard.