Marvel Firsts: Before Marvel Now! #[nn]
Marvel NOW! Point One #1 (cover-dated December 2012) was Marvel's official anthology overture to the entire Marvel NOW! publishing initiative — a company-wide reshuffling of creative teams and status quos that followed the Avengers vs. X-Men event. The issue's greatest long-term significance is that it contains the second published appearance of Sam Alexander as the new Nova (his first was in the earlier Point One one-shot of November 2011), presenting the character to a fresh wave of readers and directly setting up his 2013 solo series; it also gave Nick Fury Jr. (Marcus Johnson) and Agent Phil Coulson their first prominent Marvel NOW! framing roles, cementing those MCU-influenced figures as cornerstones of the rebooted line. Beyond individual debuts, the anthology format — threading a Nick Fury Jr./Coulson framing story through short lead-in strips for Guardians of the Galaxy, Young Avengers, FF, and Cable and X-Force — established the template Marvel would use for subsequent Point One roadmap issues throughout the decade.
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The issue was edited under Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso as part of the broader Marvel ReEvolution initiative announced in March 2012, which also encompassed Infinite Comics and the Marvel AR augmented-reality app. The framing sequence was written by Nick Spencer with art by Luke Ross, while the individual anthology strips were handled by the creative teams attached to each forthcoming series: Brian Michael Bendis and Steve McNiven (Star-Lord/Guardians of the Galaxy), Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness (Nova), Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie with Mike Norton (Young Avengers), Matt Fraction and Michael Allred (Ant-Man/FF), and the Cable-and-Forge story written by Dennis Hopeless with art by Gabriel Hernandez Walta, which led directly into Cable and X-Force #1. Marvel NOW! itself was explicitly positioned not as a continuity reboot — unlike DC's concurrent New 52 — but as a rolling shift of status quos and creative teams following the upheaval of Avengers vs. X-Men.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published with a December 2012 cover date as the official anthology launch-pad for the Marvel NOW! initiative, which debuted in October 2012.
- Contains the second published appearance of Sam Alexander as the new Nova (his debut was in the earlier 2011 Marvel Point One one-shot), created by writer Jeph Loeb and artist Ed McGuinness; the strip leads directly into Nova Vol. 5 #1 (February 2013).
- Nick Fury Jr. (Marcus Johnson) and Agent Phil Coulson are the featured characters of the framing sequence, written by Nick Spencer with art by Luke Ross, functioning as the connective tissue between all anthology segments; this was their first prominent narrative role within the Marvel NOW! branding.
- Includes a partial Star-Lord origin story by Brian Michael Bendis and Steve McNiven, serving as a direct lead-in to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 #0.1.
- The Forge-and-Cable strip, written by Dennis Hopeless with art by Gabriel Hernandez Walta, provides the in-continuity setup for Cable and X-Force #1, depicting Cable (freed of his Techno-Organic virus) recruiting a mentally recovering Forge.
- Young Avengers segment by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie introduces the Loki-and-Miss America dynamic that opens Young Avengers Vol. 2 #1 (2013).
- Ant-Man segment written by Matt Fraction with art by Michael Allred (depicting Scott Lang's grief over the death of his daughter Stature) leads into FF Vol. 2 #1.
- Marvel NOW! was designed as a shifting of the Marvel Universe — not a reboot — following Avengers vs. X-Men, with Marvel Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada stressing continuity was preserved, distinguishing it from DC's New 52 relaunch.