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Nomad: Girl Without a World #1

Nov 2009
Sean McKeever, David Baldeon

Nomad: Girl Without a World #1 cover

Story Name:

Brave New World


Synopsis

Nomad: Girl Without a World #1 synopsis by Peter Silvestro
Rating: 3 stars
Rikki Barnes, who was Captain America’s sidekick Bucky in a parallel world, is now in ours; she lives in Manhattan and attends high school under the name Rikki Baines. Her dream is to meet this world’s Cap—Steve Rogers is dead but she’s on the lookout for his replacement. One evening she hears a news report that Cap is engaged with armored villains downtown; she quickly dons her Bucky costume and heads to the scene. As she prepares to join in the battle, she is stopped by Black Widow who knows all about her otherworldly origin and advises her to not get involved with superheroing at such a young age. Frustrated, Rikki goes home….
The next day in school she meets up with her best friend John—who was her mean brother in her world. Social studies teacher Doctor Powers assigns the class to attend the speeches made by candidates for Student Council President that afternoon. The addresses are a pretty dull lot until the last candidate Desmond Daniels speaks. He criticizes the students’ lack of responsibility and challenges them to make a difference. To Rikki’s surprise, five students immediately stand up and pledge to do that—and they are a startlingly diverse lot: a popular girl, a jock, a nerd, a punk, and a slacker. In the days that follow these five begin a campaign of calling out and publicly shaming fellow students for bad behavior (necking in public, dirty language, disrespect for teachers, etc.). Suspicious, Rikki trails the popular girl, Natsuki, and finds her meeting after hours with the others at the school. Donning her Bucky costume, she enters the building and descends into a previously unknown dungeon-like area; there she as attacked by a huge and fearsome dog-man. Fighting to get away, she escapes though with a slash to the arm. Making her way hone, she discovers on her bed a suitcase containing a costume and a top secret file on Nomad….

 

Review / Commentaries


Nomad: Girl Without a World #1 Review by (August 16, 2013)
Review: It was a surprising move to bring up anything from Rob Liefeld’s run on Cap in the mid-90s—an era best left forgotten but Sean McKeever evidently had a soft spot for Rikki Barnes, the girl Bucky. So here she is in her own miniseries, designed to bring her into the 616 continuity as the brand new Nomad! As though they didn’t already have a bunch of teen heroes to play with. Nomad is fairly likeable but unremarkable: another spunky kid with the usual teen angst—and here they supply what is obligatory for a hero origin story: she has a loved one die tragically (and perfunctorily). The villain, Professor Power, is not very interesting, his scheme poorly defined (the kids are just guinea pigs for a new method of mind-control or something, yet there is debate on whether or not it succeeds). The plot never focuses on anything long enough to become interesting—is it about belonging? Acceptance? Responsibility? Peer pressure? The only thing that comes through clearly and consistently is that conservatives are bad guys. The art is acceptable, suiting the slightly younger focus of the series: the action scenes are handled deftly and make up for the surprising sameness of faces. Overall, a not particularly interesting effort to bring back a character no one particularly wanted.

Comments: Rikki Barnes was introduced in CAPTAIN AMERICA (1996) #1 and came to our world during ONSLAUGHT REBORN.


> Nomad: Girl Without a World comic book info and issue index

Elektra

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Holy smokes, Batman!
(The Boy Wonder)

David Baldeon
David Baldeon
Chris Sotomayor
Rafael Albuquerque (Cover Penciler)
Rafael Albuquerque (Cover Inker)
Rafael Albuquerque (Cover Colorist)


Characters

Listed in alphabetical order. All stories.

Black Widow
Black Widow

(Natasha Romanoff)
Captain America
Captain America

(James "Bucky" Barnes)
Captain America
Captain America

(Steven Rogers)
Plus: Nomad (Rikki Barnes), Mad-Dog (Robert Baxter), Professor Power.

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