What If...?: Journey into the Hypothetical - Introduction

Branching off of Nostalgia Week, I've decided it is time to take a good, close look at a series that holds a very special place in my heart: What If...?

What If...? is the quintessential comic nerd series. The basic premise, for those who do not know, is to explore alternate outcomes for famous Marvel storylines. Every alternate scenario is presented as a question. Its with this series that we get the final answer for the burning questions like, What if the X-Men lost Inferno? or What if Captain America came back today? or What if Longshot didn't have a mullet? The truly important stuff! I had a subscription to What If...? as a kid, and I probably didn't really know anything about the original stories, but I still loved seeing weird, over-the-top scenarios every month. What If...? was the best.

And for all of those people out there who draw a parallel between What If...? and DC's Elseworlds books, please stop it. There is a pretty noticeable different between the two and the difference is what makes What If...? the more superior series as a whole. As I said, most every What If...? is based on an existing event in the Marvel canon, only with a different outcome.* This is a lot different than Elseworlds, which are all about creating totally different universes for the characters to exist in, therefor telling stories of Batman being De Vinci's apprentice, Steel being an slave during the Civil War (the real one, guys) and Hal Jordan being a Nazi. Other than that last one, none of those premises have any basis in mainstream continuity. A lot of Elseworlds are really, really good, but the concept of What If...?, being grounded in canon, provides much more nerdy fun than seeing Robin dressed up as a samurai.

But there is a dark side to What If...? You see, I have a theory that one of the main purposes of the series, other than hypothetical nerdy delights, is to put fanboys in their place. What If...? proves that if events happened any differently than what is published everything gets completely fucked up! Everyone dies. For instance, for all fans annoyed with the happenings in Spider-Man: The Other can just read the recent What If...? based on the story to see just how fucked up things would be if Spider-Man had not made all huggy with his inner arachnid. Essentially it is a "Shut up and quit whining" from Marvel to fanboys having hissy fits. So it's a rule: nothing ever comes out right in a What If...?, so be happy with the way things are, bitch.

Body counts and unavoidable apocalypses aside, What If...? is almost always fun, if only for how ridiculous the stories get. So let's take a Journey Into the Hypothetical and check out some of the best What If...? scenarios of all time. I'll still be blogging about other stuff, but for the next few weeks/month/however long until I get tired of it, we'll be regularly checking out classic What If...?s. Who knows what's in store for Continuity Error!?**

*Yeah, I know there were some What If...? that had premises a lot like Elseworlds, but there's only a few of them. So, I don't care.

**The Starjammers all die. Sorry, it's just what happens.