Young hepcats/Space Cops

Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner) - Nova

In 1994, while I was barely paying attention, DC brass decided to introduce a new, young hepcat version of Green Lantern: in doing so, they turned Hal Jordan into a crazed bad guy…

And fandom screamed… my understanding is in the 14 years since, Rayner has gained some measure of fan acceptance as one of four Green Lantern corpsmen form Earth.

As for Nova: apparently Marv Wolfman thought that late ‘70s Marvel needed a series with the sense of wonder of early Spider-Man, with perhaps a soupcon of GL. Nova was the result: methinks the character has endured long past any expectations.

Here we see how I get around the fact that Tony Stark was never a space cop: when the shoe’s on the other foot, he’s a member of the Nova Corps who went nutso and was replaced by a younger guy. AKA cheat cheat cheat cheat…

Commonalities:
Both characters were conceived for the identification of the intended audience —young dudes. And both are representatives of an interstellar police force.

Differences:
Nova makes no hard light constructions via a “power ring.”

Alternate histories:

GL: High schooler Kyle Rayner is selected at random by a dying alien representative of the Green Lantern Corps to take his place. Rayner assumes the abilities incumbent to the interstellar police force’s power ring, and encounters many in the metahuman community before serving off world alongside the Corps for a year. Rayner abandons his duties and lives as a normal human for a time before he is pressed back into service with a team of superhumans. He has recently left Earth to take part in a galactic conflagration, in which he become the most powerful Green Lantern.

NO: When Iron Man, Earth’s representative of the Nova Corps, loses his mind and destroys the Corps, Richard Ryder is picked at random to be the last representative of the interstellar peacekeeping force. While Ryder learns on the job, he joins the Avengers. Eventually, Iron Man and the rest of the Nova Corps are revived, and Ryder journeys into space to serve in various galactic conflagrations.