Ultimate Spider-Man: Jeph Loeb Talks Nova's Role

In a new interview at the Marvel website, Marvel Television chief and Nova writer Jeph Loeb discussed the differences in the way he depicts Sam Alexander between the comics and TV series, saying that while the comics are starting with Sam's origin story, the character is more comfortable in his own skin by the time he appears on Ultimate Spider-Man. "He's absolutely less confident [in Nova #1], and I think that's where [the difference in his attitude] comes from," Loeb said. "Certainly by the time he gets to Ultimate Spider-Man he's cocky, and [he] will continue to grow and learn in season two as we find out a little more about his background on the animated series and stuff that we haven't even seen that will be in the comics." He added, "We were talking about somebody in the animated series that was Nova. He was confident in his powers—if anything he was a little bit arrogant—and kind of a jerk about it in certain ways. He's very head strong. It was somebody that was going to be a fun antagonist for Spidey, and so in doing that we had an opportunity to see who Sam would become along the way. Which is a really interesting journey because he's not [that way] in the comic. At least not in the beginning." Ultimate Spider-Man airs Sundays at 11 a.m. on Disney XD.