Today we're going to take a look at one of AvX's two Outer Space Dude characters, Nova.  I honestly don't know a lot about him outside of that he does a bunch of stuff in space and that his nickname is The Human Rocket, but I do suspect given that, and the runaway popularity of the Guardians of the Galaxy film, he's a fairly likely candidate for someone who'll join the Marvel Cinematic Universe eventually.  But we don't care about that right now - we want to know about him in MDM!

Nova's got a nice light grey-on-blue color scheme that is pretty clean - I've never had a problem reading his die.  The icon - a burst/comet type deal - is evocative of the icon on Nova's helmet, and of him blasting off towards something (which is I guess part of his shtick?), so I think it captures his essence pretty well; short of a representation of his helmet that would probably lead to confusion with Magneto, it's probably the best choice.  I'm not totally sure why they used that light grey ink, though - a gold or yellow would have made more sense given Nova's color scheme, and they don't have the confusion excuse that Strange had for not doing it.  Still, Nova's a decent looking die.

Statwise, Nova's a little on the expensive side to field, being a TFC 5 progression, but he's got some good bang for the buck, starting at 4/4 and growing to 7/7 - a bargain for two, in my opinion.  He's very close to a TFC6 statline, for one less cost at the high end, so if you're looking to beef up your roster without breaking the energy bank quite so hard, he's a pretty good option.

Nova's theme is 'do something when he takes damage.'  He's all about ramming into people, to my limited understanding, so I guess that makes sense?  He shares this concept with Hulk, who similarly does stuff when he takes damage; Hulk also triggers on player damage, for that extra kick, though.  Still, given that Nova is a bruiserly-type fellow in MDM, you can expect him to take damage a lot of the time, which means plenty of opportunities to get those abilities triggering.  Your choices are:

• Quasar - Cost 5 - Each time Nova takes damage, you may draw one die and put it in your prep area.
• Buckethead - Cost 6 - The first time Nova takes damage each turn, you may redirect that damage to one target character.
• The Human Rocket - Cost 5 - Whenever Nova takes damage in an attack step, he deals 2 damage to your opponent.

Buckethead is potentially interesting; in the normal case, his ability makes him extremely hard to knock out, given that usually the first time a die takes damage each turn is when they get dealt damage by the die they block or are blocked by; useful when the character is sort of expensive and a beefy threat to keep the pressure on.  The redirect means you get to fling a little extra damage around; sadly you can't target your opponent, so you may have little choice but to help your opponent churn with this unless you blast your own guys.  Unfortunately, this incarnation of Nova is even more expensive, going into the six-cost category of 'your big endgame dudes;' his stats jive with this better than some of the other TFC 5 characters, but for what the ability gets you, I'm not sure it's worth the extra expense.

The Human Rocket seems pretty straightforward: he takes damage in combat, he pokes your opponent.  This basically means that unless your opponent blocks him and either removes the blocker or prevents the blocker from doing damage, THR Nova will always do at least some damage when he attacks, and likely when he blocks, too.  The question I have is, is it possible to get this ability to proc more than once in a turn, once by using some kind of direct damage ability (NOGG or Mjolnir's globals, perhaps) early in the combat, and then again when damage is dealt by the die he blocks/is blocked by?  Given the 'all damage resolves simultaneously' directive, I'm not quite sure that it would count, but logically it seems like that would be two chronologically different sources of damage - a hit, then the 'big melee' damage that wants to be lumped together.  Not that it's a big deal - it'd just be a way to squeak out a little extra damage.  Note that Nova doesn't have to attack to be eligible, though - you can ping him after being Distractioned, or even if he's not participating at all, and still get the damage to go through.

The natural comparison for Nova is with Hulk.  While Nova isn't quite as beefy as Hulk, and he doesn't quite approach the strength of Green Goliath on his any of his abilities, he also winds up being overall cheaper, and all his variants' abilities are at least fairly useful, which is more than Hulk can say.  I personally favor Quasar out of the three, though The Human Rocket is pretty solid as well; if he cost four instead of five, I think he'd have given Mutate #666 a serious run for his money, as Quasar is a lot easier to get dice from.  If what we're seeing with UXM is true, and the game is looking to have more of a buildup from early to mid to endgame, I think Nova will increasingly find a spot on teams.