Nova #15 review

The Devourer

The conclusion!

Wrapping up a pretty damn awesome action thriller, Orbucen is in the process of being devoured by Galactus and Nova has sweet fuck all chance of escaping. The planet is being pulled apart and Worldmind is at a complete loss capable nothing more then blaming Nova for what could very well be the final destruction of Xandarian culture. Whoops. Nova, being much cooler under pressure, figures a way out of their predicament, flying headlong into one of Galactus's syphon conduits. The power expended in order to pass through, however, had the affect of completely frying Worldmind, leaving Nova effectively on his own. Getting his bearings on Galactus's ship, he scans around for other lifesigns hoping to encounter the Silver Surfer. Instead, he stumbles upon Harrow, the psionic parasite he's been battling it out with this arc. Apparently, Harrow has a physical body. It's the final round between these two, but being in such close proximity to the creature leaves Nova's suit's psionic defenses useless. It's revealed that Harrow has been living off Galactus in a parasitic fashion, feeding off the fear of the inhabitants of the planets Galactus devours and using a, what Abnett and Lanning call, a cone of psilence to shield his presence from Galactus. The fight is going badly for Nova until the Silver Surfer happens upon them. Breaking Harrow's cone of psilence, Galactus immediately detects and destroys Harrow utterly. It looks like Galactus is about to do the same thing to Nova, but instead transports him about five lightyears away. After a brief talk with the Silver Surfer, and with Worldmind still offline, Nova flies off, presumably towards either Earth or the Skrull Empire as the next issue is a Secret Invasion tie-in.

All told, I really liked this story line and this issue wrapped it up nicely. It was very tense, very tightly plotted and very exciting. This issue doesn't have a great deal of character work, but seeing Worldmind lose his shit was pretty interesting to see. How this all affects the character should be interesting to see, since Nova continues to prove himself time and again even though Worldmind has no faith in his abilities.

Wellington Alves draws a FANTASTIC Galactus. This Galactus is friggin huge! Also, the destruction of Orbucen was very cool. Also a hat tip towards Geraldo Burges who fills in for a few pages. I didn't realize it until I checked the credits, but the few pages he does in the middle blend well with Alves to make it pretty seemless.

Man, I hate to say this, but as much as I love this series and with me leaving my job soon this is probably the last issue I'll be picking up for a while. Seriously, I've loved every minute of this series as it has been a fantastic ride. I figure, with this arc over, I should probably end it here before I get involved in another one. Oh, what a goddamn shame.