I have the entire first volume (1-47) and I found the series to be really a history lesson about the Marvel universe. I like that each story has a pivotal point that shifts the outcome. The second volume wasn't as special for me because it covered a later period in the Marvel Universe that I wasn't really familiar with. I think my favorite issues were :
3 (What if the Avengers had never been ?)

7(What If Someone Else Had Become -- the Amazing Spider-Man),

#15 ( What If... Someone Else Had Become Nova?)

#32 (What If the Avengers Had Become the Pawns of Korvac).

What If…? #2: The Hulk had the Brain of Bruce Banner

50 Cents @ April, 1977 (Cover Page and 34 net pages stories inside)

Writer/Editor: Roy Thomas
Illustrator: Herb Trimpe
Inker: Tom Sutton
Colorist: Glynis Wein
Letterer: Rosen & Orz

Watcher Quote: “Is it not my sworn duty merely to stand by, observing the births and lives and deaths of men – and universes? Am I not fated forever to know the future in its infinite vaariations – yet bound by a sacred oath never to interfere? In short, am I not – The Watcher?”

“This is perhaps, a cosmic scale somewhere – an inescapable balance which decrees: For every gain, there must be a loss. Yet, if there is, then even a Watcher can only rail in vain against it, and ask the despairing question – why? And his only answer is… the silence of the unspeaking stars.”

Synopsis: We are familiar with the Hulk’s origin. There is a gamma bomb test taking place in the desert, and a teenaged Rick Jones trespasses on the bomb site. Bruc Banner rushes over to get the teenager to a safety trench, which he was successful. Unfortunately, Bruce is bombarded with the deadly rays of a detonated gamma bomb, resulting his transformation into the simple brained monster known as The Hulk.

We are give the Hulk’s origin story, but this time, the Watcher gives us an alternate universe origin story, where the Hulk transforms into a monster, but retains Dr. Bruce Banner’s incredilbe scientific intellect. We have a human person with control in the Hulk’s form instead of a mindless monster. He is able to rationalize, and avoids human contact until he can formulate a game plane to deal with humans in his current monster guise. He initially dealt with his assistant Igor, who turned out to be a spy, as well as the villain, The Gargoyle. With compassion, he dealth with the Gargoyle in a diplomatic way and not resorting to physical violence.

The difference in this Hulk, is that he reverts back into human form at sunrise. And then transforms to the massive Hulk at sunset. The transformation is not initiated by anger and calmness.

There were some unintended changes in the Marvel Universe because of the Hulk’s tranformation retaining the mind of Dr. Banner. It led to a secluded life with Betty Ross, which led to their marriage. A human thinking approach to a bomb on a train tracks instead of a “monster-destroy” approach led to foiling Loki’s plan, thus resulting in a non meeting of superheroes that resulted in the formation of The Avengers. There is no Avengers in this world as a result. An invitation from Reed Richard’s for permanent residence in the Baxter Building resutled in tag team research between the two great minds, resulting in curing The Thing. A depowered Ben Grimm left the team to marry Alicia Masters, while The Human Torch left the team to pursue college. Professor Charles Xavier made his presence known the The Baxter Building, and soon the trio of great minds started working on a psychotron machine to find superpowered mutant or non-mutant beings within the planet. As a result The Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters does not happen in this world, and The X-Men does not form. Their machine inadvertently summoned the world devourer, Galactus. All three tried to stop Galactus to no avail. Then they used the psychotron machine which combined their minds into one superpowered being with galactic mind powers, X-Man, who had tepepathic and energy powers emanating from its giant human like form. Unfortuntely, Ben Grimm just arrived not know what took place, and was smacked by X-Man and ended up in a pile of rubble. The X-Man defeated Galactus by way of attrition of mind energy with Galactus conceding defeat that he cannot defeat X-Man in a fast manner without losing all his energy thus becoming helpless at the mercy of human beings at the end. The victory was costly for the trio of Reed Richards, Bruce Banner, and Charles Xavier, as their superpowers disappeared after the utilizng the psychotron machine to create X-Man. An unfortunate unplanned event was the energy slap of X-Man to Ben Grimm earlier resulted in Ben Grimm reverting back to The Thing with his mind altered ala “Hulk Smash!” style. The Thing smashes his way out and hurdles to parts unknown as a mindless monster. General Thunderbolt Ross is authorized by the U.S. President to head “Operation Thing” to hunt down The Thing and bring him under control. Thus the story ends with another tragedy.

Comment: The thing that grabbed me from reading this issue was Herb Trimpe’s illustration of the Watcher. In particular, his splash page 6 illustration. It reminded me of the Jack Kirby version, with empty eyes as if staring through you to gaze at the cosmos. That’s the way he should be drawn, without any eyelids. There is a sense of enigmatic tragedy in his narration just forever observing and never interfering. While reading this story with a happy middle story for Bruce and Betty, the reader cannot help but ponder what tragedy awaits this happy story so far. As a reader of several What If comic books, we are accustomed to reading a tragic ending to these stories. It was a quick read and a great alternative story in the tragic early Hulk stories. There was room for positive happy stories for the Hulk in the 1960’s. But the resulting non-formation of three essential super-powered teams just has my headshaking of what can befall this particular Marvel Universe. Hopefully nothing too earthshattering to stop.

I'm a later arriver on the Hulk, arriving mostly in the Peter David written stories of the late 80's and early 90's with the Grey Hulk illustrated by Todd McFarlane. Then a 18 to 20-year hiatus from reading comic books. But it's a blast reading the classics of the 60's and 70's illustrated Hulk stories. 

My five favorites from this series are:

In Order


#4, What If INVADERS had stayed together after WORLD WAR TWO?

#24, What If SPIDER-MAN had rescued GWEN STACY?

#10, What If JANE FOSTER had found the HAMMER of THOR?

#46, What If SPIDER-MAN's UNCLE BEN had lived?

#12, What If RICK JONES had become the HULK?

What If…? #3: The Avengers Had Never Been?

50 Cents @ June 1977 (Cover Page and 34 net pages)

Writer/Editor: Jim Shooter
Illustrator: Gil Kane
Inker: K. Janson
Colorist: G. Roussos
Letterer: Denise W.
Editor: A. Goodwin

Watcher Quote: “I am The Watcher! For eons I have dwelt on Earth’s desolate moon, observing and recording the history of this secret of the universe, for such is my sworn duty! Thus, I witnessed with profound interest the tentative, hesitant origin of the super-hero group call the Avengers. Behold again, how, in your reality, they met a critical point in their early days…”

“So it was – in your world! But there are countless billions of worlds parallel to your own, that diverge from your continuum at critical points --! And in these other realties, what might have happened on your world is, indeed, what did happen! I have windows into these alternate planes … and I have observed a world – an alternate Earth, if you will – where the fateful moment of the Hulk’s abrupt departure from the Avengers caused a rift… which, in turn several days later – led to the end of the Avengers.”

Synopsis: Iron Man, Giant Man, Wasp, and Thor arrived to chase after The Hulk. They had a debate regarding voluntary and involuntary part of an organization. Thor decides he can’t battle alongside mortals. Giant-Man decides to walk away, and the Wasp goes with him. Iron Man is back at his HQ and decides to pursue the Hulk, and knowing that Rick Jones is close to the Hulk, sends Rick a message. The Hulk is still a rampaging monster, and Iron Man confronted the brute. Iron Man couldn’t convince the Hulk to stop his rampage against humanity. The Hulk was too much for Iron Man and escaped the confrontation. Iron Man brings along Rick Jones back to his HQ and convinced Rick to help him bring the Hulk in. Rick agreed as he wants his friend, the Hulk brought in so that the Hulk won’t be hurt. Iron Man worked to fix the damage in his armor.

Meanwhile, the Hulk found Namor, and they battled. The outcome was inconclusive and they made an uneasy alliance. Namor sends out a challenge to Iron Man to bring Thor, Giant Man, and Wasp and meet Namor and the Hulk at Gibraltar to do battle. Iron Man agreed to meet in 48 hours and lied that he will bring the others along. Iron Man created armor battle suits for Hank Pym, Janet van Dyne, and Rick Jones. They arrived at his HQ and proceeded to practice with the armor. The practice was unsuccessful, and led to the three to walk out. Alone, Tony Stark in the Iron Man armor thinks of alternatives including contacting the Fantastic Four to help him do battle with Namor and the Hulk. But he decided to power up his armor with more energy and take on the two behemoths singlehandedly. He took off to confront them. At the same time, Rick Jones caught up with Giant Man and Wasp citing that it isn’t in Iron Man’s nature to pass the buck when asking for help, and will most likely not contact the Fantastic Four for help.

Iron Man arrived to confront the Hulk and Namor. He was doing well for himself and actually defeating his two super-powered opponents. He has both off guard and actually managed to bury the Sub-Mariner under tons of rocks and repulsor-ray the Hulk to unconsciousness. Namor breaks free from all the rocks that buried him and assaulted Iron Man, and eventually tackling the armored superhero into the ocean. Underwater, Iron Man was outmaneuvered by Namor and was no match. Namor pummeled him eventually punching Iron Man so hard, the armored hero flew upwards out of the water and crashed into the rocky shore. Unconscious, Iron Man was at the mercy of his two opponents. Just then, three armored heroes arrived, Rick Jones, Hank Pym, and Janet van Dyne. At first, they were successful against the duo of Hulk and Namor. Janet stinging the Sub-Mariner and Hank just continuously pummeling the Hulk. Namor went into the ocean to regroup, and Hulk eventually overpowered and knocked out the armored Hank Pym. Ah semi catatonic Iron Man crawled over to the armored Hank Pym, and connected his armor to Hank’s and gave Hank’s armor all his remaining energy and power including the energy to keep his heart beating. A repowered Hank Pym again battled Hulk and this time getting the better of the Green Giant. Meanwhile Namor was pummeling an armored Rick Jones with the last punch sending Rick to the far side of the rocky shore. As Rick Jones hurled to the other side, he let out a scream. And the Hulk at that moment realized it was his friend, Rick Jones, inside that armor hurtling on the other side. The Hulk leaped to save his friend from hitting the rocks. This attack incensed the Hulk who turned his wraith towards Namor. He did battle against Namor, and the green behemoth was more than a match for the Sub-Mariner both at land and underwater. Namor finally decided it was not worth fighting the Hulk and left the scene of their battle underwater. And the Hulk left as well. Aboveground in the shores, the three armored heroes, Hank Pym, Janet van Dyne, and Rick Jones removed their helmet and stood next to the deceased Tony Stark whose damaged heart succumbed as he gave his last remaining armor power to save his comrades. The three dedicated themselves to the memory of the first Iron Man, Tony Stark.

Comment: It wasn’t disturbing, but Gil Kane’s portrayal of the Watcher here resembles the head and face of one Charles Xavier. In the beginning of the story during the Watcher’s narration, I felt that it was Professor X narrating the story. Giving the Watcher pupils in his eyes downgrades him to looking like a human being instead of the Jack Kirby look with no pupils and appearing to be a cosmic entity. It’s too bad Thor wasn’t in the story much, as he was portrayed to be a haughty god who belittled mortals. Midway through the story, a modern reader would think that Iron Man will get destroyed confronting the Hulk and Namor without any “Hulkbuster” giant armor on. But at the time, it did not exist. As was the usual case, the story ended in a sad tragedy. We don’t get happily ever after endings in the What If series. This was entertaining on its own right.

When I first saw that issue at a newsstand, I couldn't yet read English. Our French translations would always be many months late relative to the originals, and What if..? wasn't translated anyway... so i was unaware of the series' concept and was convinced that Tony Stark actually had died in that issue!

The idea of giving armours to every Avenger is a pretty logical one, and it was funny to see how it turned out here. It's as if Shooter had wanted to explain why such a move wasn't made in the real Marvel Universe, which is commendable, but let's face it: it's downright silly. If the armour proves to be harder to handle than people first thought, they simply should work harder at it!

So far, I think they've been 3 for 3 good issues. I liked that this one focused more on story flow. Less time on narrating what would have happened, and more on the cohesion of its own story. It helps that this doesn't try to cover a period of time, but basically just gives a new take on Avengers #3.

What if Avengers #3 were written without rules?

Tragic endings are the norm now, from Reed losing Sue to Ben Grimm becoming a Hulk-like Thing. But now we see our hero die from taking on Namor and Hulk alone. Stepping up the game in that department.

Various continuity questions bother me, but perhaps they imply this reality had diverged even sooner. As the editor's box points out, Tony Stark upgraded his armor sooner. And at one point Hank claims Iron Man had been doing this for years. No, he hadn't. At least not in the universe we know.

I think in a lot of ways this was the best issue yet. And the best are still to come...