I really enjoyed the original Richard Rider version of Nova, especially from the ANNHILATION era afterward when Keith Giffen, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning had him grow up and become more of a space bad ass. He went from needing a hand taking down the Rhino in Robert Kirkman's MARVEL TEAM-UP to ripping Annihilus inside out and saving the universe. After that, "DnA" did a 3 year run on NOVA which was probably some of the best stuff of their career, at least in recent memory. His sacrifice in THANOS IMPERATIVE I thought was fair, even if I doubted it'd be the end.
Now? The first taste I got of the Sam Washington character was on "ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN", which is only the first cartoon Jeph Loeb produced from start to finish as TV czar, and it's rubbish (at best). The fact that he's negating prior continuity to do whatever he wants - like Bendis did with Star-Lord and the rest of the GOTG - doesn't surprise me. Loeb's been a hack of the highest order for some time now, at least to me. The last work anyone considers to have been above average have been his collaborations with Tim Sale - and considering Loeb tells us again and again and again and again and again that he "writes for his artists", I think I'll take him for his word and attribute at least partial or halfway success for those stories on Sale. His best works for DC since "Long Halloween" were often mindless action romps made to have as many villains show up as possible, such as BATMAN: HUSH or his run on WORLD'S FINEST which has been immortalized into not one, but two DTV's by WB home video (a tribute saved only for Frank Miller and Dwayne McDuffie thus far). The last thing of Loeb's that I read, AVENGERS: X-SANCTION was perfectly mediocre, middle of the road action fare. Probably the most amusing part of that was seeing his "Gary Stu" character, Red Hulk, lose to Cable in as absurd a manner as Red Hulk once was allowed to deck out the Watcher. His ULTIMATUM was close to a death blow for the Ultimate imprint and sales for it still haven't recovered since. It's only in the upside down and inside out world of comic books where a producer who literally ran a hit network TV show into the ground for two seasons could then be promoted into a position where he's literally in control of every small screen adaptation which the company does. That's like someone promoting Uwe Boll to being Senior Vice President of Quality Control for, well, anything.
I'm boggled when some people tried NOVA and they're shocked, SHOCKED, that certain bits of it ignore continuity or flat out make crap up or seem to have been copied and pasted from the HACK'S REFERENCE GUIDE OF GENERIC WRITING, 101. Loeb's sort of been on that roll for a while now. Why was it a surprise? That's why I didn't bother. He once stated in an interview about many writers missing deadlines because they're perfectionists and they turn in scripts late. While I am certain this happens, there is such a thing as going too far in the other direction, and I fear Loeb has by this point in his career.
Bendis is someone who I feel may be a better editor than writer, as his ideas usually are fine, it's just his execution which made me want to strangle myself. Loeb? Unless he teams up with Tim Sale more, I don't know where his quality control is anymore. The only difference is that Bendis' ability to influence media adaptations of Marvel's legendary franchises is limited, while Loeb's in charge of a large arm of that now. His best successes have been "A:EMH" and the initial Marvel anime, both of which began production before his promotion and the former at best was diminished slightly from his meddling. In terms of comics, I wouldn't expect anything beyond middle of the road action fare which checks off every cliche on the checklist, because meeting that deadline is what counts. Maybe that's become Loeb's problem; caring more about the dotted line than genuine emotion or art.
:cmad; 
