WHAT IF…? #105 - February 1998

Legacy…in Black and White

Credits:  Tom DeFalco (plot/script), Ron Frenz (plot/pencils), Bill Sienkiewicz (finishes), Matt Webb (colors), Chris Eliopoulos & Virtual Calligraphy (letters)

The Plot:  May “Mayday” Parker’s spider-powers begin to emerge during a basketball game.  While out with her friends that night, the Green Goblin appears, telling May to send a message to her father.  Later, she overhears her parents discuss Peter’s life as Spider-Man, and the final battle with Green Goblin that led to his retirement.  Peter figures out that the new Goblin is Normie Osborn, but is unable to gain help from the Fantastic Five or the Avengers.  Peter prepares to meet the Green Goblin at the Brooklyn Bridge, while MJ takes May to the attic and reveals to her Peter’s past.  Soon, May arrives at the bridge, wearing Ben Reilly’s old costume.  During the battle, she spares Normie’s life when he’s caught in the path of a semi-truck.  With Normie institutionalized, the Parkers have a ceremonial burning of Spider-Man’s possessions, unaware that May is designing her own costume and webshooters.

The Subplots:  May is popular with the school jocks and nerds.  She has a crush on football player Brad Miller.  

Web of Continuity:  

• This issue marks the debut of Spider-Girl, even though she’s never called that during the story.
• The recap page essentially confirms that the “package” Alison Mongrain stole for Norman Osborn at the end of “Revelations” was baby May.
• Spider-Man retired after his final battle with the Green Goblin fifteen years ago.  The battle left Norman Osborn dead and Peter with an amputated leg.
• The Fantastic Five and A-Next debut in cameo appearances.
• Foggy Nelson is married to Liz Allan, who is suffering from a fatal disease.  He also claims that Daredevil died years earlier.

Review:  Tom DeFalco always maintained that he created Spider-Girl as a one-off character for this issue of What If…?, even though the genesis for the entire MC2 Universe is here.  I’m not quite sure how the concept of Spider-Girl evolved into not only an ongoing series, but the anchor of an entire line of comics in late 1998.  I do remember a Spider-Girl ongoing was first promoted as a part of Stan Lee’s “Excelsior!” line of comics during the spring of 1998 (inside the same insert that promised X-Factor #150 would reveal Graydon Creed’s killer).  “Excelsior!” never materialized, but within a few months, Spider-Girl and the youth-skewing MC2 line arrived in comic shops.  Tom DeFalco’s critical reputation as a writer had taken a hit after his run on Amazing Spider-Man, and many fans instantly hated the idea of a line of “kids” Marvel titles, so the early buzz for the series was mostly negative.  Within a few issues, however, Spider-Girl had developed a healthy cult following, and most online reviewers were vocally supporting the book by the end of its first year.  Spider-Girl became the little comic that could for several years, never becoming a hit but defying cancellation after cancellation thanks to the efforts of a devoted fanbase.

Spider-Girl developed a following in large part because it was a deliberate attempt to move away from darkness and embrace a friendlier Silver Age ethos.  Ironically, the character is debuting during the “dark” era of What If…?, a conscious effort to save the low-selling comic by just flagrantly giving fans what they seemingly wanted.  Most What If…? issues of the day seemed to be stories about various X-Men dying in horrible ways, as rendered by Leonardo Manco.  This issue isn’t nearly as dark as the standard 1998 What If…? comic, but it’s not the lighthearted, all-ages romp I tend to view Spider-Girl as either.  The tone’s more solemn than what I normally associate with DeFalco’s work, and he seems to be making a conscious decision to lay off the corny retro-dialogue.  Normie Osborn is recast as Robert DeNiro’s character from Cape Fear, a tattooed, buff lookalike of his grandfather, now sporting dreadlocks.  This description might sound ridiculous, but wow, is he freaky-looking.  Bill Sienkiewicz provides the finishes, which automatically adds a certain amount of grit and shadows to the proceedings.  Pairing him with Ron Frenz is a fantastic choice, giving the issue a hint of a traditional Spidey feel, but there’s also a sense of menace that you don’t normally get with a DeFalco/Frenz collaboration.  

Thankfully, the story doesn’t succumb to the normal What If…? clichés of radically altering established characters or just killing them off.  The closest we get is Peter’s severed leg, which does serve a legitimate story purpose.  I’m not prepared to say that May Parker is an obvious choice to headline a long-running series after reading this issue, but she is likeable enough, and the basic premise of the Parkers’ teenage daughter becoming a hero does have potential.  The issue finds a nice balance between a traditional superhero origin and the darker material of late ‘90s What If…?, and DeFalco’s able to deliver the needed exposition rather smoothly.  It’s a solid comic all around.  I really wish we could’ve seen work on this level on Amazing Spider-Man during this time.

WHAT IF…? #81 – January 1996

United We Stand – What If the Age of Apocalypse Had Not Ended?

Credits: Mariano Nicieza (writer), Kevin Hopgood (artist/colorist), Richard Starkings & Comicraft (letters)

Summary

Two years after the nuclear strike against America, Magneto leads the surviving X-Men to a station on the moon. A group of humans, including former Council members like Tony Stark, now lives there and refuses to return to Earth. Stark shows Magneto information they’ve learned from the Watcher’s technology. They’ve discovered that the Silver Surfer is leading Galactus to Earth. Magneto encourages the humans to work together with mutants to stop him, but many humans, including Dwayne Turner, refuse to trust mutants. Later, inside the Blue Area of the moon, Dwayne uses ancient technology to give himself super powers. Galactus arrives to devour Earth, and the X-Men and most of the humans unite to stop him. Bandit, Dwayne’s brother, is saved from Galactus by Quicksilver, but he’s soon killed by the Silver Surfer. After saying goodbye to his brother, Dwayne is inspired to use his new powers to mentally unite humans and mutants against Galactus. Their united force kills Galactus, leading Magneto to warn everyone to learn a lesson from the battle.

Review

I guess I bought into the AoA storyline enough to purchase my first issue of What If…? in five years. This issue is probably most notable as one of Marvel’s first experiments in digital painting (even though the cover is done in a traditional pencil/ink style for some reason). Calling it “dated” would be charitable, as most of the issue looks like a poorly airbrushed album cover from the early ‘80s. I recently discovered Kevin Hopgood’s pencil work through some Iron Man back issues, where he displayed a strong style that reminds me of Ron Garney’s art. His work here is buried underneath the garish effects and ugly computer modeling, so it’s definitely not a representation of what he’s capable of. I don’t know if he ran into deadline troubles or not, but the computer effects aren’t even consistent throughout the issue. The painted look is created by knocking out the black ink lines and replacing them with colors throughout most of the issue. Getting closer and closer to the final page, though, the black lines return and the art begins to resemble a more traditional comic (Hopgood’s linework looks like quick sketches on a few pages, leading me to believe that he didn’t intend for this to be the final product). As gaudy as it looks today, I was intrigued by this new look at the time and wasn’t bothered by most of the effects.

The story itself is a bland continuation of the AoA storyline that quickly moves into the cliché “Galactus attacks, everyone dies” format What If…? often used. How exactly the X-Men survived the nuclear attack is dismissed quickly in a narrative caption (Magneto used his powers to fly the team into space), creating more questions than answers. According to Quicksilver, Storm is dead, and most of the other X-Men aren’t seen either. What happened to them? How did they die? Why did Magneto save some X-Men but not others? X-Men Omega ended with a giant cliffhanger. If you’re doing a story that follows it up, why would you skip ahead two years? The story of how the X-Men did or didn’t survive the nuclear attack is a lot more interesting than Galactus’ five hundredth assault against Earth. Aside from skipping over the answers the original story left, there’s also a disproportionate amount of time spent on two cast members from New Warriors who had nothing to do with the Age of Apocalypse storyline. Did we really need to know what happened to Night Thrasher and his brother Bandit in the AoA?

The story also fails as a follow-up because it seems to have confused the timeline of what actually happened in the AoA. The idea that the human characters from X-Universe left Earth for the moon in order to escape Apocalypse can’t really be reconciled with what we’ve already seen. Apocalypse was killed and the bombs were dropped on America at the end of Omega. The human characters from X-Universe were fighting against his men at the same time. Why would the humans leave to colonize the moon in order to escape Apocalypse after he was killed? This might be whiny continuity nitpicking, but it’s an annoying way to pick up the story. Nicieza (the other one, I guess) does introduce the racism aspect of the X-Men mythos into the story in a plausible way, since it would be hard to argue against anti-mutant humans who lived under Apocalypse. He also tries to introduce character moments between Quicksilver and Gwen Stacy, and Bandit and Dwayne, but the dialogue is too obvious and generic to work. It all turns out to be a disappointing effort, and a good sign that Marvel really didn’t know how to follow up this storyline.