See Nova Concept Art From 'Guardians Of The Galaxy'

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We saw the Nova Corps. in Guardians of the Galaxy, led by Glenn Close's character as they worked with Star-Lord and friends to fight Ronan the Accuser. But we did not see Nova proper, despite a plan once being in place to feature him in the movie. Nova, like so many other Marvel characters (especially on the cosmic end of things) has a few different conceptions in comics stories, but in general he's a uniformed human man, Richard Rider, who is buffed up by power and authority. He's somewhere between a galactic cop superstar and Xandar's own Captain America. Now we've got Nova concept art, detailing one ideas for his on-screen incarnation.

Cutting Nova from the first film makes sense. He would be another human character who is empowered with somewhat superhuman capabilities — a lot like Star Lord in the end. And then there's the fact that we see so many other Nova Corps. characters in the movie. Not that having Nova proper would have been confusing, but I can see Marvel making the decision to hold Nova for later. And, obviously, that means we could see Nova in Guardians of the Galaxy 2, as I mentioned in our big sequel piece.

This art comes from the book Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Art of the Movie, out August 12, which features plenty of concept art and character, vehicle and weapon designs. (via MovieWeb.)

There's also this concept art of the Badoon, who were changed into Sakaarans for the film, as Fox owns screen rights to the Badoon. But this concept, by Goran Bukvic, is pretty neat: