In keeping with the traditional What If...motif of somebody important dying, Spidey himself basically gets used up before the symbiote bails on him and the FF and Avengers try to capture the symbiote. Most awesome moments: the symbiote takes over both Thor and the Hulk before being killed by the Black Cat.

To boot, I think it was even Bagley who penciled.

They should do a whole bit on different X-Men becoming the Phoenix!

What if the Hulk had remained in his gray, "Joe Fixit" persona?

What if Mary Jane had died instead of Gwen Stacy?

What if Reed Richards and Sue Storm had never married?

What if Wonder Man had never returned to life?

What if Scott Summers had become the Phoenix?

"What If Death's Head I Had Lived?" v2#54- oh, Simon Furman's What If issues varied in quality, but this was quality. I mean, the Thing explodes into little rocky pieces. Namor gets decapitated. And DHI at the end wonders about the heroism of the MU stalwarts he inadverdently got killed- "I hope it's not catching, Yes?

"What If Rogue Posessed the Power of Thor?" v2#66- Despite a ludicrous even for What If premise, this is a great Rogue story and not a little sad (since instead of the Watcher it's an in continuity vision Destiny II had). Rogue struggles with her guilt and newfound Godlike powers. Another home run from Furman.

"What If Professor X Became the Juggernaut?" v2#13- the first time I ever hearda that Busiek fella. Excellent, EXCELLENT story that belongs in any Busiek fan's collection. The Professor achieves his "dream" as the Juggernaut- or has he?

"What If Spider-Man Became a Murderer?"- v2#72- while the story has an insulting cheat in it, this is a good depiction of how Spider-Man would have been had he killed the Burglar by accident. With great power... but in the end, he can't ignore saving people.

"What If Dazzler Became Herald of Galactus?" V1#33- okay, this story isn't very good, but the sheer STUPIDITY of it is breathtaking. The Dazzler soars through space, on her roller skates. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

"What If Gwen Stacy had slept with Norman Osborn and Had Twins?"- now THIS- oh wait.

As the recent Bendis "fifth week event What If...?" has come up, I'd like to throw in my two cents. Decent concept, first half to 2/3 read fine but the last part of the issue read like he realized this would be a done-in-one story and he couldn't do the usual padding. I forgive the Mary Sue ending, but the pace shift in the story was painful. Maybe if they had made the double sized page count of the original run part of the fifth week "tribute" he might have been able to get the whole story in.

I agree. This was one of the first ones I read.

And getting off topic, looking at those covers makes me miss the old corner boxes with the character pictures inside.

Jack Kirby as The Thing and Stan Lee as Mr. Fantastic. Great fun. Published in the 70's I believe.

That was quite an oversight - as I certainly intended to mention it.

Some of my other favorites from the first series include the issue where the burglar kills Aunt May instad of Uncle Ben (SUCH a brilliantly simple idea, but it took them 40+ issues to get to it) and "What If Gwen Stacy Had Lived?". I never read too many issues of the second series, but that Flash Thompson as Spidey issue sounds pretty damn cool. I'm going to have to track that one down.

John Byrne once revealed in an interview the plans that he & Chris Claremont had for "What If Magneto Formed The X-Men?". It was such a cool plot (Magneto's X-Men fight & defeat almost every other Marvel hero, which results in Galactus eating the world when the FF isn't there to defeat him). It's a shame that it was never produced.

If I read you right, it would have worked more as a “What If…” for you had the story been about the characters setting up their relationships, rather than just referring to them in past tense. Perhaps if the story had ended with the birth of the first kids?

Yeah, that was the way I was thinking.

The Spider-Girl angle, I think, was pretty much the only way you could have played that story. See the previous What If...? about what if the second child of Reed and Sue had lived.

The only way you can play "What If... the kid lived?" is really to fast-forward and see what happens.

"What if Secret Wars never ended? is a pretty standard What If...? style topic, which Faerber skipped in favor of using the last issue of the title as a Hail Mary for his characters being possibly picked up in a future mini-series (I think Faerber said as much at the time). I don't blame him for taking the opportunity, mind you - I just don't think of it as a real What If...? story, which is why I left it off my list.

What if...? with the Juggernaut is my favorite. It came out in the mid-90s and I forget the team but it was a great issue that really got the feeling of isolation, desolation, and hopelessness down pat.

Oh, and as for ridiculous escalation? That award goes to "What if the Avengers lost the Evolutionary War" where everyone from Wolverine to Ironman to Spider-man becomes a pawn of the High-Evolutionary and they all super-evolve (with big-heads and everything if memory serves) and fly around the universe bringing justice.

Oh, and the odd "Elseworld" type With Thor being Galactus' Hearald, Namor's mom dying and Daredevil being in feudal Japan. Those were all solid books. The Wolverine one was passable and I can't seem to recall what the last one was though.

It was like The Kingdom, but good.

If I read you right, it would have worked more as a "What If..." for you had the story been about the characters setting up their relationships, rather than just referring to them in past tense. Perhaps if the story had ended with the birth of the first kids?

To be honest, though, it just felt like a bigger version of the Spider-Girl story, which just jumped forward from a more recent point.

Still, no matter what, Nocturne will still be the only character who was successfully spun-off from a poster book...

The last issue of What If...? wasn't really about the nominal What If...? topic, it was really just introducing us to new, alternate universe characters, like the Exiles (especially Nocturne, who is JUST like the What If...? characters - the offspring of two famous superheroes), so that's why it didn't feel like a What If...? to me.