What if I just got straight to the article itself for once?

70) WHAT IF DEATH’S HEAD I HAD LIVED?

Issue: Volume 2, #54
Writer: Simon Furman
Artist: Geoff Senior
Spider-Man death: No
Background: Oh, boy. Where to begin?

There’s a good chance you’re scratching your head, wondering who the hell Death’s Head I is and why he would deserve his own What If issue. First off, stop scratching your head. It’s a disgusting habit. Death’s Head I was a character from the 80’s created by Simon Furman and integrated into the Marvel UK Transformer comics. Death’s Head I was a charismatic and likeable bounty hunter, striking some of the same chords that Deadpool would years later. A robot from the future, Death’s Head I spoke through a voice box on his face, usually turning his statements into questions, like a French guy trying to speak English. Like for instance, he’d likely tell you, “Refer to me a freelance peacekeeping agent, yes?” He was weird like that. It was neat.

Death’s Head I mainly hung out in the year 2020, but had a tendency to time travel, usually leading to crossovers with guys like the Fantastic Four and She-Hulk. During the 90’s, Marvel decided to reboot his image. AIM had created Minion, a powerful robot with the ability to absorb the instincts, skills and knowledge of whoever he destroyed. He’s like an evil Megaman, except he looks like a blatant Predator rip-off. Minion was mainly created to destroy a mysterious threat named Charnal. I’m not savvy on the details here, but Minion ended up going up against Death’s Head I and Mr. Fantastic in our present. He killed Death’s Head I and absorbed his mental workings. It was too much for Minion to handle and parts of Death’s Head I’s personality caused Minion to override into something new. Now calling himself Death’s Head II, he and Marvel’s heroes fought the merging of villain Baron Strucker’s soul and the remains of Death’s Head I’s body. In other words, Charnal. Death’s Head II was victorious and went on to have some extreme 90’s adventures. Yay?

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Just a few quick bullets on what I’m thinking about in the world of comics right about now.

– This week’s 52 was good. Lobo’s reintroduction was great, and his origin, completely with pompadour, was a good look, too.

– I have a new issue of Kabuki to read. I’m positively giddy. I may wait until tomorrow to read the latest issue of the best non-monthly series ever.

– All-Star Superman, by The King of All-Comics and Frank Quitely, delivered. Lex Luthor’s eyebrow and sheer arrogance come through perfectly and hilariously.

– Mike Carey’s first issue of Ultimate Fantastic Four? Way better than Millar’s entire year, of which I read approximately the first three months. It’s that good.

– Black Panther’s World Tour has started up, and it’s going to be a doozy. Doom gets what’s coming two different ways. Next month is the Inhumans, I cannot wait for that.

– The Boys 02 is the second issue in a row to feature, er, doggy-style. Pun possibly intended. This is one of the most mean-spirited books I’ve read, but we get some good character insights in Billy Butcher and friends. I’m definitely interested, and Robertson’s art? It’s great.

– Have you guys seen Chris Bachalo’s cover to X-Men 190? It’s incredible. The scene it depicts happens a little different in the comics, but that’s water under the bridge. There’s precious little Rogue in this book, but her old costume is lovely and her new assertiveness fits a character who’s been a mainline X-Man for years now. She isn’t just “Sugah sugah mope mope mope.” She’s a fighter. Carey is doing a bang-up job on this series. This guy is remarkably good in the Marvel U. His Hellblazer was good, but Lucifer never grabbed me. His Marvel stuff, though… too good. Loving it.

– Mythos: Hulk by Paul Jenkins and Paolo Rivera is a four dollar bundle of joy. The Mythos series (right now just Hulk and X-Men) is a retelling of Marvel origins. They are updated for the modern era and boiled down to their essences. Rick Jones isn’t dared by friends to go onto the testing site, he’s an intern who isn’t paying attention. That sort of thing. They’re good stuff, and Rivera’s art is a treat. Highly recommended, and I hope they collect all of them into a handsome hardcover down the line.

– I read Wonder Woman 02. I’m done with the series. I realized that the moment I saw Wonder Woman start to do that stupid spinning thing from the TV show. No sir I do not like it. The Dodson’s art is great, as always, but Heinberg leaves me flat. Not quite Young Avengers flat, but flat. It wasn’t just the spinning what done it, either. It’s a book that seems to be trying very hard to get me to care, but does a poor job of closing the deal. Giganta is smart and tall… okay? Donna Troy is Wonder Woman and sucks at her job… okay? Wonder Woman is sneaking around and hiding… why bother? It’s weird. My favorite portrayals of Wonder Woman have been in the Morrison/Waid/Kelly JLA era. Doug Mahnke drew the absolute best WW ever. The wet hair look was way better than the usual comic book poofy hair. He drew her lean, but powerful, and his Angry Wonder Woman was something to behold. So, uh, now that I own the first 90 or so issues of JLA in trade form, I guess I’ll go read those when I want to read about Wondy.

– Someone explain this image to me. Is this from the new issue of Teen Titans? I found it linked off SomethingAwful’s BSS forum and it… bleh. Johns, what are you doing, man? That first row, save for Aquagirl and Speedy is worthless, and I like Speedy despite Judd Winick’s handling of her. The second row has Beast Boy and Offspring and they’re cool, but the rest of that row is worthless, too. I realize I’m prejudging here, but Little Barda is too much. DC just needs to leave the Fourth World alone. Give it to Morrison and a good artist and just keep it out of anyone else’s hands. It’s cool to see Mas y Menos and Captain Marvel Jr, but again, the rest of the characters? Bleh. On the bottom row, I think that the two Daughters are interesting ideas, if pushing the gimmick a bit, and I like Ravager, and that leaves Osiris. If Osiris turns out to be Isis’s brother, he’s got the most poorly thought-out code name ever. It takes a lot for me to read Titans. Introducing a bunch of no-names and go-nowheres isn’t really drawing me in. The series hasn’t really grabbed me since Titans Tomorrow, to be quite honest. Maybe it’ll pick up, but I basically have read Teen Titans for two years of my life. I can do without it. It’s turned into the JSA, in that it’s a book about a team full of characters who should be guest-stars at best.

– To be quite fair, Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men is boring me, too. Ha ha, Wolverine, yes, but the rest of the book is cute references up the wazoo and SHOCK REVEALS. It’s very pretty, but I’m not even remotely interested in the story. It feels like it’s treading water, with Neat Callback Scene (Kitty Pryde in the sewer last issue made me roll my eyes hard) to Neat Action scene with no meat inbetween.

– Just to complete the custom combo, I found Serenity boring and Firefly decent to middling at best.

– Cameron Stewart is awesome. You all know this, yes? His upcoming book about Vietnam looks like the bee’s knees. However! He and his Royal Academy of Illustration and Design cronies are having a draw-off, and Harley Quinn was the pick for today. Harl is probably my favorite bat-villain, so go check it out. I kind of like Cam’s, since it’s classic Bruce Timm style, but all of them are good. Go look!

– Oh man, I’m totally going to pitch DC Joker Loves Harley Quinn and do it in the Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane style, but with more mayhem. Yes.

– Here’s an interview with Georges Jeanty, artist of The American Way. He’s a great talent, and TAW is totally a sleeper hit. It gets better and better. It’s telling a great tale of superheroics in the 1960s and actually deals realistically with race. I’m loving it, and 4l member Thomas Wilde likes it, too. He doesn’t like anything but Barb Wire, Vampirella, and other bad comics, so him liking a good book is astonishing. I’m kidding! He doesn’t actually like any of those books. However, if he doesn’t write for the blog, I’ll tell everyone that he does and then kill him while he sits in shame.

– I’ve gotten a buttload of trades over the past couple weeks. X-Men: The Coming of Bishop, Birds of Prey: Sensei & Student, Starman: Sins of the Father, X-Men: Golgotha, some JLA v3 trades, Ghost Rider/Wolverine/Punisher: Hearts of Darkness, Spider-Man: The Assasin Nation Plot, The Punisher/Wolverine: African Saga (Carl Potts and Jim Lee! Whatever happened to Carl Potts?), and Monster volumes 3 and 4. Also Absolute Kingdom Come, though I don’t like Alex Ross’s art very much at all, but I love extra content in hardcover comics. I sometimes fear that I have bad taste in comics, but I love them too much to quit.

– So, summing up: Comics are great right now, Wonder Woman’s series is blah, Teen Titans is blah, but comics are still great, the internet is awesome, and I’ve got bad taste in comics. This ended up a lot longer than expected. It was supposed to be a short post!

– Peace!

Writing intros for so many installments is hard. Gives me more respect for the Watcher, who thought up over a hundred variations of, “I’m going to show you stuff that didn’t happen, based on stuff that didn’t actually happen anyway.”

75) WHAT IF THE AVENGERS LOST OPERATION: GALACTIC STORM?

Issue: Volume 2, #55-56
Writer: Len Kaminksi
Artist: Craig Brasfield
Spider-Man death: Yes
Background: Galactic Storm was based on the war that was brewing between the Kree and the Shi’ar. Earth was going to be their battleground and the Avengers made an attempt to stop it. Their plea for peace got them in trouble and the team split up based on different ideas of how to handle the Kree. Captain America and others were taken prisoner by Kree rulers Ael-Dan and Dar-Ben. In regular continuity, the Shi’ar killer Deathbird appeared and assassinated the Kree men, but here, Captain America senses her and prevents their deaths. He finds that this one heroic gesture leads to unfortunate consequences.

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So remember when I said that Marvel would announce its upcoming What If issues long before I’d have this finished? Looks like I was right.

This year the five stories are all based on major events, most of them recent:

– Spider-Man: The Other. Here, Spider-Man’s spidery side takes over. Why he’s wearing the symbiote on the cover, I don’t know.
– Avengers Disassembled. So what would have happened had they not realized Scarlet Witch was behind it when they did?
– Wolverine: Enemy of the State. He’s still under Hydra’s conditioning and he needs to be stopped now more than ever.
– X-Men: Deadly Genesis. No explanation yet, but I haven’t even read Deadly Genesis in the first place.
– Age of Apocalypse. Oh man, I hope they mean the one from the 90’s and not the new one.

Speaking of What Ifs based on Marvel events…

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When it comes to doing countdowns of the best What If issue, I’m not the first. A couple years ago, Wizard magazine had their own top ten list. Here is their version:

10) What If Captain America Were Revived Today? (volume 1)
9) What If the Beast Continued to Mutate?
8) What If the X-Men Lost Inferno?
7) What If the Fantastic Four Had Not Gained Their Superpowers?
6) What If Pheonix Had Not Died? (volume 1)
5) Humor issue (volume 1)
4) What If Daredevil Killed the Kingpin?
3) What If the Hulk Went Berserk?
2) What If Conan the Barbarian Were Stranded in the 20th Century?
1) What If the Alien Costume Had Possessed Spider-Man?

Does this list coincide with my list? Not very much. Only two of those issues make it into my top ten. Three of them aren’t even on my list in the first place (I already talked about why #7 sucked). One of them is in this article.

Back to the real list. Read the rest of this entry �

Man, I totally didn’t have time to whip up that post I promised you yesterday. It’ll probably come later Saturday. I’ve been busy busy with both welcoming back a friend who just came back into town and some super top secret writing projects that I will be sure to share when I’m sure that I’m able to. Non-Disclosure Agreements make for great teases, but poor fun!

Believe me, though. I will definitely explain to you guys why not only does Jim Lee draw the definitive X-Men (he is to X-Men what McGuinness is to Superman and Romita Sr/Jr is to Spider-Man), but why the early 90s X-Men are some of my favorite X-books. The accompanying image is yet another bit of evidence that Gambit is awesome. He caught a bullet and tossed it back! It’s from X-Men #1.

Want to know something super-nerdy? I bought the X-Men: Mutant Genesis trade (it collects X-Men 1-7), and I realized that I practically studied these books way back when. Some of the coloring errors, like where color leaked into dialogue balloons here in this excerpt were fixed, but Beast is still blue from his feet to his teeth in that first big spread of the X-Men, and there are really only a handful of skintones: White, Asian, Black, and Stubbled. The cover has been recolored or retouched, too. I knew this from memory.

I love the X-Men.

It’s time to begin. Er… now that I’ve done two prelude articles before starting this off, I now realize that I don’t have anything to say for an intro. I could always go over the history of the series. Yeah, let’s do that.

What If first started in 1977 with the issue What If Spider-Man Had Joined the Fantastic Four?, based on the very first issue of Amazing Spider-Man. The series lasted for seven years until ending with issue #47, What If Loki Had Found the Hammer of Thor? For the most part, the quality remained about the same.

Several years after cancellation, a special was released called What If Iron Man Had Been a Traitor? While not exactly a classic, it seemed to have helped bring the rebirth of the series as volume 2 started the very next year, 1989. Volume 2 followed the same structure of the first volume: Uatu the Watcher would go on a monologue about who he is and what he does, followed by spelling out just what the issue’s story is about. Like I mentioned a couple articles back, this is a good way to learn Marvel history. Me, I just found out Shang Chi’s backstory days ago. Before that all I knew about him was that he’s some martial artist guy without fear and his name makes him sound like Shang Tsung and Quan Chi from Mortal Kombat did the Fusion Dance.

I can’t be alone in this, can I? Read the rest of this entry �

Back when I first started reading comics, in the 90’s (thunder noises), I was a bit too young to have any real income and was mainly relegated to read comics that had Spider-Man and/or Venom on the cover. One of said covers was for a What If about the New Fantastic Four, made up of Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk and Ghost Rider. I had never heard of this team, but the concept was too rad not to look at, so I got the issue.

That, from what I recall, was the only one I ever did get back then. I remember passing on one about Cannonball’s brother Josh because, hell, I didn’t even know who Cannonball was. Didn’t he show up once during the really shitty final season of the X-Men cartoon?

Like many comic readers, spider-clones and evil, magnetic Xaviers pushed me away from the hobby for years. I can’t really remember when I got back into it again, but I know it wasn’t long into it that I remembered the What If series. With nearly 200 issues out there, I only looked at those based on characters I knew about. X-Men and Spider-Man mostly. Then, over time, as I started to understand more about guys like Iron Man and Dr. Doom, I’d read their stories. Then Dr. Strange and Captain America. Then Fantastic Four and Namor. And so on and so forth.

Until Wikipedia came around, these comics were some of the best ways to get background on characters and storylines. I didn’t know a thing about how Strange became a sorcerer until reading these. I didn’t know the story behind how the Silver Surfer became Galactus’ flunky, only to be given independence. In fact, most of Captain America’s backstory I’ve learned from his What If issues. So thanks for the help, Uatu the Watcher.

After realizing how many of these I’ve read, I knew I had to finish the series off. And so, at the time of this article, I have about 30 issues left to go through. Once I’m done with those, it will be time for me to reflect on it with my list of the best 100 issues. Read the rest of this entry �

Last night I went to the local supermall, knowing that they were showing X3 every half hour or so. Considering I got there at 8, I was a bit surprised that the next available showing was at 11:40. Goddamn it.

So, fifteen hamburgers later it’s time to see the movie. This is, after the usual barrage of movie previews, like Superman Returns, Nacho Libre, Leonard Part 6, Three Fast Three Furious and that crappy-looking Omen remake that they tossed together so they could release something evil on 6/6/06. Sadly, no trailers for Snakes on a Plane.

The movie was really pasted together and shoved out the door as fast as possible so Fox could push it to be the big Memorial Day weekend movie. It shows, considering the big clusterfuck we get. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun clusterfuck, but it’s a clusterfuck nonetheless. I just love using that word… “it’s”. Read the rest of this entry �