10 Marvel Duos Who Will Never Meet In The MCU

The Nova Corps are a former-space-militia-turned-intergalactic-law-enforcement group, originating from the planet Xandar. Richard Rider was a human granted the powers of the Nova force by his mortally wounded predecessor, who then operated as a superhero under the name Nova before discovering there were others out there like him.

As a space-hopping police force, Rider and the rest of the corps come into conflict with all manner of cosmic threats, but one that the MCU has already felt the wrath of is Josh Brolin’s Thanos.

Avengers: Infinity War screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely revealed in a 2019 interview a scrapped idea for the film’s opening, which would have Thanos massacring the Nova corps in search of the Power Stone. There would be a sole survivor, Rider, who would be the one to warn Earth’s heroes of Thanos’ oncoming attack. The role of this “herald” ended up going to the Hulk, who fled after Thanos attacked Thor’s ship, with a massacre of Xandar mentioned as having happened offscreen.

It seems that the MCU’s versions of Thanos and the Nova Corps have come into conflict at some point, but fans were never treated to an onscreen fight between these two sworn enemies.