What If?: Into the Multiverse Omnibus, Vol. 1

What If? (Publication Order) #48-95

by Peter B. Gillis, Roy Thomas, Danny Fingeroth

Anything can happen in WHAT IF? - and this is the Omnibus to prove it! Imaginative creators line up to explore alternate possibilities in unexpected ways - featuring amazing, incredible and uncanny variants of all your favorite heroes! Ask yourself the important What if the alien costume possessed Spider-Man? What if the new X-Men died on their first mission? What if the Fantastic Four all had the same power?! Professor X becomes the Juggernaut, Wolverine is an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Daredevil kills the Kingpin and the Punisher's family survives! Captain America won't give up the shield, Iron Man loses the Armor Wars and the Vision destroys the Avengers! But when the Timekeepers step in, can the Multiverse survive a cosmic crossover between the many worlds the Watcher has witnessed? Collecting WHAT IF? (1988) #1, WHAT IF? (1989) #1-39 and QUASAR #30.

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Adventure, Fiction

1240 pages, Hardcover

First published October 10, 2023

About the author

Peter B. Gillis (born December 19, 1952) is an American comic book writer best known for his work at Marvel Comics and First Comics in the mid-1980s, including the series Strikeforce: Morituri and the digitally drawn comic series Shatter.

Reviews

[Dan Solomon]

Hadn’t read most of these since I was a kid pulling them out of quarter bins. They’re mostly fun, but wow, it really is something how uneven they are—if Kurt Busiek or Jim Valentino is writing them, they’re clever, thoughtful larks exploring a neat idea. If it’s most other writers (especially if you’ve got a pinup artist drawing it) they can be downright incoherent; a few of them end abruptly, just because the writer hit the page count, while others have long editor’s notes on the page trying to explain the discrepancy between whatever nonsense the artist drew and the intended plot. (At one point, Nick Fury, wearing an eye-patch, says “I got two eyes, don’t I?” The editor’s note explains that in this timeline, he never lost an eye and wears a transparent patch for fashion.) This was one of my favorite series as a kid, and the good ones reminded me why, but you can really tell when a writer saw it as a low-effort paycheck gig. Neat artifact of a certain era of Marvel history, but only partly the satisfying nostalgia rush I hoped for.

[Rex Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

What If series has always been an eclectic collection of stories. Looking at what could have possibly happened to the Marvel Universe if things had gone in another directions is always a double edged sword. I always felt the first series took awhile to realize the potential of what they could do with the series. As none of it affects the mainstream Marvel universe, kill characters, blow up the world, blow up the universe. Do whatever you want. This series understands these concepts right off the bat.

Big things happen in these issues. And they only get wilder as it goes on. As the ideas become bigger so do the stories. Halfway through we are introduced to the two issue arc and then a five issue series finale which mixes various others What If stories together- such as What if Wolverine was Lord of the Vampires During Inferno- and so on.

As it is essentially an anthology series, quality shifts from issue to issue. A few of the concepts are lame - What if the Avengers Lost during Atlantis Attacks - a crossover series mostly forgotten nowadays. But for the most part I was well entertained by this old series. I had been looking for these for awhile and never thought they would be collected together.

[Gabriel James Maurice Rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if "X-men lost Inferno" is one of my all-time favorite issues. Perfect mind blower for eleven year old kid

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic tales with new ideas and cool art. I’d recommend this to any fan of marvel.