WHAT IF? #20-22 (1980)

#20: What If the Avengers Fought the Kree Without Rick Jones?  This is an easy one to answer: Anything without Rick Jones is better in the amount of one fewer Rick Jones.

This issue is just an easy way to revisit one of the best Avengers stories so far.  And there ain’t nothing wrong with that.

Issue #21 asks, What If the Invisible Girl Married Sub-Mariner?  Best part about this one: Gene Colan’s art.

Namor shows up at the Fantastic Three’s base.  They fight a lot until they realize Namor just wanted to invite them to a baby party.  There’s more of course, but that’s the main punchline.

And finally, issue #24 both asks and answers its questions on the cover.

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The story focuses on Mephisto having Doom’s mother’s soul. It’s a decent issue–particularly because this little bit of Doom lore continues to be fascinating.

This is a run of not-so-hot issues.

1 thought on “WHAT IF? #20-22 (1980)”

  1. I dunno- I rather enjoyed issue#20’s “What If….Dr.Doom Had Been A Hero?” story. Unless my memory fails, didn’t our two Docs- Doom and Strange-succeed in liberating Cynthia Von Doom from Hell in the “Dr.Doom/Dr.Strange” graphic novel, back in 1987? I remember having read it, not being terribly impressed with it, for two reasons: 1) They succeeded in springing Doom’s mother from Hell, which is preposterous, because it is metaphysically impossible to escape from Hell, ( and Heaven, too, by the same logic, I would imagine ) which completely and totally negates Doom’s tragedy as a character- kinda like freeing the Silver Surfer from his Earthly confinement, or raising the Atlanteans from their comas, and curing the Sub-Mariner of his need to wear his bitchin’ blue battle-suit. 2) The two doctors defeat Mephisto on his own home grounds, using a cute little piece of technology built by Doom. This grates on me because I just cannot for the life of me see being able to beat the Devil- especially on his own hellish home-turf- using a stupid little gimcrack. So, this graphic novel did not work for me at all, but this issue of ‘What If’- even though it transpired in an alternate reality- was not half-bad. Ten-Four!

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