What If...? #110
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeWhat If...? #110 uses the single heartbreaking moment of Illyana Rasputin's death to reframe one of the most celebrated X-Men sagas — the Proteus storyline from Uncanny X-Men #125–128 — showing how completely the roster's fate hinged on Colossus joining in Giant-Size X-Men #1. By transplanting Piotr into the Soviet Super-Soldiers instead, the issue also functions as a rare, sustained look at Marvel's Cold War-era Russian heroes operating alongside X-Men characters in a genuinely tragic context. The story's bittersweet conclusion — Xavier dead, Edinburgh devastated, and the X-Men broken — exemplifies the late Vol. 2 era's shift away from tidy alternate-history morals toward emotionally complicated, character-driven outcomes.
In What If...? #110: "Family Ties", Colossus remains in Russia after his sister’s death, embracing his role as a key member of the Soviet Super Soldiers. Written by Bill Rosemann and illustrated by Melvin Rubi with inks by Rob Hunter, this alternate take sees Colossus and Xavier forced into an uneasy alliance when the Soviet team is sent to America to confront the possessed Phoenix. The cover, by Melvin Rubi and Rob Hunter, captures the tension of this pivotal moment.
In "Family Ties," Yuri Brevlov grapples with the weight of loss and legacy as Colossus, torn between loyalty to his homeland and the ideals of the X-Men, must confront the past that shaped him. With the Soviet Super Soldiers deployed to America, he faces a reckoning not just with Proteus’s rampage, but with the man he once called a brother.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
The issue was produced by writer Bill Rosemann and artist Melvin Rubi as part of What If? Vol. 2 (1989–1998), Marvel's second and longest-running alternate-universe anthology series, which ran 114 regular issues plus a special over nine years. By late 1998, the series had dropped the framing device of Uatu the Watcher and increasingly spotlighted specific characters as narrators — here, the entire story is filtered through Colossus's own recollections. The issue appeared near the end of the series run, just four issues before Vol. 2 concluded with #114.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Story title: 'What If…? Starring the Uncanny X-Men' — the divergence point is Giant-Size X-Men #1 (1975), where in this timeline Illyana Rasputin is killed in a tractor accident while Piotr is distracted by Xavier's recruitment offer, causing him to reject the X-Men entirely.
- Written by Bill Rosemann with art by Melvin Rubi; the entire story is narrated in first person by Colossus.
- Instead of joining the X-Men, Piotr Rasputin becomes a full-fledged member of the Soviet Super-Soldiers alongside Darkstar (Laynia Petrovna), Vanguard (Nikolai Krylenko), Ursa Major (Mikhail Ursus), and Crimson Dynamo (Dimitri Bukharin).
- Without Colossus, the X-Men cannot defeat Proteus (Kevin MacTaggert) — whose energy form is specifically vulnerable to inorganic metal — and Proteus successfully possesses Jean Grey/Phoenix, fusing his reality-warping abilities with her cosmic power to become effectively unstoppable.
- Professor Xavier ultimately sacrifices himself by offering his body to Proteus in exchange for Phoenix's freedom; Colossus kills the merged Xavier-Proteus entity, exploiting Proteus's metallic weakness at the cost of Xavier's life.
- The issue draws a direct narrative line from the original Claremont-Byrne Proteus arc (Uncanny X-Men #125–128, 1979–80), in which Colossus's punch disrupted Proteus's energy form and killed him — the exact power the X-Men lack in this alternate timeline.
- The story ends with the X-Men effectively disbanded following the losses of Xavier and multiple teammates; Colossus retires from super-heroics and builds a quiet life with Darkstar, a uniquely domestic resolution for a What If tale.
- Published July 1998 as part of What If? Vol. 2, one of the final issues before the series concluded with #114 in November 1998 — making it part of the anthology's closing chapter after a nine-year run.
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Reprinted in Giant Size Mini-Marvels: Starring Spidey #1 (2002), What If?: Into the Multiverse Omnibus #3 (2025)
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