NINO Selling Under 20K: Bring Back Richard Rider As Nova

NINO is now selling under the Marvel cancellation threshold (at least what used to be) as January’s issue #26 sold only 19,639 copies.

That number is, again, less than the Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning’s 2007 Richard Rider Nova series, which sold 28,096 with the same issue back in June 2009.

Bear in mind, Marvel Editorial never gave DnA’s Nova (or Guardians of the Galaxy) any promotion or attention. And get this: When the Guardians of the Galaxy movie became known, Marvel editorial actually cancelled all of DnA’s cosmic stuff and sent them packing.

Both James Gunn and Marvel Studios president and producer Kevin Feige have stated in interviews that Abnett and Lanning’s Guardians is the inspiration for the almost-billion dollar Marvel movie, and Gunn even had them visit the set and got them back on the movie tie-in comics.

Meanwhile, Dan Buckley, David Gabriel, Joe Quesada, Axel Alonso, Tom Brevoort, Jeph Loeb, Stephen Wacker and Brian Michael Bendis (IMO) put the screws to DnA and took over their stuff. 

I’ve said it again, but it’s worth repeating: Marvel Comics must be such a nice company to work for – and what a great boss Alonso must be – when you get fired for inspiring billion dollar Marvel movies. 

Getting back to NINO, there is speculation amongst fans that Marvel was attempting to create another Spider-Man as Marvel Studios didn’t hold any of the rights to the character. It’s suggested Marvel was trying to repeat Spider-Man’s success with NINO, which obviously didn’t happen. Now that Marvel Studios does have Spider-Man in part back, can we now end the failed experiment that is NINO?

With NINO now selling less than 20k, isn’t it time to bring back Richard Rider? 

From a fan perspective, it’s obvious Richard Rider is the choice of Nova.

I would also say from a business perspective, the right choice would be to go with Richard Rider. It’s already known the Richard Rider Infinite action figure outsold all the Guardians of the Galaxy movie characters – and Nova wasn’t in the movie. Rider is the fan’s choice to be Nova in the Marvel Heroes 2015 video game, and now at Toy Fair, a new Richard Rider Nova action figure was just revealed.