What If? #15 page 37 - George Perez!

Ok folks, this is one of my all-time, all-time "Grail Pages"! As you can probably tell from my gallery, the 1970s Bronze age NOVA is my favorite character. Add to that George Perez as one of my top 3 artists of all time, and you have a keeper!

This page always captured my imagination for several reasons; first the fourth of the four stories, "What If a Criminal Had Become Nova?" was great - and it was drawn by George Perez - who had only done one page for NOVA (cover to issue #14) to my knowledge (which i loved!)

Second, Perez drew the criminal NOVA in the vein of 'Nick Fury' - with the gruff looking face and smoking a cigar (very cool looking!)

Third, the panel of NOVA and the Sphinx looking at the computer display that shows all of earth's heroes killed was just awesome! There are 24 "headshots" of 70s era superheroes in that one single panel - Can you name them all?? (Bonus points if you find Howard...)

Fourth, this was super timely as the NOVA series had just ended with NOVA #25 in May 1979, and picked up in Fantastic Four #204 with NOVA and Sphinx going to NOVA's home world, Xandar. This story would culminate in one of the greatest matchups of all time - Sphinx vs Galactus in FF issue #213!

This was the probably the PRIME of PEREZ, who went directly from this issue to amazing covers for Avengers, to penciling Avengers, then simultaneously starting one of his most popular runs ever for DC with the New Teen Titans!

Thanks to Rob for my "grail page" and making my year!
;-)