Nova (Marvel Zombies)

"THIS IS CRAZY!! Do you guys even realize what we're up against?! If someone you know is not here-- they're one of them! Don't you see what that means? We're completely outnumbered! And the plan is to turn this helicarrier into a flying Noah's Ark?! How is that going to work?! How many people fit on this thing?! I'm sorry-- I know we get together like this every few months to avert some global crisis or fight some enormous bad guy-- I get it. That's what we do. But I think you guys are treating this like another Kree/Skrull invasion-- or Thanos attacking! This is different! Look how many we're already lost and we're just now forming a game plan?! We're all dead! We're as good as dead!"

- Nova panicking about the situation.

Richard Rider, also known as Nova, is a recurring antagonist in Marvel Zombies. He along with many other heroes became a flesh-eating zombie after a zombified Sentry appeared and caused the Zombie Plague.

He appears as a minor antagonist in Ultimate Fantastic Four issue #23, a supporting antagonist in Marvel Zombies, a major character in Marvel Zombies: Dead Days, and a minor antagonist in Marvel Zombies Vs. Army of Darkness.

Early life
Little is known about Nova's life before the zombie plague occurs on Earth-2149, but it can be presumed is most likely the same as his Earth-616 counterpart.

The Zombie Plague
After witnessing the Avengers devouring citizens in New York, Nova goes to find Spider-Man, only to be zombified as well as eating the remains of his wife. He is attacked by the web-slinger, Daredevil arrives and warns Nova to kill the undead superhero, but is bitten and Nova escapes.

Later, Nova finds and helps Thor fight against the zombified horde. The Fantastic Four shows up and saves them, before heading to the Helicarrier as Nick Fury called a meeting about the plague. Aboard the Helicarrier, Fury tells the remain uninfected heroes it looks like the of the world and everyone should be on the same team.

Nova, along with other heroes returns to the surface and tries to kill the zombies. Sadly, he and other heroes are overwhelmed and turned. After Beast and Mr. Fantastic found the remain humans in Latveria and the surrounding area, Nova and a huge of infected zombies head off to get inside of Castle Doomstadt.

While trying to break through the magical defences, Nova and other zombified heroes are surrounded by the re-animated corpses of the Deadite Legion. However, the reanimated corpses were unable to defeat the horde as they still had their abilities.

Power Cosmic
When Earth-1610 Reed arrived on Earth-2149 and meets Magneto, Nova and the other zombified heroes found them. Trying to catpure the living flesh, Nova is presumably blinded by Earth-1610 Invisible Woman when the Fantastic Four and Magneto flee, with a surviving pocket of humanity, heading to the Baxter Building to use the teleportation machine in order to transports to the Ultimate Universe. Later, Nova is seen trying to catch the Master of Magnetism, but is injured being injured by the magnetically objects thrown by Magneto.

Afterwards, Nova is cut in half by Silver Surfer when he arrives on Earth. After Colonel America, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Hulk, Giant Man, Spider-Man and Iron Man were able to devour Silver Surfer, they got cosmic powers and fried the zombies, presumably along with Nova to test their new powers.