What If? #1

History

Roy Thomas, who had launched and shaped Marvel's editorial direction as Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief, conceived the What If? title and named it after a phrase he had repeatedly heard Lee use around the Bullpen; Thomas later stated he found it easier to pitch Stan on a series whose very name was one Lee already favored. Thomas both wrote and edited the first issue, with interior pencils by Jim Craig and inks by Pablo Marcos, while the cover was rendered by Ron Wilson and Joe Sinnott—though GCD research indicates John Romita Sr. contributed figure alterations to the Spider-Man and Sue Storm images. House advertisements in Marvel's February 1977-dated books list the actual on-sale date as November 11, 1976, making the book a late-1976 release despite its cover date, and the 52-page issue included a two-page prose piece by Thomas himself discussing how the series came about.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First issue of Marvel's What If? anthology series, which ran for 47 issues from February 1977 through October 1984—the inaugural series that formally introduced and popularized the concept of the Marvel Multiverse.
• Written and edited by Roy Thomas with pencils by Jim Craig and inks by Pablo Marcos; cover by Ron Wilson and Joe Sinnott; John Romita Sr. contributed figure alterations to interior art of Spider-Man and Sue Storm.
• Story title: 'What If Spider-Man Had Joined the Fantastic Four?'—a direct alternate-reality retelling of events from Amazing Spider-Man #1 (1963), in which Sue Storm persuades the team to accept Peter Parker, forming the 'Fantastic Five' on the alternate Earth designated Earth-772.
• Uatu the Watcher serves as narrator throughout, with the comic's very first line of dialogue being 'I am the Watcher'—establishing the framing device that defined the entire inaugural series and was later adapted nearly verbatim into the Disney+ animated What If...? series.
• The issue's alternate-universe survey pages include cameo flashback appearances of the Squadron Supreme (Hyperion, Golden Archer, Doctor Spectrum, Lady Lark, Whizzer), Deathlok (Luther Manning), and Killraven, using them to illustrate that Marvel's divergent realities were already populated before this story began.
• Story features villains from early Fantastic Four and Spider-Man continuity—the Chameleon (Dmitri Smerdyakov), the Vulture (Adrian Toomes), the Red Ghost (Ivan Kragoff) with his Super-Apes (Mikhlo, Igor, Peotr), and the Puppet Master (Phillip Masters)—replaying classic Silver Age adventures with Spider-Man on the team.
• The alternate-universe storyline ends with Sue Storm leaving the Fantastic Five and departing with Namor, a notably downbeat conclusion that set the precedent for What If? stories to deliver consequences that main-continuity Marvel would not permit.
• The story has been reprinted numerous times, including: Spider-Man Comic (Marvel UK, 1979), Best of What If (Marvel, 1991), Spider-Man Family #3 (2007), Marvel Firsts: The 1970s #3 (2012), True Believers: Fantastic Four – What If? #1 (2018), What If? Classic: The Complete Collection Vol. 1 (2018), and What If? The Original Marvel Series Omnibus Vol. 1 (2021).

Cast · 37 characters

Full credits

Key issues in What If?

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#34 1st appearance — Linda Grant

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#9 1st appearance — Venus