Because you demanded it: The first six awe-inspiring issues of the most awesomely offbeat series off all time - collected in one sense-staggering volume. Six titanic tales of triumph and tragedy in the mighty Marvel tradition! What If? (Vol. 1) #1 - What if Spider-Man Joined the Fantastic Four? What If? (Vol. 1) #2 - What if the Hulk Had Always had Bruce Banner's Brain? What If? (Vol. 1) #3 - What if the Avengers Had Never Been? What If? (Vol. 1) #4 - What if the Invaders Had Stayed Together After World War II? What If? (Vol. 1) #5 - What if Captain America and Bucky Had Both Survived World War II? What If? (Vol. 1) #6 - What if the Fantastic Four Had Different Super-Powers?
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Finally! A chance to revisit What If?,
By Jukebox Graduate "gleep28" (Parma, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: What If? Classic Vol. 1 (Marvel Heroes) (Paperback)
What If? was one of Marvel's better ideas from the 70's. The best thing about this concept was that these were NOT "imaginary stories", instead, these stories REALLY occured, just in some alternative universe.
That being said, the early What If stories are somewhat problematic. Too much time is taken reviewing the events that occured in our reality, taking many valuable pages away from what we really want to know - what happens in the alternate universe. Also, I agree with the reviewer below in that some of the initial entries of the What If? series were weak. The series does get better, and some of the later stories are fascinating, and it's almost a shame that you'll only get to visit these realities for one issue. That being said, this book is a fun read, especially if you like alternate timeline stories and wonder "What If.....?" This trade paperback includes the following stories: What if Spider-Man Joined the Fantastic Four? What if the Hulk Had Always Had Bruce Banner's Brain? What if the Avengers Had Never Been? What if the Invaders Had Stayed Together After World War Two? What if Captain America and Bucky Had Both Survived World War II? What if the Fantastic Four Had Different Super-Powers?
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A misfire from Marvel,
By Babytoxie (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: What If? Classic Vol. 1 (Marvel Heroes) (Paperback)
WHAT IF? is one of my favorite series from Marvel, the reason being that I loved the concept. It was a great idea from Roy Thomas in which Uatu, the Watcher, would present the events of the Marvel Universe in alternate realities. Even better, these events usually cast a harder or darker aspect on the characters, which, while pretty far-out, always made me happy that we ended up with the Marvel Universe that we did.
While I consider many WHAT IF? stories to be classics, the early issues weren't all that well-written, and the artwork was sub-standard, for the most part. Aside from an Avengers issue illustrated by Gil Kane, and a story of Captain America never being frozen in the Arctic, there's not much interesting material here. Many of the ideas Thomas had for these early issues were so whacked-out and pointless, they didn't make for very interesting reading. As such, I feel that the best way for Marvel to reprint this series is the Essentials format: 500 pages in black and white. That way, you'd get quite a few stories that show the evolution of the series, and for a reasonable price. Unfortunately, Marvel instead chose to release a color reprint of only the first 6 issues (~ 215 pages) for the wallet-busting price of $24.95! I also must warn that the recoloring of these issues is absolutely horrible, with characters' costumes changing color schemes from panel to panel, and no attention to detail. So, with a bad reprint of poor-to-average quality stories, newcomers will likely have a hard time understanding why WHAT IF? was so much fun... assuming that the ridiculous price didn't already turn them away. My advice is to skip this book. If you must have it, then order it only from Amazon at a discount, as full-price is waaaay too much to pay.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"What If?" asks some fun questions,
By Grant Watson (NC) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: What If? Classic Vol. 1 (Marvel Heroes) (Paperback)
Marvels "Classics" series continues to offer more Bronze Age fun and nostalgia as they give us What If Volume One, reprinting the original series from Issues 1 thru 6. This was an entertaining series when it first came out and reading it again almost 3 decades later; I can honestly say that most of the stories have aged well.
What If was narrated by The Watcher who posed questions regarding what might have been regarding the fate of our favorite Marvel heroes. Issue one asked "What if Spider-Man joined the Fantastic Four?" This is a fun story with a surprisingly melancholy ending as we discover that the fates have apparently decided that the famous heroes are destined to be a quartet. Issue 2 asked "What if the Hulk had always had Bruce Banners brain?" Well, for one thing it clears up a whole lot of misunderstandings. Banner finally earns the respect of Thunderbolt Ross for one thing. But it also has ripple effects that lead to the Avengers never being formed and the disbanding of the Fantastic Four! Issue 3 asked "What if the Avengers had never been?" This isn't just one of the best "What If" stories ever written, it's also one of the best stories to come out of the Bronze Age. It also boasts some of the most beautiful Gil Kane art ever. Issue 4 asks "What if the Invaders had stayed together after WW2?" This was the Roy Thomas story that launched the Invaders series from the 70s. In this story we see a new Cap and Bucky replacing the apparently dead originals, teaming up with Namor, Torch, Toro, Spitfire, Union Jack, Whizzer and Miss America. The story takes us from Hitlers death at the hands of the Human Torch at the end of WW2 up to the Kennedy era. Issue 5 asks "What if Captain America and Bucky had both survived WW2?" Well, it would be a lot like what we've been reading in the current Marvel universe. Steve Rogers would be director of Shield and Bucky would take over as Captain America. Sound familiar? Issue 6 asks "What if the Fantastic Four had different superpowers?" This is probably the least entertaining entry out of the 6. In this story, its Sue Storm who gets the power to stretch, Johnny Storm gets powers similar to that of the X-Mens "Colossus", Reed Richards becomes a disembodied brain and Ben Grimm gets...dragon wings? Oh well, they can't all be winners. Over all, the stories are entertaining, light hearted fare, well written and adequately drawn and reprinted in a colorful, glossy package. Vol 1 includes several of the original Editorial pages from the series and a check list of all What If issues. I had a lot of fun revisiting these stories.
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