Book Review: What If Classic Volume 2

What If? Classic, Vol. 2 by Don Glut

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


What If? was Marvel's 1970s magazine taking a look at how many of Marvel's most notable stories and characters could have gone another direction. At this point, each issue is hosted by the Watcher as a Rod Serlingesque guide to these alternate realities.

This second collection of What If Tales has some extra fun features. Chief among them is the inclusion of Why Not? the letters page which gives key insights as to what writers were thinking and how readers reacted. The only downside is that some of the letters have to do with Issues 5 and 6 which were in the last book, but still there's some great insight.

With that said, let's get to the stories:

Issue 7: What if Someone Else Besides Spider-man Had Been Bitten by the Radioactive Spider: Three different alternate timelines where Flash Thompson, Betty Brant, and Colonel John Jameson were bitten by the radioactive spider. It's a solid story, with the John Jameson story having the most startling deviation in the timelime. It also had a great message about what it takes to be a hero. Overall, I'll give this story a B+.

Issue 8: What if the World Knew Daredevil Was Blind? and What if the Spider Had Been Bitten by a Radioactive Human: The first story, which takes up the bulk of the issue, is just stupid. It's far fetched to imagine Electro guessing that Daredevil is blind. And the way he proves it (because DD can't tell the color of Electro's uniform) is stupid because that could mean that Daredevil's color blind which is something else entirely. Even if Electro did believe Daredevil was blind, the odds of him convincing other supervillains of that is slim. It's also stupid to suggest that this would destroy his effectiveness as a crimefighter. This was just a dumb story all around. The second story is an okay and slightly amusing funny animal superhero parody, but it can raise this issue above Grade: D+.

Issue 9: What if the Avengers Had Fought Evil During the 1950s?: This was a Don Glut script based on a Roy Thomas concept and it was a good idea that would later become Agents of A.T.L.A.S. as this 1950s Avengers team was made up of characters that were published in ATLAS comics such as Venus and Marvel Boy as they fought 1950s villain The Yellow Claw. This was a decent concept marred only by the end which suggested that the Avengers couldn't make it because the 1950s were so evil and paranoid and everyone was scared of everything having to do with superheroes which is why Adventures of Superman was a ratings hit during that decade. Lame. Grade: B

Issue 10: What if Jane Foster Had Found the Hammer of Thor: The story involves Jane Foster rather than Donald Blake finding the hammer of Thor and Foster becomes Thordis. This is a fun concept with a lot of great scenes. The story's weakness is an ending that really tries to have the story end with traditional continuity come back in one change that's a little bit creepy but not too much. Grade: A-

Issue 11: What if the Original Marvel Bullpen Had Become the Fantastic Four: This story imagines Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Saul Brodsky, and Marvel Secretary Flo Steinberg getting the powers of the FF and trying to find out who caused them to get the powers. The story is actually pretty good and played fairly straight. It was written and drawn by Jack Kirby and as the letters page this was the first FF story written by Kirby and it works fairly well. Grade: A

Issue 12: What if Rick Jones Had Become the Hulk?: This story asks the question of what would have happened if Rick Jones had saved Bruce Banner from turning into the Hulk. The result is actually a solid tale. The one weakspot is that Rick gets trained by Captain America who voluntarily gave him a new Bucky costume. That's a pretty radical departure from cannon and we'd need some explanation to make it work well. Still, it's an alternate universe, so they can probably get away with it. Grade: A-

Overall, another fun and solid collection.



View all my reviews