Sunday, October 11, 2009

What If?...There Were Ten of a Kind Separated at Births? (What then, huh?)

Crying WatcherHelp! As you saw yesterday, "Separated at Birth" has gone A.W.O.L.! Now it's time for "Ten of a Kind" and I'm afraid I'm never going to find poor old Separated!

Oh, wait! It's right here. It's having a team-up.

That's right, folks, it's the biggest cross-over in Comics Oughta Be Fun! history since "365 Days with Ben Grimm" crossed over with "Bring It On Week." Separated at Birth meets Ten of a Kind...and for some added excitement, it's all to end What If? Week with a bang! If you've read as many What If? issues as I have, then you're thoroughly sick of Iron Man dying like a punk. But you also may have noticed along the way that many of the What If? covers are homages or callbacks to the original stories they reference! So here, for the first time ever, worlds collide, lives are changed, and the Marvel Multiverse will never be the same, as Bully presents

Ten Separated at Birth What If? of a Kind!




DD #164/What If #102
L: Daredevil #164 (May 1980), art by Frank Miller and Wally Wood
R: What If? v.2 #102 (November 1997), art by Leonardo Manco




FF #49/What If #41
L: Fantastic Four #49 (April 1966), art by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott
R: What If? v.1 #41 (September 1992), art by Jim Valentino and Sam De La Rosa




UXM #142/What If? #33
L: Uncanny X-Men #142 (February 1981), art by Terry Austin
R: What If? v.2 #33 (January 1992), art by Rod Ramos





AF #15/What If #42
L: Amazing Fantasy #15 (August 1962), art by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko
R: What If? v.2 #42 (October 1992), art by Kevin West

Look familiar, true believers? It oughta...you've seen it before!




Captain Marvel #29/What If? #14
L: Captain Marvel #29 (November 1973), art by Jim Starlin, John Romita Sr., and Al Milgrom
R: What If? v.2 #14 (June 1990), art by Ron Lim and Terry Austin





FF #1/What If? #36
L: Fantastic Four #1 (November 1961), art by Jack Kirby and George Klein (?)
R: What If? v.1 #36 (December 1986), art by John Byrne and Terry Austin

And there's more where that came from!




ASM #129/What If? #58
L: Amazing Spider-Man #129 (February 1974), art by Gil Kane and John Romita, Sr.
R: What If? v.2 #58 (February 1994), art by Gordon Purcell and Andrew Pepoy

For the world's greatest assassin, he sure misses a lot. Three cases in point.




ASM A #21/What If? #20
L: Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 (direct sales cover, 1987), art by John Romita, Sr.
R: What If? v.2 #20 (December 1990), art by Jim Valentino, Ron Garvey, and Bob Wiacek



ASM A #21/What If? #21
L: Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 (newsstand cover, 1987), art by John Romita, Sr.
R: What If? v.2 #21 (January 1991), art by Jim Valentino and Bob Wiacek





Avengers #4/What If? #29 & 67
L: Avengers #4 (March 1964), art by Jack Kirby and George Roussos
M: What If? v.2 #29 (September 1991), artist unknown
R: What If? v.2 #67 (November 1994), art by Manny Galan

Are there any more? Funny you should ask that...




GSXM #1/What If? #23
L: Giant-Size X-Men #1 (1975), art by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum
R: What If? v.2 #23 (March 1991), art by Rodney Ramos and Bob McLeod





And, you know, as far as I can tell, there's only one instance of the reverse...of a What If? cover inspiring the design for a regular Marvel comic. Could it be that one where the Watcher is doing his Marilyn Monroe impression? No! It's this one, that kicked off the M2 Universe:

What If? #105/ASG #30
L: What If? v. 2 #105 (February 1998), art by Ron Frenz
R: Amazing Spider-Girl #30 (May 2009), art by Sal Buscema, Ron Frenz, and Chris Sotomayor



So! What have we learned? I've learned a) to nail my Separated at Birth down to the blog and b) What If? frequently wound up killing everyone on Earth. Iron Man usually was first. Oh, and c)! There's no cover you can't redo and say it took place on, say, Earth-8675309. And that is, as the Watcher himself says...One to Grow On.

Uatelly


(More Ten of a Kind here.)


4 comments:

Erin Palette said...

I'm almost afraid to ask, but why does Iron Man have Punisher-motif armor?

I suspect it has something to do with "War Machine" and that makes me throw up a little in my mouth.

Phillip said...

Iron Man was usually first, but I seem to recall Doctor Strange surviving at the end of more than one of those stories.

Seangreyson said...

Assuming you're referencing the cover of What if Captain America Founded the Avengers? Frank Castle is a member of a Shield Super Soldier team who discovers Cap in a block of ice (which is weird cause Steve Rogers has been President of the US for 20 years). He's been provided with a new experimental armor suit designed by Shield's best designer Tony Stark (and given a skull motif cause those Shield boys are fascists).

FMM_UWF said...

I know this is many months later, but the What If v2 #42 ("What If...Spider-Man Had Kept His SIX Arms?") was penciled by Kevin West, who was the 2nd penciler for the first run of "Guardians Of The Galaxy" (after Shadowhawk creator Jim Valentino left the series around issue #16).

BTW, I love what you're doing with this set of posts.