A new rumor raises red flags that Marvel’s upcoming Nova series may be some sort of woke take on present day commentary on the police and the military.
Marvel going woke with Nova wouldn’t be a surprise if it’s anything similar to Feige’s plans following Infinity War. It’s known the upcoming Ironheart series is about gangsters turned activists set in Chicago (seriously).
According to rumors, Nova will be adapting the Annihilation event from Marvel Comics, which was really awesome. However, typical to Marvel Studios it will have an MCU spin (good luck World War Hulk).
What do the rumors say?
New rumors come via MyTimeToShineHello on X. Worth a mention is that the account hasn’t gotten much right since another account got shut down by Marvel, so take things with a grain of salt, but we’ll take a look at what is said below:
Marvel reached out to writers and asked them to pitch for Nova tv show with Annihilus as the main villain in mind. They also requested the story to feel “young and sexy,” capturing the energy of 80s military movies. One pitch was essentially Starship Troopers, with Richard Rider in Casper’s arc as a sort of cocky jerk who falls in love with Namorita, joins the Nova Corps, and gets assigned to a backwater “Outer Rim”-like planet that becomes the first phase of the Annihilus wave. In the pitch they treated the Annihilation Wave like the bugs in Starship Troopers, really leaning into the theme of how the Nova Corps uses propaganda to police the galaxy and recruit members.
Red flags
Potential red flags I see include that Richard Rider is a cocky jerk. I don’t ever remember him being a jerk in the comics. He’s pretty down to earth, is from Long Island, has a mom, dad, and brother.
I don’t necessarily mind it being compared to Starship Troopers, as in Annihilation, they faced Annihilus’ bug army from the Negative Zone. However, Starship Troopers leans heavily into over-the-top dark humor and even comical moments, with a satirical message, whereas Annihilation is more serious, leaning toward military science fiction. The head of Marvel TV did compare the Nova series to Battlestar Galactica, which sounds spot-on. So, the above could just be a pitch that’s no longer being used—possibly one from Sabir Pirzada when he was attached to the project.
The third—and biggest—red flag is the mention that the Nova series will explore how the Nova Corps uses propaganda to police the galaxy and recruit members. Since the Nova Corps are space cops, this feels like it could turn into some kind of woke commentary (community notes, fake news, mis-information, etc.) reflecting modern-day military and police, especially with Trump back in the picture. James Gunn, who directed the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and turned the Guardians and the Nova Corps into goofy characters (despite them being far more serious in the comics), recently used his Creature Commandos DCU animated series to portray cops negatively. Gunn also inexplicably changed Cosmo into a female in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, seemingly just for the sake of making the character a girl.
That said, Nova has Ed Bernero as a showrunner who actually used to be a cop in Chicago and used his experience as a cop to developed Third Watch, Criminal Minds, Crossing Lines, etc. I haven’t watched any of his stuff and I’m not really familiar with Bernero, so I don’t know if he’s woke. Let me know in the comments below.
Marvel moving away from woke MCU
Marvel seems to be moving away from the woke MCU as it has been a massive failure. Hopefully the MCU stays away from its agenda-based storytelling and simply returns to telling good stories. Ed, if you happen to read this, don’t read any of the comics released after 2011 (you can skip Annihilators).
