Another old Nova comic

“The Coming of the Comet” Wolfman/ Infantino / Leialoha / Gasper / Gafford / Shooter


Three safe crackers are in the green, when the wall shatters with the might of Diamondhead. The bulletproof (almost “mullet proof”) villain shows them who is boss.
Sherly the robot dressed by Robbie as Sherlock Holmes sits at the Rider dinner table, where all Riders hang on young Rich’s every word regarding his revelation that he has a double life as the Human Rocket.


They decide to borrow Aunt Ellen’s summer house at Montauk Point to picnic and take rides with Rich, as Nova. With Mom, they happen to spot a U.F.O. While everyone eats and discusses Nova’s dangers, Mike Burley waits in a hospital commissary, as the “old man” he found in the alleyway takes an x-ray bombardment. Unbelievably, the energy coursing through him revitalizes him as a man in his thirties, with powers he didn’t want to have anymore, he says. Why this curse, he asks as he blasts away.

“Why must the Comet live again?”
Mike Burley runs to the spot in the park where the man materializes from a lightning bolt. The electrical glow subsides as he explains to Mike, who he recognizes as his would-be rescuer, the story of the Comet.


One night in 1956, a light charged after a man beside his stalled car; a gaseous comet struck him, granting him “strange, unearthly powers---which I used as a crime-fighter. Later we’ll see why this “in-story” famous hero wishes, perhaps, he’d died, as people assumed.

Nova changes, soars out the window for the skyline. He stumbles into a set-up: a robbery staged by Diamondhead, who crashes a wall down onto Nova. Diamondhead brags, then tells his flunkies to take what they want, saving the diamonds for him, and he has a power-mad laugh. The approaching cops can’t do much against him but become human missiles in his hands. But Nova pops out of at least three tons of shattered masonry, alive and confident. His attacks, however powerful, can’t stop the diamond-like menace, who still smarts over the insanity of being trapped in darkness by the Sphinx, unable for the longest to punch his way clear. Now his blows and kicks are followed up with torn electrical cables and a car hurled with one hand into Nova, who lies in its shredded remains while Diamondhead recounts his escape from the Sphinx and his crushing attack (in #12---Lyron).

The army corp of engineers were dynamiting the cliffside for a new base, from what he could overhear. He was still, crushed deeply into the mountainside after falling victim to a ruby-red attack.


The Sphinx, however, to his irritation, he says, was “blasted out inta space by the Fantastic Four!” (Funny, I hear Michael Chiklis voicing Diamondhead anyway.) The police radio for help as Diamondhead takes his leave, and now the Comet bolts through the sky, with Mike Burley in tow. The patrolmen fondly remember the Comet from years ago, and watch as his “electron energy” melts the twisted automobile. Now he directs the heat away from Nova’s body with an upward funnel of energy, and now, that body itself is the object of a subtle electron energy charge. Nova breathes, now. “He’s not moving---are you sure?” asks Mike. “Certainty is for gods, Michael...not for human beings!” Meanwhile: “did anybody get the number of that space-ship that hit me?”

Burley’s surprised Nova’s fine, and Nova’s surprised to see him again after several weeks with him missing. Mike admits he doesn’t want to go to jail for trying to rob the lab, for the life of his brother. Nova assures him his brother testified against the Yellow Claw; he’s been running for nothing.

Nova’s surprised to meet the hero “I read about as a kid!” and thanks Comet for reviving him. They get on the trail of Diamondhead, though the Comet warns Nova against the aggression and vengeance in his voice. “Justice should be your only consideration!” Below, Mike turns himself in.
Nova asks Comet where has he been all these years; he replies it is enough for now that he wears again the costume he once foreswore. The sky-riding heroes might alter the plans of their metallic handed observer, but he has the idea to use Diamondhead.

He takes over the “television device” at Diamondhead’s hideout, warns him Nova is alive and working with the Comet, and demands Nova’s brought to him upon victory.

Even now, he demonstrates, the duo follow a hologram of Diamondhead walking down the street towards the hide-out. Diamondhead smashes the television, declaring his need for no one: he is the strongest man alive, and unstoppable!