Following my own thoughts on the recent rumor, I thought I would share what our very own Timelord thinks about the recent rumors surrounding Marvel’s Nova, the upcoming TV series coming to Disney+ that is currently in development.
For those who may not know, Timelord has been a lifelong Nova fan. In fact, this site originally launched to help Marvel Comics promote their Marvel Cosmic brand, which included Nova (2007) and Guardians of the Galaxy (2008).
Marvel Comics provided us with exclusive art, interviews, and previews. Timelord reviewed each issue, and I shared his reviews with the Marvel Comics editor at the time, who then passed them along to the creative team. We also provided notes on Nova to the creative team. Timelord’s reviews were often quoted by Marvel Comics in solicits and other materials to help promote the titles.
What does Timelord say?
Following the rumor hitting the net, I e-mailed Timelord about his thoughts on the Nova rumors. This is his response:
Something like this pitch has disaster written all over it if for no other reason than it would invite inevitable negative comparisons no matter how well it was done. It is also not really Nova. It is just taking the character of Nova and some of his powers and personality characteristics and otherwise completely ignoring the source material.
The best Marvel adaptations are the ones that stay closest to the source material. The first Iron Man movie, the first Avengers movie, the second and 3rd Captain America movies, the first Black Panther movie – all certainly took some liberties with the source material, but retained enough to capture the spirit of the source material. Eternals and Inhumans were always going to be hard sells to the public and the fan base, but when they completely abandoned the source material they both turned into complete disasters. Abandoning the Nova source material will almost certainly result in something comparable to the Eternals and Inhumans adaptation disasters.
Stick to the source material. Giffen and DnA understood that and that is why their tenure with the character of Nova is the best since Marv Wolfman’s tenure on the original series and even surpassed his tenure in many ways. The story of Annihilation is great in and of itself – and is basically a science-fiction version of Pearl Harbor and the war in the Pacific and in Europe. It absolutely lends itself to near direct adaptation as an ongoing series. The models for such a series should not be 80’s military movies. They should be 60’s World War II series such as Combat or 12 O’Clock High. The Battlestar Galactica reboot starring Edward James Olmos was some of the best military science fiction that has ever been televised, and it stuck to the same formula of action and drama used by Combat and 12 O’Clock High. If done as “World War II in space,” a Nova series could be spectacular. If done as a cheap copy of Starship Troopers, it will almost certainly suffer the same fate as all of the low budget sequels to Starship Troopers. Remember those? They were forgettable, but if you do remember them, you’ll remember them as embarrassingly bad.
What does the rumor say?
Regarding the Nova rumor, the MyTimeToShineHello X account posted the following:
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.
What are the details about Marvel’s Nova TV series?
The details include the series will feature Richard Rider.
Ed Bernero is the showrunner who used to be a cop in Chicago and used his experience as a cop to developed TV shows including Third Watch, Criminal Minds, and Crossing Lines.
The head of Marvel TV has also compared the Nova series to both Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek.
Rumors offer Nova is adapting Annihilation and that Annihilus is the villain.
No release date has been announced as of yet.
