As Glen Powell’s star has only risen in Hollywood over the past few years, fans have been waiting for the day when he inevitably joins a superhero movie. Rumors and fancasts have swirled for quite a while, suggesting that the Top Gun: Maverick and Twisters star should be playing everyone from DC’s Batman to Marvel’s Cyclops.
One other suggestion has popped up along the way… and it looks like it even has the cosign of one of Powell’s most recent collaborators, Michael Waldron. Waldron, who co-created Powell’s Hulu series Chad Powers, might be best known for his work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe on projects like Loki and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Most recently, Waldron has been brought on to work on the scripts for the franchise’s two biggest movies yet, Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars… which made his comments in a recent interview with The Playlist’s Bingeworthy Podcast especially interesting.
Towards the end of the interview, Waldron was asked what MCU role would be a good fit for Powell, to which he replied, “He’d be a pretty good Nova.”
For those who are unfamiliar, Nova is the superhero moniker used by several characters within the pages of Marvel Comics. The most well-known is Richard Rider, who was created by Marv Wolfman and John Buscema, and based on an idea Wolfman had published in a fanzine years earlier. An ordinary high school student in New York City, Richard is chosen to be the last member of the alien Nova Corps, ultimately embracing the mantle as a member of the New Warriors, the Defenders, and the Guardians of the Galaxy. In more recent years, as Richard has aged into adulthood, he has shared the Nova mantle with, and mentored, a teenager named Sam Alexander.
Is Glen Powell headed to the MCU?!
Nova, and especially Richard Rider’s, relationship with the MCU has been… interesting, to say the least. While the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy (and its theme park rides) heavily feature the Nova Corps, James Gunn never included Richard in his movies, arguing that he was “just too big of a character”, and that his human status was potentially redundant alongside Star-Lord.
And then there’s 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War… which opens with a reference to Thanos destroying Xandar and the Nova Corps, but does not actually show that onscreen. Fans had wondered at the time if that plot point would set up Richard’s arrival, but it never came to fruition.
Things seemed to finally pan out in 2022, when news broke that a Nova series was in development for Disney+. Kevin Feige even confirmed its existence, saying in 2023 that he hoped it would premiere within the next three to four years. Criminal Minds showrunner Ed Bernero was brought onto the project, and fancasts started to swirl for both Richard and Sam.
But in February of this year, it was confirmed that Marvel Studios had paused development on Nova, as well as Disney+ series for Strange Academy and Terror, Inc. While any of these could come to fruition at a later date, this news made it clear that they weren’t immediate focuses on the road to Doomsday and Secret Wars.
This makes Waldron’s comment about Powell especially interesting. Is he just joining the chorus of people who think Powell would make a good Richard Rider? Or could we see the casting come to fruition at some point across Doomsday or Secret Wars? Given just how many characters are already confirmed for Doomsday alone, I’m not expecting an entirely-new character like Nova to get introduced… but I’m also not ruling anything out.
(featured image: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
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