This weekend, a whole bunch of people got acquainted with the Nova Corps. Those are the intergalactic police that protect Xandar in Guardians Of The Galaxy and above you can see one of them. That's concept art from "Guardians Of The Galaxy: The Art Of The Movie", which is probably loaded with all sorts of goodies. Remember, this is a movie that basically began its promotional campaign with production art: few people knew what the Guardians Of The Galaxy were before Marvel debuted the idea for fans at Comic Con with concept sketches.
The Nova Corps are an integral part of the Marvel universe, to the point where the studio could have just as easily made a Nova movie instead of Guardians Of The Galaxy and had the same name recognition. Their primary Earth hero is Richard Rider, who was granted the abilities of a Nova policeman by a dying Rhomann Dey, the character played by John C. Reilly. Hey, maybe he could join the Guardians sometime. Hopefully the movies don't follow the comics too closely, because we like John C. Reilly and because, in one adventure, the Nova Corps are completely wiped out by the actions of Nebula, as played by Karen Gillan.
Rider was known to Earth as Nova and served as that hero for years, crossing paths with every major Marvel hero and villain, and even serving as one of the early members of the superhero team New Warriors. Lately, however, Nova has been experiencing a strong run on Marvel shelves, with the young Sam Alexander taking on the mantle of the hero. Alexander's a pretty young teen learning the spaceways and interacting with several heroes while managing homework and his single mom and little sister at home. It's a cute book, you should check it out.
The potential for the Nova character is strong, should Marvel pursue that angle. And they already have a cast if he were to be given his own movie, with Reilly onboard and Glenn Close as the regal Nova Prime. Perhaps if they used the movie-friendly current run, with young Sam Alexander, they'd be able to distinguish not only from the other Marvel films (none of which have a kid hero), but also from another certain famous character who fights with an intergalactic space police force.
Here are some other bits and pieces of concept art likely to show up in the book, courtesy of Guard The Galaxy and Comic Book Movie .
Here's the futuristic world...
Here's the Badoon Bazooka...
"Guardians Of The Galaxy: The Art Of The Movie" hits stores August 12th.
