10 Unluckiest Comic Book Characters
4. Nova
Nova (Richard Rider) is the superhero equivalent of Sisyphus, the mythological Greek king doomed to eternally roll a rock up a hill only for it to repeatedly fall back down. In Rider’s case, his rock is the Nova Corps, which he must repeatedly recruit for. Nova's misfortune is the Nova Corps and its demands.
Rider had the power and responsibilities of Nova Prime forced randomly upon him by the dying alien Rhomann Dey. Superhero Rider experienced his first colossal dose of misfortune when most of the Nova Corps and the planet Xandar (birthplace to the Corps) where destroyed by the Annihilation Wave.
Instead of rebuilding the Corps, Rider endured further bad luck when he was mortally wounded after colliding with a barrier blocking Kree space from the rest of the universe.
His body was found and healed to health, however, the during the recovery process Rider was infected with the Phalanx Transmode virus, which, for a time, made him a slave of the Phalanx.
Nova eventually restored the Nova Corps to its former numbers, however, when he was otherwise occupied, the Corps were completely wiped out by the Universal Church of Truth, an alien religious empire who worship the Magnus, Adam Warlock’s evil future self.