The Road Not Travelled: Let's Read Marvels WHAT IF...

[Octopus Prime]

I count myself among the Blink faithful, don’t worry.

 

[Büge]

Theres a bunch of greater or lesser Marvel characters in this particular lineup but the art makes it really hard to tell which one is who, and they all factor so little in the story it doesn’t matter. One of them is named Dwayne. He’s the important one.

That would be Dwayne Taylor, a.k.a. Night Thrasher, and his brother Donyell, a.k.a. Bandit. Night Thrasher was a character that was being pushed by Marvel in the '90s, as they wanted a character to appeal to teenagers. Tom DeFalco, the editor at the time, saw an issue of Thrasher magazine, and decided to create a black teenage superhero who included a skateboard in his arsenal.

Dwayne McDuffie famously criticized the trend of "black guy with skateboard" characters in a memo titled "Teenage Negro Ninja Thrashers".

 

[Octopus Prime]

That was Night Thrasher?

Geez, I thought every other character got the short end of the stick

 

[Octopus Prime]

if asked what the lasting legacy of What If overall is, you could say “out of continuity light stories set in the Marvel Universe with minimal barrier to entry”, or “that time Captain America beat the absolute holy shit out of a nazi who was corrupting his image to promote fascism.” But instead one should say this issue since it’s actually a pilot to a surprisingly long running series that still has heaps upon heaps of fans. As we see when Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz (and Bill Sienkiewicz, “finishing the art”, whatever you interpret that to mean) bring us Legacy… in Black and White.

I mean, “Legacy in Blue and Red” would probably fit better, given the character, but I ain’t Tom DeFalco and wouldn’t wish to second guess him.

Anyway, other than “multiverse, dawg” this isn’t really a conventional What If; there’s no Uatu, no single divergent point beyond “Peter Parker and Mary Jane had a daughter who is now 16 or so” and even the narration boxes are written in the second person.

Anyway we’re introduced to May Parker, “feeling loose and slamming heat” on the Basketball court. She has her mothers personality, her fathers haircut, and a spiders proportionate speed, strength and sense. All of which contributes to her single handedly winning the game with a, like, 30 foot slam dunk.

“Her dads haircut” probably didn’t contribute as much to that outcome, I’ll grant you.

Anyway, Mays sudden extreme Basketball skill translates to her suddenly becoming popular with the jocks and alienated from her nerd friends, which I’m sure is a much bigger deal in the main Spider-girl comic but the characters barely get named here and are a very small part of the story overall.

More to the point both her and her dad get a sudden sense of danger as they leave the game, which surely has nothing to do with the guy in a goblin costume who is skulking around behind them.

Anyway, after some brief Teen Drama where Mayday is torn between her existing Need Friends and the Hunky Sports Guys who have taken a shine to her, and Pete and MI saying “Ah crap, our daughter jumps good; she’s got radioactive spider blood”, the story kicks off when no one less than The Green Goblin shows up and threatens May, instructing her to tell her father to go to the Bridge to settle a debt between them. Which she does because… a floating green man just threw pumpkin bombs at her and that’s the kind of event that sticks with you.

This version of the Goblin just kind of floats instead of having a tiny, halloween-decoration themed custom jet, which oddly looks *much* sillier.

Anyway, at home Peter says “Oh… oh crap, I hate that guy” and hobbles out of the house while MJ figures her daughter is old enough to have “the talk”. Specifically the talk about how her dad was a very popular superhero that vanished from the public eye about 15 years ago, after a final battle against The Green Goblin that cost the Goblin his life and Peter the use of his leg.

They keep specifying that he lost his leg, but they only give him a cane, like half the time so I’m really not sure how badly he’s injured.

Anyway, Pete goes off to get some other Superheroes to help deal with this Halloween murderer chucking grenades at teenagers, but doesn’t get far; the Fantastic Four are off planet, and the current lineup of The Avengers he feels are too young to bother with the multiple murderer throwing grenades at people.

For the record; this version of the Avengers consists of Juggernaut, Jubilee, Speedball, Jolt from the Thunderbolts, a computer with Visions face and a guy I don’t recognize but kind of looks like Sabertooth. And given this comics timeline they’d all be in their 30s at the minimum, so I don’t know what Pete’s problem is here.

Meanwhile-r, the Goblin, correctly surmised to be Norman’s grandson Normie (owing to him being the only Osborn left and it’s not like someone else would use that iconography) is also preparing for a showdown with Peter Parker, this taking the form of flexing with his shirt off a bunch to show off his full body tattoos reading “HONOR THY FATHER/KILL THE SPIDER” and “REVENGE”

So Pete shows up at the bridge where Norman killed Gwen Stacey, since what other bridge could he have been referring to, looking to bring an end to the Spider/Goblin saga by just putting a bullet in Normies dome. But this plan fails since Normie is a ridiculously jacked killer with a bunch of Halloween themed weapons and Pete is a guy with (at minimum) a bad knee and no firearms training whatsoever.

But, luckily, that’s when MJ finished giving her daughter a comprehensive rundown on Spider-Man history, including which bridges are significant to which supervillains, and a storage closet that has a bunch of old Spider-Man costumes. So she suited up in Ben Reillys suit (apparently a perfect generic copy of Peter Parker is the exact size of a 16 year old girl) and introduces herself to the world by kicking Normie in the head and saying “I heard you want Spiders, well, face it tiger you just hit the jackpot!”

Which the narration box comments is a weird coincidence of a thing for her to say.

So naturally a fight breaks out, May wins by webbing his grenades to his hands and then knocking him into traffic, she stops him from getting pancakes by a transport truck and then has him hauled off to jail.

Normie is a raving lunatic at this point so his claims that this one legged man is Spider-Man and it was a Spider Girl who stopped him fall on deaf ears and back home May and Peter decide it’s time for the ol’ Parker legacy to continue and he’s going to train her to follow in his footsteps.

BUT DID IT HAPPEN?!?
Explicitly so, yes. This launched not only a dedicated, surprisingly long running series that was constantly juuuuuust on the brink of cancellation and a… much less successful MC2 continuity starring the kids of the main Marvel heroes. Mayday herself, like damn near every other Spider-Man variant to show up in What If, was also a major part of the Spider-Verse comics but she had a very different personality and nobody who liked Spider Girl liked that very much.

NEXT TIME: Starnage

 

[Adrenaline]

My understanding with breakdowns and finishes is that the first penciler basically does simple linework to layout the characters and action in each panel and the finisher comes in and puts the final linework in that you actually see.

 

[Octopus Prime]

I thought Frenz was credited with pencils and inks, but it looks like he wasn’t. So yep, seems like this is Ol’ Billy S tracing all over this stuff

 

[gogglebob]

And given this comics timeline they’d all be in their 30s at the minimum, so I don’t know what Pete’s problem is here.

Look, you ever go back to where you used to work, and, like, the kid that you trained on your last week is the manager now? And you're shocked? Because apparently this baby is in charge, and people are looking up to them? People are taking orders from them? And all you can remember is that time you had to call for an ambulance because they had somehow stapled an entire frozen hamburger bun to their face? And apparently they have two kids now!?

That's Speedball.

 

[Octopus Prime]

That’s what I expect of Speedball, yes.

Also apparently the guy I didn’t recognize is Thunderstrikes son, so… umm…

I don’t feel bad for being confused

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Also apparently the guy I didn’t recognize is Thunderstrikes son, so… umm…

Beloved legacy hero Thunderstrike

 

[Octopus Prime]

This is the penultimate issue, based on what Marvels uploaded to Unlimited at least, and it’s another issue that doesn’t feel so much like a What If so much as it feels like they weren’t sure which way to finish a Spider-Man storyline so they published both. Like the end to Clue, or Who Shot Mr. Burns.

Anyway, it’s called The Greatest Sacrifice and Tom DeFalco wrote it and Sergio Cariello and Keith Champagne (from the Keith region of France) drew it.

So this one is spun out from a Spider-Man comic I saw on the shelf and made a strong impression on me but I never actually read featuring Carnage and the Silver Surfer. Seems that Carnage, the crappy murder-son of Venom best described as “The Joker if he was made of bloody knives” and “trying too hard” got tired of his living arrangement; bonded to the serial killer Cletus Kasady, and left him to find a new host. Then he saw the Silver Surfer and immediately went wild-even-by-Carnage-standards at tried to bond to him in order to get revenge for the Surfer feeding a Symbiote planet to Galactus once and Carnage’s Hive Memory still bears a grudge against him for that.

So that was a two-part story and this here issue is an alternative to the second part of it which, again, *mostly* could have fit in with the 616 with no changes. And even then, by Comic Book standards, if you just read this one you wouldn’t think anything were amiss.

Anyway, Spider-Man is chasing the newly dubbed “Cosmic Carnage” (well, Carnage Cosmic, but that doesn’t roll off the tongue) around the city, having no small
Amount of trouble because Carnage is a pretty rough customer when he isn’t possessing an alien demigod, and trying to work out if there’s anyway to seperate the two of them without killing Norrin and before their bond becomes permanent, when he gets some unexpected help courtesy of The Avengers barging into the fight.

This is specifically Early in the Busiek Run, so technically they didn’t; the Avengers don’t have a finalized, active roster at the moment, but showing up we have the ol’ standbys of Captain America, Vision, Iron Man and Thor, as well as Justice and Firestar.

So they all collectively tussle with CC for a bit and… do not acquit themselves well since this is page two of a comic story and they’re already fighting the villain; and Vision gets badly damaged trying to do that thing where he uses his intangibility to shove his arm through someone’s chest (which always looks way more horrific than anything else he could have done to them), but it backfired and ruined his own body instead.

I don’t think it would have worked on Carnage even if he wasn’t possessing the Surfer, the dude is… real goopy, I don’t think there’s much meat in there to disrupt.

Anyway, CC flies off to get some more practice in with his powers and the Avengers (plus Spidey) regroup at the mansion to put Vision in for repairs and so Spider-Man can give a quick recap on Carnage and what happened in the previous issue (which, again, really makes it feel like this *was* supposed to be the second part of that story) when an emergency call comes in to the Avengers HQ; Carnage is using his newfound cosmic power to… be really silly!

He’s replacing military satellite footage with old sitcom reruns, turning the pyramids upside down and tangling up the Eiffel Tower and throwing giant marshmallows and whoopsie-cushions at the airforce.

Carnage is usually a nihilistic murder enthusiast so, honestly, making him an Evil Mxyzptlk is a real trade up.

Anyway, preserving the personal integrity of the American military, and also the structural integrity of the Eiffel Tower is a major concern, and Carnage is heading back to New York anyway, so the Avengers and Spidey get ready for round 2, and Spidey reminds everyone that Carnage’s greatest weakness is extreme heat, so there’s only one person who can truly stop him, regardless of how averse to killing they might be after a traumatic history of letting others burn to death.

RIP Buttercup.

So Round 2 goes about the same overall, the Avengers opt to fight him one on one so they can show off their powers, Carnage no-sells their efforts and one-shots each of them and also… blows New York in half with a gigantic blast of Power Cosmic energy (this is the thing that prevents you from just assuming this is part 2 of the story).

At this Firestar says “Oh, yeah… I… think im
Morally in the clear to flash fry you now” and she lets loose a huge blast of microwave heat to incinerate Carnage.

Unfortunately he’s spent enough time bonding to the Surfer so that’s not actually enough to finish him. But it does weaken him enough for the Surfers personality to take control of his body again, and he takes that opportunity to fling himself into the sun, and letting that burn Carnage to the point of sublimation; apparently dying himself in the process but, like… it’s the Silver Surfer he brags about flying through the heart of a star all the time; I’m sure he’s fine.

Also Spidey doesn’t apologize for never correcting Firestars mistake about having to take an innocent man’s life before he kills again.

BUT DID IT HAPPEN?!?
Both in Marvel and Across the Street, yeah. A recent (and as of this writing, actively ongoing) story on the Symbiote side of Marvel books has had Carnage traveling the Marvel universe killing and correspondingly Mega Man-ing other random characters in order to give himself enough of a power boost to become a new Symbiote God in order to kill Venom (who is now the master of Space and a time after killing the previous Symbiote God, Knull. It was a whole thing, Venom got weird) and at DC, I think a few years after this story, Joker took the powers of Mxyyzptlk and used super omnipotence to… just be a Weird Guy and do Silly Disasters.

NEXT TIME: Jim Shooter and Kenner present…

 

[Octopus Prime]

Well, here we are, at the last issue of What If, not counting the many dozens of issues that didn't get up loaded on to Marvel Unlimited, at least. On the plus side, while truncated, honestly, not that bad of a story and, like with Spider-Girl, it's really really obvious they were gunning for this to be a stealth pilot for a new series. Don't think it was successful, but the effort was there.

Also, the cover uploaded on MU removes the SECRET WARS logo from the title, but includes it in the thumbnail preview. But the story isn't called What If Secret Wars 25 Years Later, it's called Brave New World, and Jay Faerber wrote it, and Gregg Schigiel and Jose Marzan Jr. drew it. The credits don't mention who added additional chins to everyone but boy... there's some big-ass chins in this.

Anyway, this is picking up 25 years after the end of Secret Wars, despite the cover removing the clearest indication of that fact, and the divergence point from the 616 is that the Secret Wars ended in a draw. In the original series, through all the nonsense and plotholes of Jim Shooter writing a comic in order to settle a toy tie-in deal with Kenner, a Godlike cosmic being; The Beyonder yanked a whole bunch of Earths greatest champions and villains (and the Wrecking Crew) from across space and time and forced them to battle on a prefabricated planet known as The Battleworld to see if Good or Evil was, y'know, better. It was exactly like that episode of Star Trek with Abraham Lincoln and Klingon Jesus. In the finale, Dr. Doom snuck out a win by stealing the Beyonders power while everyone else was concerned about the fact that Galactus was trying to eat Battleworld, and then the heroes and villains teamed up to fight him instead. This time, however, the Beyonder intervened when he realized Galactus wasn't really playing the game as intended and the two fought and wound up killing one another. As well as Reed Richards, ruining any of the survivors chances to ever return home; since no one was even sure if Battleworld was in the same universe as Earth 616, let alone where it was.

I mean, Doom could probably have figured it out, but I guess no one wanted to ask him.

This also apparently killed off a crapload of the other Secret Wars combatants since there's a cemetery we see later with statues serving as memorials for dead heroes and villains.

Anyway, stranded on Battle World the assorted heroes and villains said "So... umm... you wanna hang out?" to one another and they immediately declared the Secret Wars over and started hooking up. Except Spider-Man, in the intervening years the Venom symbiote just ate all the meat off his bones so he's just a skeleton wrapped in goo now. Nobody was down with goo skeletons.

Anyway, that was several decades ago and as a result of all that hooking up we're dealing with the kids of various Hero/Villain boinking, Fire Emblem style. Some of them don't get either names or clear parentage, but of the central cast we have;

Bravado; Thor and The Enchantresses son
Mustang (She-Hulk and Hawkeyes son, no idea why he's got a horse for a superhero name)
Firefly (Human Torch and Wasp)
Torrent (Storm and Wolverine, the only indication of the latter being that in one panel she opens her mouth and has fangs)
Malefactor (Dr. Doom and Enchantress, he's the bad guy)
The Leader is Crusader, whos dad is Captain America and whose mother is unclear; she's referred to as Carol, but looks exactly like Rogue and has general flying brick powers. I'm assuming the idea is that Rogues consciousness was eventually overridden by Carol Danvers' memories, but no mention is made of this whatsoever.

Anyway, after a bit of an intro showing that the previous generation eventually cooled down and presumably had a lot of swingers nights and key parties, and also establishing that Thor left Mjolnir sitting in a field in case anyone felt up to hoisting it and thus proving their heroism we cut to Dr. Dooms castle (of course he built a creepy gothic castle on Battle World) where all the villains who clearly had no interest in either reforming or unprotected sex; which I guess is just him, Ultron, Klaw and The Enchantress (who is presumably dead, but they keep phrasing it in a way there I was really sure she was going to show up alive again later). And Dooms son, Vincent (or Malefactor, as he keeps insisting is a cool name), has decided to follow in his fathers footsteps. Sure, he can't conquer Earth, but Battleworld is a planet; why not conquer that instead?

Doom says "No... no conquering this planet isn't as good as conquering Earth" and Malefactor blows him to dust with a magical blast in order to show HE'S the one who chould be wearing the metal pants in this family. Then he goes around recruiting the rest of the kids who aren't strictly pleased with the status quo of the world they live in. And even at 33 pages, there really isn't a lot of time to go into any kind of detail about why this could be the case; Molecule Man and Volcanas son is self conscious about inheriting his dads weird lightning bolt scars, but that's about it.

Anyway, Malefactor builds his own supervillain team, and the Good Boys and Girls hear his sales pitch and immediately say "It is vital we form a superhero team to oppose this rowdy teen!" and reform the Avengers and immediately run off to New Latveria to fight the bad guys.

And a big ol' superhero fight breaks out; Bravado and Malefactor make it personal because they have the same mom and are both really sure that the other ones dad killed her, everyone else busies themselves fighting an army of Doombot/Ultrons (WAY less dangerous than that sounds), and the original Avengers and Masters of Evil show up to help save their kids and, after the timely arrival of The Hulk (who was off on an off-panel quest trying to find something to go back to Earth with), Doom (who faked his death to see how his son could handle big league supervillainy) and Crusader (who scampered off to get Mjolnir); the forces of good/crime successfully route the forces of Angsty Teens.

Cap briefly reprimends Crusader for stealing Mjolnir and getting into fights, until Thor reminds him that if she could lift Mjolnir in order to fight someone *at all* then she's absolved of all blame and shouldn't be grounded. And Hulk says "Oh, speaking of Mjolnir!" and reveals that he's spent the last 25 years in isolation studying both Mjolnirs teleportational magic and the machines that Kang the Conqueror left around prior to his death and figured out how to use them to return to Earth. Which everyone is really excited for until Uatu the Watcher shows up and everyone says "Uh oh, he only shows up when things are about to get bad." and elect to leave well enough alone and go back to their humble lives of non-stop bacchanalias and child reprimanding.

Except for the new Avengers who really want to see this planet their parents used to be so interested in and then gave up in favor of living on planet Hedonism; so they sneak off and use Hulks machine to travel to Earth; where they're immediately attacked by Sentinels since it turns out that they landed right in the middle of Days of Future Past. The new Avengers say "Ah frick, now we have to solve THIS problem!" which promises a start of a new and exciting legacy in the history of the Marvel universe, except that it didn't because this did not get a spinoff series like Spider-Girl did.

And that's a wrap on What If until Marvel does another bulk upload

BUT DID IT HAPPEN?!?!
Actually, kinda, just not with that cliffhanger ever getting resolved. Young Avengers was also a team of late teen/early 20s heroes who were all clearly intended to be young versions of existing Avengers that got together when the original team... kind of blew themselves up. The Enchantress having two sons who are really dissimilar to each other was also a plot point in Strange Academy, but it was handled a bit better there. Also, Malefactor kind of looks like Winter Soldier, but I think that's because there's only so many ways you can render someone with floppy hair and half a face mask.

NEXT TIME:
We go across the street.