Here it is, the halfway point. If my taste is to be trusted, this should be getting better, so read on.

50) WHAT IF… STARRING QUICKSILVER: THE QUICK AND THE DEAD

Issue: Volume 2, #96
Writer: Chris Wozniak
Artist: Chris Wozniak
Spider-Man death: No
Background: We all know that Magneto is the father of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, but even before that he had another daughter named Anya. Since the village Magnus and his family stayed in resented them and believed witchery was afoot, they set fire to their house and ended up killing Anya. Magneto tore his neighbors apart and left. His pregnant wife couldn’t take being with him and ran off. This issue talks about what would have happened if Magneto could’ve saved his daughter. The clincher? Anya was human!

Magneto’s stance against humanity stays more or less the same, but he has this need to shelter his family from bloodshed, even if he’s the one doing the slaughtering. Magneto’s wife soon gives birth to twins and Magneto is happier. Not only are they mutants, but he has a son to pass on his legacy. The years pass and we see that Anya gets the short end of the stick. She’s normal. She isn’t special.

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Before we hit the halfway point, things are about to get pretty freaking dark. Insert your own Luke Cage/Falcon/War Machine joke here.

55) WHAT IF THE SILVER SURFER HAD NOT ESCAPED EARTH?

Issue: Volume 2, #22
Writer: Ron Marz
Artist: Ron Lim
Spider-Man death: No
Background: After turning on Galactus, Silver Surfer was punished by being forced to stay within Earth’s atmosphere. Whenever he tried to fly off, an invisible barrier would bounce him back in. Eventually, a powerful being named the Champion came to Earth and helped destroy the barrier, permitting the Surfer to travel the universe and experience more adventures. In this reality, the Champion never does come to Earth.

Surfer rams into the force field again and again, still annoyed. The Fantastic Four show up, explaining that they haven’t figured out an answer to what’s holding him back, scientifically. They ask the Surfer to join their team, since it’ll give him a home, something to do and having him around would help Reed’s research into how he could break through the barrier. The Surfer thinks about it and takes them up on the offer.

I don’t have to tell you that they dominated. We get a two-page spread that shows the Surfer aiding the other four in punking out Annihilus, Dr. Doom, the Frightful Four, and others. It’s like God Mode in comic book form. Plus we get this amusing image:

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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.

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It’s time to wrap things up, kids. In this episode, I’ll wrap up this little ongoing series of articles. Really, by this point, it ought to be a case of ’nuff sed.

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Allow me to reiterate something. This wouldn’t necessarily have to be an Ultimate book. Instead it could be a Marvel Max book, so instead of deformed Chitauri they’d again be Dire Wraiths, and similarly, the other names would remain the same. The reason for this being some of the subject matter. The Wraith/Chitauri have made deals with dark, abominable powers. Essentially, I’d intend to emphasize some of the black magic aspects that were touched on in the original series. Tentacled horrors, gods best left nameless, that sort of thing. In the original series, the wraiths were able to summon Deathwings with a spell/ritual. Imagine instead if in order to summon a Deathwing you needed to lay forth a hecatomb (look it up, it’s pretty sick) of human sacrifices, and even then, you only had a weapon that you could maybe point in the direction of where you wanted it to kill.

The most unspeakable thing the Dire Wraiths did in the original series was to deposit a magical plague in the blood supply of a hospital. The result of this was that anyone who was a recipient of the hospital’s blood supply turned into a hideous, gibbering monster. For this series, this would merely be a starting point of just how depraved the Wraith/Chitauri are.

For now, let me outline the first story arc.
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A.o.D. brings you Ultimate ROM 03: Dire Wraiths.
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Little known fact– we take guest articles here at 4l. So, if you got something you want to harp on, explain, or just pimp out, fire off an email to 4thletter/at/gmail.com and we can get you hooked up.

Speaking of guest articles (how’s that for a segue?), we’ve got one from a guy we’ve known for a while, one A.o.D. He’s here to tell you that Rom the Spaceknight is still a viable character. Read on.
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