What If? #24 asked, What If Spider-Man Had Rescued Gwen Stacy. The answer, above, is she would have married Peter, knowing he is really Spider-Man. Aunt May’s reaction was not as generous.
What If? #25: What if Thor and the Avengers battled the Gods?
We’ve seen a long string of What If? stories that did not–could not–come true. This one has. Several times, in fact, but most noticeably in the pages of The Avengers. Collected as “Assault on Olympus,”near the end of his amazing run as Avengers scribe, Roger Stern—with legendary artist John Buscema—had Thor and the Avengers take on the Greek pantheon. Granted, in What If? they were fighting Odin’s ilk, but this one is really close enough to be another notch in the What If?s that came true belt.
My favorite of the three stories covered in this post was #26.
An all-star line-up on a great issue. Mike Barr writing, Herb Trimpe and Mike Esposito on the art, and Roger Stern and John Byrne get a consulting credit, since this was their concept during their short but classic run on Cap’s solo book. It’s issues like this that made What If? great–they stayed true to the core of the character, got great creative teams on board, and spun the “true” events just slightly to produce a completely different outcome. Cap runs for Prez, picks a black running meat, and trounces Carter and Reagan.
Of course, it all ends in Red Skull tragedy. But a great issue nonetheless.
Plus, it came true–in the Ultimates universe, at least.
And there’s a second story, “What If? Man Thing had regained Ted Sallis’ Brain.” It’s by Steven Grant and Herb Trimpe. I didn’t think Herb would do a good job wi
th Man-Thing, but he does.
Meanwhile, Uatu continues to look different in every single issue.
