Mr. Faerber took a few moments from his busy schedule to answer some questions about his work on the New Warriors. From his answers, it sounds like Nova was in for quite a ride! I'd like to thank Jay for giving us his insights on Nova and his role with the New Warriors.

1) What was your approach to Nova as a character?

It was pretty much a conglomerate of Erik Larsen's and Fabian Nicieza's approach. I know Erik liked to portray Nova as very Peter Parker-ish, and didn't really agree with Fabian's more "dumb jock" portrayal of him. I actually preferred Fabian's take, but since Erik was writing NOVA at the time we launched NW, I did my best to remain true to Erik's interpretation (so the character would remain fairly consistent between both books), while giving him a little slant of Fabian's take.

2) How much coordination was there with Erik Larsen while you were both handling Nova in two separate books?

We worked fairly close together. When I got the NW approval, I was forwarded all of Erik's stuff (the plots to his first two issues; his year-long overview; etc.). At that point, both NW and NOVA were being edited by Frank Pittarese. But when Frank resigned, NOVA ended up in Ruben Diaz's office, and NW ended up with Bobbie Chase. As far as I know, Ruben and Bobbie didn't really coordinate much -- it was all me and Erik. But since we knew pretty early that NOVA had been cancelled, there wasn't a need for THAT much coordination. I have to say that Erik is great about "playing ball," though. He made no secret about how ridiculous he thought Nova's new costume was, but he didn't let that interfere in helping NW in whatever way he could. He offered to set up anything I wanted in NOVA #5 (the issue that came out right before NW #1 -- which is why you saw Speedball approach Nova about reforming the team in NOVA #5), and after NOVA was cancelled, he offered to support NW by doing covers, or pin-ups, for us. And he worked in a LOT of NW subplots in WOLVERINE #149, which guest-starred Nova and the Warriors.

3) Can you give us some details regarding the decision to use a different Nova costume in issues #0 - #6?

Yeah, that was a decision I was against from the start. The main impetus behind it, from what I understand, is that the NOVA relaunch was such a failure that the Powers That Be wanted to try and distance NW from it, and one of the ways they came up with doing that, was to revamp Nova's costume. Steve Scott and I argued against it as much as we could, but it was no use. The Powers That Be also wanted to revamp ALL the team's costumes. I didn't have as much of a problem there, as I was never in love with Speedball, Nita, or Turbo's costumes. When Steve Scott had to leave the book, we originally planned for his replacement to take over with #6, and I did my best to make #6 a "jumping-on" point, since the book was already in trouble, and I wanted to bring in as many new readers as I could. I suggested to Bobbie that we change Nova's costume back in that issue, to help garner reader interest, and she agreed. Unfortunately, Jamal wasn't able to start with #6, and we never got the in-house ad I was promised, so the "jumping-on" point never really came together.

4) Was the return of Nova's original costume by design or was it due to fan request?

A little of both. I always wanted to change it back, but the fan request is what made it possible.

5) What were the Xandarians planning for Earth?

Well basically, because of Nova's recent screw-ups (killing Ginger's husband, shattering Diamondhead, etc.) the Xandarians were going to come to Earth to court martial him, basically. And the Warriors (ALL of them -- anyone who's ever been a Warrior) were going to have to come to his defense, leading into our double-sized 12th issue, which would've featured a global war between the Warriors and the entire Xandarian Nova Corps. It would've been revealed that the leader of the Xandarian campaign against Nova was Garthan Saal's brother, who blamed Nova for Saal's death. So the Warriors would've uncovered this sinister motive, and Saal's brother would've been dealt with by the Xandarians. And Nova would've regained his rightful place as a confident, effective hero.

6) Are there are plans for a mini-series or one-shot to resolve the Xandar storyline?

No, unfortunately. And since I just gave it all away to you, that guarantees we'll never do it!

7) What other storylines did you have planned for Nova had the series continued?

At the end of the Xandarian plotline, Nova would've finally gotten all the recognition and adoration he craved, and it would've led him to leave the Warriors in favor of leading his own super-team -- a new Heroes For Hire, funded by Stark-Fujikawa. The Heroes For Hire would've been rivals of the Warriors for awhile, and Nova would've gotten an increasingly-swelled head, as the HFH would've been media darlings. Eventually, though, he'd realize that Stark-Fujikawa was using the HFH for nefarious purposes, and would've returned to his friends, the Warriors.

8) What future projects of yours can we look forward to?

At Marvel, I'm writing the WOLVERINE tie-in to the X-Men movie and the WOLVERINE / IRON FIST mini-series, which continues the Iron Fist story begun in NW. At DC I'm taking over as the new regular writer of TITANS with #21, due out in September; I'm writing SUPERBOY #s 80-81, GREEN LANTERN #s 126-128; and the SUPERMAN 80-PAGE GIANT; plus the FIRESTORM one-shot that's part of the GREEN LANTERN: RING OF FIRE 5th Week Event, for DC. And at WildStorm, I'm a regular contributor to GEN-ACTIVE, their quarterly anthology spotlighting the Gen13 and DV8 characters.