Issue(s): Nova #16, Nova #17, Nova #18
Cover Date: Dec 77 - Mar 78
Title: "Death is-- the Yellow Claw" / "Tidal wave!" / "The final showdown! / Beginnings!"
Credits:
Marv Wolfman - Writer
Carmine Infantino - Penciler
Tom Palmer / The Tribe - Inker

Review/plot:
Issue #16 is billed as "Our Greatest Issue - Ever!" on the cover. Even if that's meant to be limited to just the Nova series, it's still incorrect. That honor goes to issue #4.

This is a three part story where Nova teams up with Nick Fury to help fight the Yellow Claw.

The Yellow Claw's men have undergone advanced conditioning to make them immune to Fury's taunts, making sarcasm all but useless against them.

I get that Nova was already a target of the Claw but there's nothing in particular in these issues that demonstrates why SHIELD wanted to use him over one of Fury's regular recruits, like Iron Man or Captain America.

Nova nonetheless does fine against the Yellow Claw...

...who despite being terribly racist as well as redundant since the real Fu Manchu exists in the Marvel Universe, served as one of Marvel's more powerful archvillains in the 60s and 70s.

I did like when Fury had to explain to Nova that the giant floating Yellow Claw was probably a hologram.

Carmine Infantino's art comes as a real letdown after the nice clean linework done by the Buscemas in the earlier issues. Infantino's art is very stylized and seems to require a certain type of inker.

Tom Palmer, despite being amazing for the Buscemas, doesn't seem to be the right type, and issue #18 at least seems to have been a rush job inked by "The Tribe".

Rich's civilian life continues to go down the tubes as well, with his friends and Ginger mad at him, his father in trouble with the law, his brother suspicious of him after he disappears from his bedroom, and his mom smacking him around for having a sass mouth.

However, things get a little better when the judge allows his father out without bail and Rich makes up with his friends in a back-up story after the main Yellow Claw plot is over.

Nova goes on a bi-monthly schedule with these issues.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Nova rescues some scientists from the Yellow Claw, including the one from Nova #13.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

"The Tribe" was a changing bunch of Filipino artists.

It was officially called Action Art Studio and ran by Tony & Mary DeZuniga. It was used full-time on the Marvel Classics series(which Fred Hembeck once stated as "containing the most tedious artwork of all time"). Members around this time included Ken Landgraf, Chuck Nanco, Ed Menji, and sometimes Alfredo Alcala and Rudy Nebres.

The 100-foot Yellow Claw may be a reference to the 1940s Lev Gleason Claw(who usually fought the 1940s Daredevil).

I hated Carmine Infantino's artwork on Nova, Ms Marvel, Spiderwoman, and Star Wars. Some one told me that Carmine Infantino boasted that he never even saw Star Wars, but was able to draw the comic book (nothing looked correct IMO - lots of errors on the Millennium Falcon, etc...).

I loved Carmine's sleek, nice art for stuff like the 1960s Flash. But all of his stuff to me just didn't look right as the years wore on--his late Flash run isn't bad, but just looks...not good...to me. All the characters seem to look bloated.