What If? #9

History

The story was plotted under the conceptual stewardship of Roy Thomas, who served as both editor and story-concept originator for the What If? series, with the full script delivered by Donald F. Glut — a frequent Marvel contributor of the late 1970s who is credited on his own website with co-creating the 1950s Avengers concept alongside Thomas. Pencil breakdowns were handled by Alan Kupperberg with finishes by Bill Black, lettering by Tom Orzechowski, and colors by Carl Gafford; the cover was drawn by Jack Kirby and inked by Joe Sinnott, giving the issue a visual imprimatur from Marvel's foundational artistic era. Thomas had already established a habit of mining Marvel's Atlas-era past through titles like The Invaders, and the 1970s nostalgia wave for the 1950s — the same cultural moment that produced Happy Days — gave the premise immediate resonance. The issue was published in June 1978 as part of the first volume of What If?, a bimonthly anthology series that had launched in February 1977.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First team appearance of the proto-Agents of Atlas roster: Jimmy Woo, Marvel Boy (Bob Grayson), Venus, Gorilla-Man (Ken Hale), M-11 the Human Robot, and Namora act together as a unit for the first time in any comic, decades before being formally codified as the Agents of Atlas.
• The 3-D Man appears here as a team member, but was later omitted from the 2006 Agents of Atlas series because, as writer Jeff Parker explained, the character was actually a 1977 Roy Thomas creation rather than a genuine Atlas Comics-era character — making his inclusion in the 1950s team an anachronism.
• Written by Don Glut from a concept by Roy Thomas; pencil breakdowns by Alan Kupperberg, finishes and inks by Bill Black, colors by Carl Gafford, letters by Tom Orzechowski; the cover was penciled by Jack Kirby and inked by Joe Sinnott.
• The story's alternate timeline — designated Earth-9904 — was later addressed in Avengers Forever (1998–1999), where it was established that the events of this issue took place in an alternate reality subsequently erased by the time-manipulating Immortus, removing it from mainstream Marvel continuity.
• The issue uses cameos and references to real-world 1950s cultural figures including Dwight D. Eisenhower (as a kidnapping target), Elvis Presley, Lucille Ball, and Desi Arnaz, grounding the alternate-history conceit in period atmosphere.
• The story's central plot has FBI agent Jimmy Woo assembling the team to rescue President Eisenhower from the Yellow Claw; the team calls themselves 'Avengers' as they intend to avenge the Claw's crimes — planting a retcon seed that the Avengers name predated the Silver Age founding.
• The issue has been reprinted in: What If? Classic Vol. 4 (trade paperback); Agents of Atlas: The Complete Collection Vol. 1 (2018); and as a standalone True Believers reprint — True Believers: What If the Avengers Had Fought Evil During the 1950s? #1 (December 2018).
• Editor Mark Paniccia and writer Jeff Parker discovered this issue years later, and it served as the direct creative seed for the 2006 Agents of Atlas six-issue miniseries, which brought essentially the same core cast (minus 3-D Man and Jann of the Jungle) into mainstream Marvel continuity.

Cast · 34 characters

Full credits

Key issues in What If?

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#34 1st appearance — Linda Grant