Nova is the name of two fictional superheroes in the Marvel Comics universe.

Richard Rider

The first Nova is Richard Rider, a teenager who was chosen at random by the alien Rhomann Dey last surviving centurion of the planet Xandar 's elite Nova Corps, who had been mortally wounded in battle with the intergalactic pirate Zorr and needed to transfer his powers to another to replace him in the fight.

Rider gained great strength, resistance to injury, the ability to fly, and a uniform with a sealed life support system, but little training on how to use these new powers.

He functioned briefly as Nova, the Human Rocket, until fate called him to space and over a year of service in the protection of the planet Xandar, the same world where his great powers had originated. Eventually tiring of a life of constant intergalactic war and hoping to rejoin his high school friends, the boy requested to return home to Earth. When he was told he would have to relinquish his powers in order to do so, Rider agreed.

For years, Rider lived as normal a life a person could while struggling with a disrupted education; flipping burgers and barely making ends meet, he spent his time trying to pick up the pieces of the life he had left behind, all the while wishing he could find a way to regain the powers he had lost. During this period, the planet Xandar was destroyed in an attack by the alien Skrulls.

The superhero Night Thrasher, in a bid to secure new super powered allies, deduced that Rider's powers were not gone, but simply lay dormant inside the young man. Sure that a high stress situation would be enough to reignite Rider's powers, Night Thrasher kidnapped Rider and dropped him off the top of a building. The theory proved correct with Rider instantly coming back to full power before he hit the ground.

Since then, Richard Rider has resumed his superhero career on his own, as a member of the New Warriors, and as an occasional member of the revived Nova Corps.

Frankie Raye

After breaking through the block, she aided the Fantastic Four for some time, until she volunteered to become the herald of Galactus, claiming to have no compunction about leading him to sentient planets, and served in that capacity for for years. (When Richard Rider resumed his Nova identity alongside the New Warriors, he was briefly called "Kid Nova" to distinguish him from Raye.) Frankie Raye was ultimately killed by the alien Morg , who had replaced her as Galactus' herald, in Silver Surfer #75 (1992), although the demon Mephisto later made it appear that she had returned from the dead.

An alternate future exists where she survived (or was resurrected) and continued serving Galactus until the end of the universe, at which time he would sacrifice himself to create a new universe, and she would become the Galactus of this new universe.