Ultimate Spider-Man Episode Sixty-Five: The Return of the Guardians of the Galaxy

The Return of the Guardians of the Galaxy

First Aired: July 6th, 2014

Synopsis: Spider-Man is racing Nova on his Spider-Cycle when he hits the Guardians of the Galaxy's ship. The two of them enter the ship which is badly damaged and about to crash, but is saved at the last moment. Drax and Gamora are healing from injuries they suffered and it's revealed that the Guardians were attacked by Titus, a former Nova Corps member who betrayed them and is after Sam for his helmet. The ship still needs to be repaired and after leaving Groot to guard Peter's house, Spider-Man, Nova, and Rocket Raccoon sneak aboard the SHIELD Helicarrier, as it has the omnium generator needed to repair the ship. They manage to take it from the armoury but are found by SHIELD, but before they can suffer any repercussions Titus appears with Chitauri soldiers, demanding Nova's helmet. 

 

Titus says that he wants the helmet because only he can unleash its destructive potential, but the heroes manage to escape from him and return to Groot. Chitauri soldiers come after them but Drax and Gamora appear, fully healed, and fight them while Spider-Man puts the omnium generator in the ship. As Titus' ship approaches they fly off and get into some dogfights, before Nova questions what Titus was saying about his helmet. He gets the Guardians to fly towards Titus' ship and then flies through it repeatedly, destroying it and somehow unlocking his potential. When he returns to the Guardians they're surprised to see that the helmet has now turned black. Everyone works together to defeat the weakened Titus now that he's out of his ship, before SHIELD show up once more. The Guardians of the Galaxy leave to go after more Chitauri, and in the aftermath Spider-Man and Nova race once more.

Sam Alexander is Actually the Worst:

• Most of Sam's dialogue in this episode has me reacting with, "Wow, you're such a prat", as opposed to the usual, "Wow, I want to slit your throat," but one line that did stand out to me was when he and Spider-Man run from Titus and he angrily exclaims "We're running away?!" Grow the hell up, Nova, more than your pride is at stake.

Review: I mentioned back in my Before Watching post that I kind of hate Sam Alexander, regardless of medium. Have I mentioned why before? Well, if I haven't then now's as good a time as any, and if I have mentioned it, everyone who has read my reasons can go home early. Anyway, the reason I hate Sam Alexander - aside from the many reasons already presented in this show - is that I love love love Richard Rider, the Nova from before him. The Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning run on the character is  this beautiful cocktail where all of the pieces complement each other - it's a great story in general, with great characters, exploring cool science fiction concepts and tapping into cool parts of the Marvel Universe. It's an absolute crime that it didn't last longer, and even if we ignore the DnA run, I still really liked Nova in both his Bronze Age series and in New Warriors.

Sam Alexander, while bringing some diversity to comics that Richard can't (although Al Ewing writing him as something of a scarred veteran with PTSD has got to count for something), is not any of those things. Sam Alexander is Jeph Loeb looking at a heroic identity that was void at the time, and going, "Hell yeah, I think I get it!" Sam Alexander is reducing this cool, complex character and concept down to "funny space man with pew-pew lasers", and just like everything Jeph Loeb breathes on, he disregarded pretty much all continuity to do it. Sam Alexander may not have retroactively ruined my Nova comics or physically hurt me, but he sure as hell meant that I couldn't look forwards to reading about one of my favourite characters for many years.

Anyway, what does that have to do with this episode? The answer is that this episode is basically everything I hate about Sam Alexander - Titus wants his helmet because it'll let him be more evil, or some shit. Nothing deep or justifiable, he's just evil because that's who he is. Why does the helmet do this? Well, if this was the DnA run, it'd be because it contained Worldmind, the repository of the Nova Force, but this is Sam Alexander, so there's no reason for it, just like there's no reason for it turning black or Sam suddenly unlocking more of his power. There's no clever way to defeat the villain, or explaining why Sam's the last of the Novas, or what Titus was like - it's all one-dimensional tripe. Yeah, I'm biased against this episode, but given that it had the entire episode to explore the Nova concepts I like so much, it's its own fault for sticking to the mindless and dumb stuff instead.