Prior to getting to Volume 2, I got a couple odds & ends that I didn’t really have anywhere else to put, so why not now? Fewer than I thought, actually For some reason, I thought I had more stuff. I had several Spider-Man-themed issues of What If from the 80s & 90s, but I guess I got rid of them. Real thrilling tales like What If The Alien Costume Had Possessed Spider-Man?, or What if Spider-Man Had Married The Black Cat?, or What If Spider-Man Had Kept His Extra Arms? The answer to all these questions, and to almost every question posed by What If in its 2nd volume, was “everybody dies.” I don’t know why every single issue had to be a slaughterhouse, but they basically were. No big surprise I got rid of them. But this is from the first volume of the series, and as the label reveals, I got this circa 1978 oddity at McKay’s recently (Thinking I still had the old ones and I could do a whole What If section. Oops!). So, let’s see what happens. Say, this is a big comic. 45 sptory pages. That’s quite a surprise. I guess every issue was 48 pages, at least to start. Ok, cool, this book having 3 stories makes more sense now. Don Glut writes, Rick Hoberg pencils, Sam Grainger ins and George Roussos colors.
Part of this book technically being in continuity is a surprise, even if it’s something as insignificant as this. The Watcher then gives us a one-page primer on how Peter became Spider-Man, in case you don’t know (Why would you buy this if you were that casual a fan?), and then we get into it.
In short order, Flash sees the contest to beat Crusher Hogan, and enters it to show off to his lady friends. But he goes too far, and accidentally chokes Crusher to death. He’s horrified by his actions, but then cops show to arrest him, but Flash breaks loose and breaks a window and runs for it. In the process, he learns he can climb walls. Sitting on a roof, Flash now knows it was certainly the spider that gave him his powers, and wonders what to do. He thinks he can’t go back, everyone will know it was him. Then he wonders if he could do something good with his powers, to make up for killing Hogan. He decides to go visit a costume shop.
Pretty wacky. We next see Captain Spider thwarting a robbery when he’s accosted by The Vulture. Those guys were stealing a “priceless bird statue,” so obviously Vultch wants it, and soon they’re scrapping. It doesn’t go well for CS, as he doesn’t have webs, and Vulture goes to his favored move of flying really high and dropping his foe. Flash crashes into an alley. Captain Spider-Fan #1 Peter Parker was following him, and now rushes over to where he fell.
Well. Too bad for Flash. Done before he had a chance to get started. Now it’s Betty’s turn. Given that this is the late 70s… this could be bad…
Their coffee looks a whole lot like hamburgers. Peter asks Betty about her job, and she gets so mad talking about what a jerk JJJ is that she smashes the table in half. Peter, thinking fast, ushers her out of there while making up a dumb story about this being a publicity stunt for The Daily Bugle and to send the repair bill there. Then he tells Betty they should go somewhere to test a theory of his…
Peter being her Svengali is weird, but I’m not surprised they’re not letting Betty take the spotlight in her own thing. Peter tells her she could be a superhero, he could invent some gimmicks for her, and then he could take pictures of her exploits as The Amazing Spider-Lady. And she just signs on. While he’s busy creating webshooters, she’s making a costume and thinking the name he came up with makes her sound like an old woman. She thinks maybe a costume will give her a chance to cut loose, not be so prim and proper all the time, and she’s a woman and it’s a comic book from 1978, so you know what that means…
Ay yi yi. That’s a lotta cringe for one page. Peter’s supposed to be 15 here, and Stan said Bettys younger than him, and they put her in this outfit. Then there’s the “don’t want to fight” angle. They’d never do that to a guy. Whew. We see JJJ hates Spider-Girl, as he’s supposed to, and Peter has gotten basically the same gig he normally has, only with JJJ’s secretary now mysteriously bringing him facts about Spider-Girl to go with the photos. But then, they’re out staging some action shots when a burglar runs by. Spider-Girl tries to stop him, but she’s used up all her webbing taking photos. The cop from AF 15 gives Spidey guff for not grabbing the guy, but since Betty’s terrified of hurting people, that was out of the question. Then, guess what, there’s a cop car at Peter’s later. Is.. .Is Betty going to learn that with great power, there must also come beating up people on the street?
She totally is!
The binding on this book sucks. I was just thinking Betty doing the avenging makes it a lot less suspicious, but then she had to go give away crucial personal info.
Oh, ok. She learned with great power, there has come too much power. Well, ok. I guess it’s pretty reasonable not to dedicate your life to crime fighting, but what’s she gonna do next time she smashes a table by accident? That leaves us just one left, and so John Jameson is shown attending the famous radioactivity display that should’ve probably given everyone in the room cancer, and he knows one of the scientists from the space program. Then he gets bit, and once again, Peter keeps the spider. John goes back to astronaut training and discovers his super speed and agility just as his dad comes to visit.
Stiff competition for worst costume in this, but “Spider Jameson” really grabs for the brass ring. Still gotta give it to Spider-Girl, tho, for creep factor alone. Spider Jameson feels more like what we would’ve seen if Jack Kirby had done Spiderman (No hyphen) as he was planning to. Improbably, Peter shows up at The Bugle looking for a photography job. Why? JJJ isn’t impressed with his work, but then the news tells us the accident that happened to John in ASM 1 is now happening to the astronaut who took his place in the program. He flies off to save the day, feeling responsible for the guy’s plight since it should’ve been him up there, and JJJ drags Peter along to take photos.
Aw, poor John. Man, a lot of tragedy in this old What Ifs, too, not just the ones I grew up on.
Well, then. Nice to end with a Romita swipe up there, albeit replacing Spider-Man with Peter. That’s gotta be awkward on the world where Betty still has spider powers. “Peter, I can’t do this, it’s too much for me.” “Great, get outta my way.” Well, there you have it. All Peters Parker must one day become Spider-Men. That rule has since been broken in other alternate realities, of course. Check out this letter page, wherein Roy Thomas presents 100 ideas for future issues:
I think they used almost all of them eventually. Even the wilder ones like the original Bullpen becoming the FF (A comic written & drawn by Kirby despite his distaste for Stan by then, featuring Stan as Mr. Fantastic, Jack as Thing, Stan Goldberg as the Torch and Flo Steinberg as The Invisible Girl). I’m most struck by the one about the 50s Avengers, because not only did they do it, but they eventually became canon, even, so whoever suggested that has a legacy of stories that continue to this day about the team who were “the 1950s Avengers” in What If and who later came to be called the Agents of Atlas in the prime universe. Wow. And they didn’t even get credit, let alone paid. I kinda wish I had more What Ifs to look at. I’ve mentioned before regretting that I don’t have the alien costume one anymore. But I do have another weird thing to cover. And it is… very weird…