Review: NINO Annual #1

Silly, juvenile, disrespectful of Nova mythos and fans, and un-heroic – this book is everything you’ve come to expect of NINO.

At least NINO admits at various times in the book that he’s stupid and doesn’t know what he’s doing.  That places him in the company of the 19K of zombies still buying this trash.

Of course, Duggan either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that Xandar hasn’t existed as a planet for a long time now.  He blithely sends NINO and the Hulk on a selfish quest to repair NINO’s helmet.  Upon arriving at the somehow re-constituted planet of Xandar, they find a powerful alien who has enslaved the “remaining Xandarians” and is forcing them to perform heavy labor.  Again, Duggan either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that Xandarians are nearly identical to humans as he portrays the Xandarians as very alien.

Do you think NINO and Hulk do the heroic thing and free the Xandarians from slavery or make some attempt to resurrect Xandar?  No.  Hulk temporarily disables the alien slave lord, finds some parts to fix NINO’s helmet, then he and NINO selfishly and un-heroically leave the remaining Xandarians to be re-enslaved.  What a nice thank you to the culture who provided the loser duo of NINO and his dad their powers.  Pathetic.  Immoral.  But that’s why this trash is and ever will be “Nova In Name Only” – because no other being worthy of the uniform would ever behave so selfishly, un-heroically, and utterly disgracefully.

The art and coloring are mediocre with NINO continuing to look ridiculous in his manga-ized version of a Nova uniform.  The art used to at least distract readers from the atrocious writing, but even the art is slipping as this book comes ever closer to its recently announced cancellation date.  Given that NINO is a Loeb vanity project, it’s probably too much to hope that we’ve seen the last of NINO.  I’m not too worried about the upcoming politically correct NINO-ette – as she’ll be DOA.

So good riddance to NINO (and a hoped for quick riddance to PC NINO-ette).  Your final issue can’t come too soon and you won’t be missed.