THE TOP 20 WHAT IF? COMICS OF ALL TIME (According to me)

NOTE: THIS ARTICLE IS A REPUBLISH OF A 2015 ARTICLE PREVIOUSLY POSTED ON MY OLD SITE. IT HAS NOT BEEN CHANGED OR REVISED.

I started out reviewing every issue of What If? to see if the stories actually came true (many of them did), but there’s a ton of shit to shovel through and I don’t have time for that kind of a long slog anymore.  Too damn busy.

But I didn’t want all my work to go to waste—and there are a lot of good comics in there.

Hence, this post.

Also, Secret Wars 2015 is basically the greatest What If story ever, offering glimpses into dozens of alternate universes.  But we won’t count it because it’s a compression of alternative universes rather than a view of what they all could look like—when it’s done, as i understand it, everything will be 616 canon.

I’m pretty sure I was able to find every issue of What If? ever created, either through the Marvel app or in my old long boxes, and in on-line summaries from places like the great Supermegamonkey. Based on those readings and reviews, I’ve determined that these are the 20 greatest What If? stories ever produced by Marvel…

20.  WHAT IF SHANG CHI FOUGHT ON THE SIDE OF FU MANCHU (Vol. 1 #16)

I’m a sucker for Doug Moench’s old karate book, so I’m exactly the target audience for this.  You should be, too, unless you, sir, have no sense of nostalgia.

Moench is one of those writers who established some of Marvel’s best B-listers, like Shang Chi, Moon Knight, Werewolf by Night…But he’s rarely spoken about when people talk about the best comic book writers of all time.  That’s an injustice I am bravely crusading to correct.

19.  WHAT IF WOLVERINE HAD BEEN AN AGENT OF SHIELD (Vol. 2 #7)

Yes, it’s Rob Liefeld on art.  But it’s back when that was a good thing.  And though I’m not usually a fan of Jim Valentino, he does a good job with the script here.  It also helps that, as a concept, this just makes sense.  Whywouldn’t they have recruited him and brainwashed him long before Xavier did?  And frankly, he claims to be a loner but he’s in tons of groups so it’s obvious he just wants love.  Awwww.

18.  WHAT IF KAREN PAGE HAD LIVED (one-shot 2004)

Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Lark tag on to Frank Miller’s “Born Again” storyline in a great issue.  Most of the great ones on this list are from Volume 1, but this is a solid entry into the best of pantheon.

17.  WHAT IF THE MARVEL BULLPEN BECAME THE FANTASTIC FOUR (Vol. 1 #11)

Jack Kirby wrote and drew this….So why is he The Thing?  I guess it makes sense.  And Stan Lee as Reed Richards is perfect because who else would call themselves “Mr. Fantastic?”  (If you’ve never heard Norm MacDonald’s bit about this, you should check it out—it’s great.  Off his “Ridiculous” album, and available on Pandora here.

This issue of What If? is actually canon—check out the panel below from Paradise X: Heralds #3….

16.  LEGACY (Vol. 2 #105)

One of a handful of What If comics with a concept powerful enough to spawn a series.  This one, by Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz and Bill Sienkiewicz, launched Spider-Girl, future daughter of Peter Parker and Mary Jane. 

15.  WHAT IF THE AVENGERS HAD NEVER BEEN? (Vol. 1 #3)

Jim Shooter and Gil Kane were responsible for this one, the first great issue of What If?  Why was it great?  Lots of reasons, but one was Iron Man making armor for the whole team.  Far as I recall, he didn’t do this in the 616 universe until he gave Spider-Man armor during the Civil War.  Why the hell not?

Stingy, Tony Stark, stingy.

14.  PLANET HULK (2007 one-shot)

The original creator of Planet Hulk, Greg Pak, returns to the concept but this time Hulk dies and his lover comes to Earth for vengeance.  It’s an awesome, battle-furious issue, but it begs the question: If this alien invasion succeeds so easily, why can’t anyone else seem to do this kind of damage to Earth’s heroes?

But you gotta love that brutal use of Black Bolt’s powers.

13.  WHAT IF PUNISHER BECAME AN AGENT OF SHIELD (Vol. 2 #57)

What if so-and-so joined SHIELD is a bit of a lazy premise—it pretty much writes itself—but Chuck Dixon always turns in solid scripts.

12.  WHAT IF DAREDEVIL HAD KILLED THE KINGPIN (Vol. 2 #2)

A neat tale created by Danny Fingeroth and Greg Capullo, in a very early example of his great artwork.  Like so many stories on this list, it’s based off of Frank Miller’s run.  Because no matter what anyone ever says about Brian Bendis and Mark Waid, Miller is the dude who made DD matter.

11.  WHAT IF CAPTAIN AMERICA WERE ELECTED PRESIDENT (Vol. 1 #26)

Roger Stern and John Byrne, whose run on Captain America was famously cut short when Roger Stern refused to package his ideas into the discrete number of “issues per arc” demanded by editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, offered ideas for this story—basically a continuation of Captain America #255.  It was actually executed by Mike Barr and Herb Trimpe.

10.  WHAT IF THE FANTASTIC FOUR HAD NOT GAINED THEIR SUPER POWERS? (Vol. 1 #36)

John Byrne wrote and drew this story about characters he was intimately involved with for years.  It’s a neat science fiction story—the FF fighting the same battles they did in the Lee/Kirby years, only as physicists and inventors rather than as super-powered heroes.

9.  WHAT IF THE WATCHER WERE A STAND-UP COMEDIAN? (Vol. 1 #34)

The famous all-humor issue, which asked what if the Fantastic Four Were Bananas, among many other important questions.  I wrote more about this one here but if you get one thing out of this post, it should be that this issue is worth tracking down.  Humor comics are rarely funny, but this one absolutely is.  Note: Don’t get it twisted up with #34 from Volume 2, also a humor issue, because that one isn’t nearly as good.

8.  WHAT IF JESSICA JONES JOINED THE AVENGERS (2004 one-shot)

Jessica Jones was herself a What If?  Brian Michael Bendis introduced her in Alias #1, without any explanation, as a former Avenger.  Here, he asks a question about her already-retconned past.  He wrote a few What If? issues, and they’re all good.  And he serves as The Watcher in them, too…

7.  WHAT IF CAPTAIN AMERICA WERE REVIVED TODAY? (Vol. 1 #44)

He’d kick the ass of every Cap impersonator, basically.  But not until the world went to shit after WW2 because he wasn’t around to stop it.  On the one hand, it’s a good comic.  On the other hand, the allies did defeat Hitler on their own without a super hero to help them.  On the third hand, though, the world kinda has gone to shit.  Except that we have iPhones.  Those are cool.

6.  WHAT IF THE PUNISHER HAD KILLED DAREDEVIL? (Vol. 2 #26)

Kurt Busiek and Luke McDonnell, two of the greatest creators of the early 1990s, basically wrote a love letter to Frank Miller’s Daredevil #183-184 (the seventh greatest DD story of all time) by mirroring his style and format, and taking that story in a much different direction.  There were a bunch of Punisher tales in What If? Volume 2.  Most are decent, but few are great.  I love this one because of the sequence above.  Spider-Man hunts Frank Castle down and tries to web him to the wall.  This has happened countless times in comics, but Punisher is the first guy to figure out that all he has to do is remove the glove.

That’s why he’s Punisher: He’s smarter than the average vigilante.

5.  WHAT IF DAREDEVIL BECAME AN AGENT OF SHIELD? (Vol. 1 #28)

Frank Miller, Mike Barr, and Klaus Janson.  There’s simply no way this isn’t a classic.

4.  WHAT IF THE AVENGERS BECAME THE PAWNS OF KORVAC? (Vol. 1 #32)

See my full write up here.

Great stuff if you like classic Avengers stories.

3.  WHAT IF WOLVERINE KILLED THE HULK (Vol. 1 #31)

I love the part where Magneto makes Wolverine off himself.  I studied that sequence like the torah as a kid—it’s a great example of sequential storytelling.

2.  WHAT IF CONAN WALKED THE EARTH TODAY (Vol. 1 #13 and 39)

A two-part story four years in the making!  In What If? #13, Roy Thomas and the great art team of John Buscema and Ernie Chan told the story of Conan briefly coming to our Earth as a result of magic.    And arguably, since he is returned to his time at the end, it’s not a what if, it’s a real, canon story.

This story was so great and fondly remembered that four years later Alan Zelenetz and Ron Wilson revisited it in a less-good, but still pretty neat story in which he comes back and becomes a pimp.

Well, not really.  But he dresses like one because he’s still stuck on the girl from his first trip to Earth 616 and he wants to impress her.  I guess if his pimp hand was strong he wouldn’t do that.

Anyway, it ends with him falling in love with Thor.  Again, not really.  They fight and then get close to mouth kissing before Thor dies.

Unlike the first story, there’s no way part 2 was canon.

1.  WHAT IF ELEKTRA HAD LIVED? (Vol. 1 #35)

Frank Miller and Terry Austin revisit Daredevil #181, and show what might have happened if Bullseye had failed to killer her.  It’s one of the rare stories from Volume 1 that end happily—with Matt and Elektra hooking up and going off into the sunset.

We all know that’s not how it would have gone down.  Matt’s incapable of being faithful or staying in a  relationship long-term.  40 years of stories can’t be wrong.