As the release of Avengers: Infinity War approaches, some fans are looking to the future and anticipating which Marvel Comics characters will be introduced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe next.
Could it be Richard Rider's Nova?
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige sat down with ComicBook.com this weekend and revealed that it's a possibility.
"Nova is—if we have a big board with a bunch of characters that have more immediate potential, Nova is on that board," he said. "Because of the connection to the Guardians universe, because there are more than one examples to pull from in the comics that are interesting. And you’re absolutely right, he was in the earliest drafts of the [Guardians of the Galaxy]."
Feige didn't get specific about the timetable of a Nova appearance and admitted that they're having difficulty choosing which of the many characters to highlight next. "We're figuring those things out," he explained. "It is a very unique embarrassment of riches right now because there are so many of the characters that audiences are clamoring to see more. The question is how do we show them all?"
He also broke down the various ways these decisions are made. "It's the internal group of us at Marvel Studios and then, of course, conversations with Alan Horn, the chairman of the studio, and it varies," Feige said. "It varies in terms of characters who audiences like and want to see more of, which is how you get to Ragnarok, or characters that we know are great and have wonderful supporting characters and literal worlds that we can tap into like Panther and Wakanda. So, it always varies. Now, we're at a point where there are a lot of both."
The best chance for a Nova appearance could be in an ensemble film similar to Infinity War, but Feige pointed out, "You can't do that every two years. You're fooling yourself. You're fooling yourself but I love that our most recent movie was almost as self-contained as anything we've ever done in Black Panther and it was successful beyond our wildest dreams. It all just depends on the story."
While you wait for his eventual appearance, here's a little primer on the character: Richard Rider's Nova first appeared in 1976’s Nova #1 by Marv Wolfman and John Buscema and has the powers of superhuman strength, invulnerability, the ability to fly, as well as a life support system uniform.
