I’ve written about old What If comics in the past and I have always felt that they are worth grabbing from cheap bins whenever you see them. Brett’s got a small collection going and I intend to add these to them (although I held on to my copy of “What If Phoenix Had Not Died?”). These three books were quarter bin grabs and were more than worth it. Volume 1, #35 is “What if Elektra Had Lived?” written and drawn by Frank Miller with inks by Terry Austin coming about six months after Elektra’s death in Daredevil #181. The diverging point is that Bullseye gets killed by a prison guard and therefore is not sent to kill Elektra. Instead, the Kingpin hires a group of thugs to take her out. She gets all of them but is shot in the arm, then flees to Matt Murdock’s apartment. In the end, the two leave New York with both having given up their lives for a happy ending. It’s a redemption arc for the villain along with a third-act conclusion for the hero that only works in a story like this and I really enjoyed what Miller did.

So it’s crazy timely. Issue #44 is “What if Captain America Were Revived Today?” by Peter B. Gillis and Sal Buscema. This is kind of similar to the Captain America revival that we saw in Volume 2, although in that case you had Cap being elected president and becoming a fascist dictator. The story here is similar, but the Cap in question is not Steve Rogers but the 1950s “Commie Smasher” Cap who quickly becomes an agent of a group that’s going to turn America into a totalitarian state very much like Nazi Germany. Eventually the real Steve Rogers is found and revived by the U.S. Navy and he teams up with Spider-Man and some other heroes to take down the fake Cap. Just like the volume 2 version, it’s great stuff.

Finally, there’s issue #4 of the second series, a book I had when I was younger and have wanted to track down ever since. But it can be kind of expensive because it’s the “What if the Alien Costume Had Possessed Spider-Man?” issue that features Mark Bagley’s first-ever Spider-Man artwork. Thankfully, Marvel reprinted it as a “True Believers” edition back in 2018 and those can easily be found in cheap bins. The story–where the symbiote possesses Spider-Man and then goes on to possess The Hulk and Thor before ultimately being destroyed–is well-told and poignant in places with some outstanding action. Even this early in his career, Bagley knew how to draw Spider-Man and Danny Fingeroth gives us a great story. It’s a true classic and an all-time favorite issue of mine.

All of these are going into the pile of What If and Spidey comics that Brett keeps collecting, so it’s sort of a donation even though they aren’t leaving the house.

Keep, Sell, Donate, or Trash?

Keep/Donate