Now before you say anything, yes I am totally copying the Nostalgia Critics Old V.S. New Idea but only a little bit. I will be doing remakes vs originals in this series but I don't intend to do just that. I want to take the idea to it's natural conclusion and pair up many different things to see witch one I enjoy more. Also I want to stress that this is all just for fun and that in no way am I saying that if you like a certain property that makes you in the wrong, you are free to like what ever you like and I don't want to take that away from you.This is just my opinion and I hope that you can respect that, cause I know you can Internet.
For the first segment of this new series I wanted to start out with two properties that were just recently released by Marvel. Yes while my specialty is always going to be on screened media, I do love comic books. Some of my favorite stories of all time have come out of comic books and I've discovered many great writers and artists because of them. More specifically I love superhero comics, brave men and women fighting to save the day from the worst scum in the universe (or was the Men in Black?). Anyway, two properties were recently revived by Marvel as a part of their "Marvel NOW" initiative (though from what I hear that could soon be the Marvel THEN initiative he he he man that was lame). The two are fairly different properties but as I was reading them I couldn't help but realize that they are very very similar. So lets not waste anymore time, It's time for a Showdown, Guardians of the Galaxy # 0.1 VS. NOVA #1. (SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!)
VS.
ROUND 1: The Story
Guardians of the Galaxy starts off with a space ship crashing near a house in the Colorado Rockies. A woman named Meredith finds the ship along with a mysterious injured person who she decides to help and take back to her house for medical treatment (because that's what you do when they point a gun in your face). She learns that his name is J'Son from the planet Spartax and with out offering much resistance she lets the alien beefcake man stay at her place until he fixes his ship. Over time they grow closer to one and other until it's finally time for him to take off for his home world of Spartax. He says that he can't take Meredith with him however because of the war he is involved but that he will try to return for her and the new baby that he has left behind. Said baby is Peter Quill a brash young boy who seems to like reading comics and hates being compared to his father, who he feels abandoned them without knowing exactly where he'd gone off to. After a scene with a comically one dimensional bully, Peter goes home to his mom. While washing up for dinner, his mom is shot and killed by aliens looking for his father (though it never actually explains why these guys are getting here ten years too late but whatever). The aliens chase Peter through the house before Peter finds the laser gun that his father left on earth as a memento to his mother. Peter kills the two aliens before a giant spaceship blows up his house with Peter barely making it to safety. After that we cut away to Peter as an adult, telling the story. He says that he found out that his father was Spartax royalty (how?) and that they aliens were trying to kill him to sever the bloodline. The aliens thought he was dead but in reality he just moved from orphanage to foster home but always keeping the goal in mind of getting into space so that he can protect earth and the home he loves unlike his father who did nothing to save his mother. He pan back to see he's telling this to Iron Man, who says that he's interested in joining the team. With the team now assembled they take off to show the universe how it's done.
NOVA starts out with a father named Jesse Alexander, telling his reluctant son the tale of when he was a part of the black helmet Nova squad and was sent out with two of other squad mates to rescue two members of the Guardians of the Galaxy. In reality however, the dad is actually throwing up into a toilet (It's natural to tell a story to your son while your doing that isn't it?). His son, Sam, decides to help him home from his day job as a janitor at his high school, his father telling him that if the Nova corp ever calls for him then he'll have to go back out there. Sam helps his father to the garage to sleep so that they don't wake his mother. In the garage is a workshop with many different star charts, news articles, telescopes, a bed and a black helmet with a red star on the front. Inside the house, Sam encounters his mother who asks if he brought his father home. She tells him he's going through a rough time (about what? again I'm not sure). Sam, clearly tired of picking up after his father at the school, brushes it off before heading off to bed. The next day, after another encounter with a one dimensional bully, he talks to a girl who asks if he's going to stay an clean again and that she would like to help. Sam says that things really have gotten bad in this place if a pretty girl like her is asking to help clean toilets before starting to rant about how they are never going to go anywhere because of their small town lifestyle before leaving. Back at home, Jesse is telling another story to Sam's younger sister who really seems to enjoy them. He tells of how on the way back from obtaining an important recording they were attacked. Knowing that this is their last chance to make it to a space port for a while, his teammates decide to take the oncoming fire and buy enough time for Jesse to take a shuttle and get out of there to see his family again since he is the only one of them that has one. Sam talks to his mother again and tells her that he hates his father filling his sisters head with fantasy's while his mother defends Jesse by talking about the sacrifices he's made and that he's just filling her head with dreams. Taking off for a while to clear his head, Sam returns to talk with his sister who can't sleep. She's worried about her father and about what would happen if the Nova corp really did call on him again. He tries to tell his sister that the stories aren't real but can't bring himself to crush her heroic view of their father. Back at school, Sam sees that the bathroom is out of order from his father's negligence. After another encounter with the one dimensional bully, Sam rushes home to confront his father, but sees that the garage is trashed and that the black helmet is gone. Taking off on his skate board to find his father he trips and falls before waking up in the hospital face to face with Rocket Raccoon and Gamora of the Guardians of the Galaxy. They say they need to talk to him about his dad.
It's very strange how very alike these two stories actually are. They are both origin stories that take place before the main events, they both deal with a child's relationship with a parent, they both show the child's resentment of their father's and both for the most part have no superhero bits with the main character. We only see Sam's father fighting evil and we see almost nothing from Peter or his father in GOTG. So I guess the main thing to ask is which story told it's tale the best?
For me I think I like NOVA a little more. GOTG is really well paced but the emotions of the character's don't resonate as well as I feel they do in NOVA. There is a brief part in GOTG where Peter shows his resentment of his father but outside of that it's not brought up again until the very end when he's an adult. Couldn't we have a scene in the hospital that shows Peter's dismay at losing his mother and his anger at his father for leaving her to die. I just don't feel as attached to Peter as I did to Sam. It's clear throughout the entire issue about Sam's feeling's toward his father and that he's sick of his father's negligence towards his work and life but I don't feel like it's that cut and dry with Sam. He's obviously resentful to his father's stories but it could be because they are wild fantasy about becoming something big when Sam is stuck in a town where he feels he has no where to go. But then when he's talking to his sister, he just can't bring himself to crush the dreams that make their father a hero to her.
Also when it comes to hinting at what's to come I think NOVA is more interesting. They clearly say that there is a difference between the Black Helmet Corp and the Gold Helmet Corp of the Novas'. So it's safe to assume that there is going to be a big difference between this Nova and Alex Rider's Nova. Though GOTG does have some very interesting places it can go with Peter finding his father, finding out about his alien roots and defending the earth from threats the galaxy gives them. However alot of this is still pretty much ground I have already walked on in the previous GOTG book by DNA. So for me, NOVA has the better story. It just has far more interesting ideas and places that it can go to.
ROUND 1: NOVA
ROUND 2: Characters
Both of these books seem to have a very large cast of characters. However the problem with judging this section is that while one book showcases many different characters, the other is strictly an origin story that showcases it's main hero and his parents. So for this reason I am going to just be looking at the three characters that the two books share. The mother, the father and the main hero.
Let's start with the least important characters in both stories, the mother. The mother Meredith in GOTG is a no nonsense kind of woman who turns into a seemingly very caring mother to Peter. It starts off with her arguing about a recent breakup with one of her friends, and then when she pulls J'son out of the wreckage and in to her room, she points a shot gun at him until he convinces her he's no threat and then you watch their relationship grow and she becomes smitten with him. After that you see her interactions with Peter, it's clear that she wants to be a good mother and that she probably is, but she is having trouble talking to Peter about alot of things from school to comics to his father. I will fully admit that I may be grasping at straws with this one since her appearance is so short lived but I found her to be a very pleasant character.
The mother in NOVA is really not that interesting. She is pretty much just there to be a counter point to Sam anger at his father. Always sticking up for him because she knows what he has done and what he's sacrificed to be here now. She really has no time for development in this story and is mainly just there to be the mom character in the book.
But what about the fathers in both books? Sam's dad in NOVA is obviously a man that has fallen into mediocrity A guy that once had power, looks and a sense of life in him. And while he has clearly seen better days, he doesn't let that sense of life ever die away. You can see it in his smile or as he's telling his kids stories about his past adventures. He's clearly a guy that loved every minuet of being a Nova but understood that he had other responsibility's elsewhere. He seems like a nice enough guy who is just barely getting by. Though his character is not perfect, he's still a drunk who is very negligible to his work. He slacks off instead of trying to make a good impression on the people who give him a job in the first place. So it kind of makes him look like a guys who is giving his bare minimum to help support his family. But over all I did like him and want Sam to find him in upcoming issues.
The father in GOTG, I'll be honest, I think he's a straight up dick. When he crashes he pulls a gun on the woman who helped him out of the ship, is pretty quick to just get up out of bed and start using the woman's tools to help rebuild his ship, they both fall in love and sleep together before he pulls a poochie and says that "his planet needs him and that he must go". And he doesn't come back, not in ten years time does he ever once come back to check on things or how she is. And it implies that in the time between when Peter is hospitalized and when he's an adult does the guy ever come back. I get it, theres a war on but you have to have some sort of drive that lets you get to earth since you were there in the first place.
But when it comes right down to it the most important people in these first two issue are the main heroes, Sam and Peter. And when it comes to the best main character, Sam has this one all the way. Now please don't mistake me, I love Star Lord as a character. He's one of my favorite Marvel heroes, he pretty much is the the reason I kept picking up other Marvel books at the time because I was just so interested in what they did with him that i wanted to see if there were other characters like him out there. But he only appears in the last three pages of the book and his younger self doesn't show up till half way through. So this gives him very little time for character development. Though I will admit what they fit in there does give us a good idea of what his character is like. He has a strong sense of justice and standing up for the weak and that he's very resentful of his father abandoning him and his mother. But we never really get to know him as a person when he is younger. What does he like? Well we know he likes superheroes and he doesn't like bullies but that's about it. We can't even tell what types of comics he reads because the art blurs it out.
Sam on the other hand we spend almost the entire issue with. Aside from the scenes that show his dad as a Nova, we spend all our time with Sam. We see that he likes to skateboard, he does get some attention from girls, he loves his family even if he is tired of his father's crap, he's a bit snarky, he's not the strongest but he will still get into fights and when he thinks that his father has run out on them his first instinct is to get him back here and takes off to find him. He's just a much more developed character and I found my self liking him more and more as the issue went on. He's just a kid that if this has to be his life wants his family to be happy and to lead a happy no where life. In the end I think that Sam just has alot more interesting traits then Peter does so far. And while I understand that there are more characters to cover in both books, GOTG is going to be playing the long game and develop them in future issues . So at least for right now, the one with the better characters is NOVA.
ROUND 2: NOVA
ROUND 3: The Art
Now art is a tough subject to judge since it's really up to the reader themselves to judge weather they like or dislike the art. Art is subjective, so let me reiterate that this is just my own personal judgement of the art and that if you like the one art style more then the other then all the power to you.
On both of these books we have fantastic artists. We have writer Jeph Loeb's regular partner Ed Mcguinness on NOVA and Steve Mcniven on GOTG. I've always been a fan of Ed Mcguinness going way back to when I first saw his art in his run on Superman. Ed always has this very fun, cartoon look to his art. He is very stylized and usually draws his characters and settings in such an over the top way that it really sucks you in at points. He's able to get these big emotions out of characters with the way he draws faces and teeth and his posing. He draws very heroic looking men and very strong beautiful women. He reminds me alot of a cross between Joe Madureira and Amanda Connor and that is a good thing. But in NOVA he looks like he's been scaled back quite a bit. It still looks like a Mcguinness book but all of the OTT elements are gone. It's not bad it's just not what I'm used to from him. All the characters look good and he's still able to get some really good expressions out of them. But it just seems a little off for him.
Ed Mcguinness around a year ago
Ed Mcguinness a few weeks ago
Steve Mcniven and I on the other hand don't have much history. I've only read two stories all the way through with Mcniven's artwork and while the stories themselves were hit and miss I always remember liking his art work. He is a far different animal then Ed is. He draws people and places much more realistically and is able to really capture the emotions of the characters he draws. You feel the anger and sadness as Peter is walking home after he just got in a fight with a bully or when he is angry at his mother for comparing him to his father. His art work has remained relatively unchanged through the years but I'm not complaining. He's still one of the best when it comes to drawing a realistic world.
Mcniven art six years ago
Mcniven art from GOTG
The only real complaint I have with Mcniven's art is that Star lords new costume SUCKS! It looks like Star Lord raided the set of "Tron: Legacy" but was interested in the ugliest suit they had. Star Lords old costume was amazing. A buttoned up WW1 paratrooper jacket with a bad ass space helmet. It reminded me alot of the Rocketeer but in SPAAAAAAACE! It's my favorite Marvel superhero costume and it got replaced with this unappealing technical nightmare, ugh.
Awesome
Lame
In the end though I think that I'm going to give it a little bit more to Mcniven. Even though I hate the new designs, it's still the memorable and well done art work that I love. Ed's, as much as I love him, just wasn't as appealing in this book as he has been in the past .
ROUND 3: Guardians of the Galaxy
CONCLUSION
In conclusion I feel that these are two very strong issues to start on. And honestly that surprises the hell out of me. GOTG writer Brian Michael Bendis is a guy that is usually a very talented and good writer who is usually writing at least one book from Marvel that you should check out. But NOVA writer Jeph Loeb on the other hand, to me, has not had a good book come out of him since 2003. I thought that "Hulk" started off strong but went down hill fairly quickly. But in NOVA it's clear that Jeph is throwing his heart into this book, with the main character being named after his son who passed away in 2005. Jeph clearly wants this book to mean something and to be something he is proud of. I went into GOTG with relatively high expectations and it fell just short of meeting those. But with NOVA I really didn't have any expectations so I was amazed at how much I really enjoyed it and how anxious I am of the next issue to come. So in this Showdown, I declare NOVA #1 to be the superior issue book (at least for one issue). Your off to a good start Jeph Loeb, please don't let me down.
WINNER: NOVA #1
Thanks for reading everyone, please leave a comment and let me know what you think of the new segment.
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