What If…? #1: Spider-Man Joined The Fantastic Four

50 Cents @ Feb 1977 (Cover Page and 33 net pages stories inside)

Conceived, Written, and Edited by: Roy Thomas
Pencils: Jim Craig
Inks: Pablo Marcos
Letterer: John Costanza
Colorist: Janice Cohen

This is the first issue of a fantastic Elseworld-type stories of hypothetical questions in the Marvel Universe.

Synopsis: Spider-Man went to the headquarters of the Fantastic Four (Baxter Building), to join the group. After a brief tussle with the four FF members, they had a dialogue. As there was no salary involved, Spider-Man decided against joining and made his way out. Sue Storm called out to him to come back and convinced the other three members to give Spidey a chance. Trust was enabled and Peter Parker reveals his true identity to the four members of the FF. The brain-thrust of the group Reed Richards agreed, and reasoned five members are stronger than four.

Reed held a press conference and each member ripped the "4" logo from their costume, and revealed a number "5" logo. Thus the Fantastic Five is born. Reed even silenced Spidey-hater J. Jonah Jameson with facts, thus having JJJ flip-flop to publicly announce giving Spidey a chance as a hero.

The Fantastic Five then went on to battle the likes of The Vulture who was easily captured by the five heroes. Then members of the FF, with the exception of Sue Storm went to the moon to do battle with The Red Ghost and his team of cosmic rays enhanced super apes. Meanwhile a letdown Invisible Girl has second thoughts about Spidey joining the team, as she should have been with the group in the moon adventure. Red Ghost and his super apes were dealt with by the FF.

Sue Storm was contacted mentally by Prince Namor, The Submariner. Unbeknownst to the Invisible Girl, Namor is being controlled by The Puppet Monster. Upon meeting Namor, Sue was taken hostage and taken to Namor's undersea kingdom.

A Puppet Master controlled Prince Namor sent a message to the Fantastic Four regarding having the Invisible Girl hostage in his undersea kingdom. Reed wanted to settle the score with Namor and the Fantastic Four headed to Namor's kingdom to do battle. Just outside of the kingdom where the battle was taking place, The Puppet Master is inside a mini submarine pulling Namor's strings. The Invisible Girl is inside a bubble under the clutches of a gigantic octopus/squid-like monster. The battle raged and The Thing somehow saved the Invisible Girl and hurled the giant monster upwards through the undersea kingdom's ceiling and out to the open ocean. Out at sea the monster looked for a new target and found the mini submarine of The Puppet Master and proceeded to destroy it, this killing The Puppet Master. Namor is now clear of the controlling influence, and the battle ceased.

Sue decided to stay with Namor to be his bride and reasoned Reed Richards didn't need her, as his focus is on the team. It was decided, and Namor had Susan enter a machine that changed her into a water-breathing Atlantean. Thus, The Fantastic Five reverts to becoming The Fantastic Four once more, with Sue Storm replaced by Peter Parker, The Amazing Spider-Man.

Comments: There are steppingstones in everyone's stories. Depending on a decision on that particular steppingstone, one's life is forever altered depending on the choice whether "to go right" or "to go left" in the choices. And this story showcased this and we saw the potential "butterfly effect" that took place afterwards.

The story was compact, and the characters seemed to reflect the character traits of their original 616 Marvel Universe counterparts, but the ending somewhat fizzled. Mr. Fantastic was out of character in easily agreeing to go along with Sue's decision to stay with Namor. Poof! Come one Reed, you're just going to let the love of your life go just like that. It is counterpoint to what he said in the middle of the comic book when he said, "He's gone - but we're going after him! We'll rip up half the ocean floor if we have to -- But we won't return without Sue! Now let's move!"

And at the end of the story Reed says, "But now, maybe she can be the Sub-Mariner's conscience --and thus the surface world's protrectress --more than ever before! And I'll try to pretend that that means more to me --than losing the only woman I ever loved."

The deadline must have been afoot, and Roy Thomas had to wrap things up.

It is a somewhat sad and tragic ending. This is going to be almost the norm on future endings of What If stories in the series.

Overall I liked it but that's only because it was a quick and easy read.

I just bought the last few issues that was missing from my volume one collection. I am planning on re-reading the entire 47 issues of the first volume. I might as well share my re-reading experience of them here in this forum. 

I definitely love the Marvel Bullpen as superheroes. That was cool.

By the way Hoosier X, what did you about Herb Trimpe's illustration/illustration style? 

As a child, the second volume of What If? was one of my favorite series. It's how I met most Marvel characters and learned their stories.

And thus I appreciate this as the start of it. And it really is a tour-de-force in terms of defining what it is to be What If?. The Watcher explains in great detail the idea of alternate realities so you can't be confused. (I like the tongue-in-cheek reference to Superman vs. Spider-Man and continuity debates.)

And I think this issue set the tone to what to do. Get a high concept change based on a single moment from a key story (in this case Amazing Spider-Man #1), then do a continuity-savvy review of what would have happened next, building toward a major point of divergence.

Did the ending work in terms of Reed being in character? Was it rushed? Sure. This issue covered a lot of ground in its page count. There just weren't more pages for a lot of back-and-forth on the topic. Really, I would expect Sue to spend at least 5 minutes considering whether she wants to be transformed into an Atlantean. At least 5.

Always been a big fan

One of my favorites was #13.

"What if Conan walked the Earth today?"

Same here ...

"I'm Rick JONES, bitch!"

As for WHAT IF # 1, you'll ultimately come across a sequel in # 23, which tries to address the somewhat 'out of character' behavior of the group. However, this only leads to even MORE out of character actions.