Ultimate Spider-Man Saved This Blog

This blog's been in a slump for a while now, for a few reasons. One, modern adaptations of comic books are more likely to use obscure characters instead of inventing new ones. Two, there's been an adaptation dry spell lately, so there's been no way for new characters to appear anyway. And three, DC's immigrant frenzy halted with the New 52 relaunch, while Marvel has never been big on immigrants in the first place.

But luckily, something changed. Ultimate Spider-Man debuted last weekend (April 2, 2012), and the premiere brought us two new characters, both of whom are new versions of existing characters, and both of whom have already jumped to comics: White Tiger and Nova. (This is becoming increasingly common, as it's a good marketing strategy for new shows, but I'm not a fan because it makes the idea of canon immigrants murky. But I digress.)

In the animated series, White Tiger is part of a group of superhero SHIELD trainees (as is Nova, Spider-Man, Power Man, and Iron Fist). In the comics, she first appeared as a part of the closest thing to that in the Marvel Universe: the Avengers Academy. Ava Ayala is the sister of Hector Ayala, the first superhero to use the name "White Tiger" and she has inherited his jade tiger amulet. She is also at odds with fellow canon immigrant Reptil because she thinks he's not active enough in the hispanic community.  Ava first appeared in Avengers Academy #20 (October 2011).

Nova, aka Sam Alexander, is the newest member of the Nova Corps and Richard Rider's replacement. He first appeared in Point One #1 (November 2011) and has already played an important role in Marvel Comics: he alerted Earth to the impending arrival of the Phoenix Force, thus kicking off the event "Avengers Vs. X-Men".

I'm glad to be able to add these, and hopefully there will be more entries soon!