In 2010, Marvel released The Thanos Imperative, a six-part limited series by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. In that series, many cosmic heroes, including the Guardians of the Galaxy and NOVA (Richard Rider), joined together to keep the "Cancerverse" from spreading into the Marvel Universe. At the end of that series (SPOILER ALERT) Nova and Starlord seemingly sacrificed their lives to keep Thanos trapped in the Cancerverse until its destruction.Last year, when it was revealed that Starlord and Thanos had survived the Cancerverse, many comic fans wondered what happened to Richard Rider. Since The Thanos Imperative, the original Nova has been nowhere to be found. Is he alive? Is he dead? What exactly happened? Now, it seems like all of our questions will finally be answered.
On Brian Michael Bendis'blog, the writer was asked,"When will we get the answers to why Richard Rider is still missing from the Marvel Universe?" Bendis replied, "In the Original Sin / Guardians tie-in issues, which are going to be drawn by...a huge name I have never worked with before." For those of you who don't know, Original Sin is an upcoming Marvel event; a murder mystery in which The Watcher is killed. The event will stem off into standalone stories for each title, including Guardians of the Galaxy. This is BIG news for longtime fans of Nova, since Richard Rider has been Nova for over 30 years (long before Sam Alexander, who debuted as Nova last year). There's no official word on which issue will reveal the fate of Richard Rider, but we can expect it sometime this summer.
to catch up on what happened to Richard Rider last.