The Man Called Nova
My first encounter with Nova was in 1977 when I was 9 years old. My older sister (she would have been 12 at the time) and her friends were holding a small sale on the green outside our house in aid of Cancer Research, and one of the items that had been donated by friends and neighbours was Nova #5: I had a few UK reprints of Marvel comics, but maybe only one or two other US comics, or maybe not - my memory of those days is unsurprisingly hazy - so it's entirely possible that this was the first time I'd seen a US Marvel comic. The UK reprints had only contained black and white art, but here was this weirdly small comic, but with full colour throughout! And how could I resist that striking Jack Kirby cover! Luckily, I saw it before it went on sale, and paid my sister the handsome sum of 5 pence for it. I read it numerous times (to destruction, eventually), poring over its entertaining tale of Richard Rider - Nova - his battle against Tyrannus and the awesome Earth-Shaker in Centr...