They were ongoings.
I didn’t work on Nova, but on Star-Lord, the series was planned from the beginning to continue on past issue 6. Unfortunately, the sales were not there to support the book continuing. I was pretty bummed about it–I think Chip and Kris made an AMAZING book, and it’s going to be a gorgeous and heartfelt TPB when it’s collected.
Not sure where the idea that Star-Lord was always meant to end early came from…but that was not the case. I know that in the past series that were originally planned as miniseries were instead launched as ongoings which then ended after that initial arc…but even in those cases, the idea is to boost sales and have them continue on. If the sales had supported the book continuing past that initial arc, it would have continued past it. I don’t remember there ever being a case where Marvel launched a series as an ongoing instead of a mini, got high sales, and ended the book anyway. It’s possible there was one I am not thinking of…but it would probably take unusual circumstances for us to cancel a book that is doing well.
I wish me thinking book was amazing was enough to let us keep publishing it, but unfortunately, there are other matters to consider, and sales are a large part of those other matters. And please don’t think I am blaming the audience for the book being cancelled–no one is under any obligation to buy our books. On the contrary, we are under an obligation to make books you will want to buy, so feel free to lay the blame for the cancellation on me. That said, I remain proud of the series, and an glad we were able to put out the issues we did.