The 5 Most Pointless “What If” Comics of All Time
The sole purpose of the Marvel series “What If …?” was to tell crazy stories and look at different ways classic Marvel storylines could have ended. They asked serious things like “What if Sue Storm chose Namor instead of Reed” or “What if Phoenix never died”? And they asked silly things like:
And sometimes they spent twenty-eight pages completely wasting our time telling us things we already know. Like when they asked …
5. What if Wonder Man Hadn’t Died?
[And they asked as dramatically as possible.]
That’s the original fate of Wonder Man anyway. So, what drastic changes would happen to the Marvel universe if Wonder Man had never died?
Well, ‘never’ is a debatable word it seems because it turns out if he hadn’t died he would have fallen in love with Scarlet Witch first, then still died and then had his consciousness copied into Vision’s body anyway.
[Wanda is about as happy as the readers who picked this up expecting a new story.]
That story is kind of like taking the recipe for the original, mixing the ingredients in a different order and hoping a new flavour of cake comes out of the oven.
4. What if the Silver Surfer Lost the Power Cosmic?
Way back in one of his first appearances the Silver Surfer chose to help the Fantastic Four fight Galactus and his punishment was being exiled to Earth. This “What If…” story asked what would have happened if Norrin Radd has been exiled and had the power cosmic stripped away though.
If you were expecting a story about the Surfer adapting to life on Earth without powers and learning to live like us humans, lower your expectations. Instead Norrin grabbed a personal space jetpack, raced after Galactus and was immediately given his powers back and exiled to Earth yet again.
3. What if Guy Gardner Had Been the Green Lantern?
Marvel’s not the only one to go into the “What If” business though. DC has also done its fair share of fake stories that could have happened in fake universes. In this story the question is what would happen if Abin Sur’s ring had gone to Guy Gardner instead of Hal Jordan.
[Guy Gardner is without fear and questions.]
The answer is not a whole lot. Guy ends up contracting a deadly yellow plague after his very first mission, made especially incurable since power rings can’t affect anything yellow. With his dying breath he orders his ring to seek out a new Green Lantern and oh look who it is, Hal Jordan! Fancy seeing you here! It’s almost like there was no point to this story!
[What a crazy random happenstance.]
2. What if Nova Had Not Given up his Powers?
The Nova Corps is a group of superpowered space cops basically making up the Marvel equivalent of the Green Lantern Corps. Eventually, Earth’s Nova decided he missed his family and wanted to return home but he has to give up his powers in order to do so. Apparently he has the greatest, coolest family ever because he agrees to give up his super sweet space powers for them, goes home and has his book cancelled.
[Even though he swore he was never gonna give ’em up, never gonna let them go.]
So what would have happened if he hadn’t given up his powers? If you guessed he would have kept going around on crazy space adventures, you haven’t been paying attention to how this article works. No, it turns out if he hadn’t given up his powers, he would have snuck home, had his family tell him he was being a selfish jerk …
[But Mooooooom.]
… and then still given up his powers.
They might as well have just called this whole series Deja Vu.
1. What If The Punisher’s Family Hadn’t Been Killed?
There are a lot of things that could have happened if Frank Castle’s family never died. He could have gone into black ops, or joined SHIELD, or gotten super powers somehow. So many possibilities, right? But there’s one possibility you would never guess. Not in a million years! It turns out if the Punisher’s family hadn’t been killed …
… they still would have totally been killed.
I still have those ones. Except for the DC one..
You forgot “What if Wolverine was King of the Vampires?”