Manic What If? Day--What If What Ifs Were Not What Ifs?

Earlier today I was poking fun at Hulk writers for (no doubt coincidentally) using old What If? stories as the basis for new storylines.

Unfair, I know, because if you do enough what if stories over the decades, some--many!--are bound to eventually happen.

For example:

OK, get quibbly...Spidey technically joined when they were the Future Foundation, not the Fantastic Four...it still counts.

Or:

Famously, this was the story that Roy Thomas immediately declared actually did happen, and resulted in a couple of extra Captain Americas...

Also in the "not really a What If" category...

Ah, another Roy Thomas-edited joint that is retroactively declared canonical....Oh, Agents Of Atlas, how I miss you...

And then there's the perennial:

And, of course, it turns out she didn't. But then she did. But then she didn't? And then...?

Then there's the matter of the crime that cannot be erased:

Oh, poor naive 1980s What If? If only you had some idea of how tragically real this idea would become...

Let's call this 1 1/2 out of 2. Ben Grimm did continue to mutate, on and off, under various writers in the 80s and 90s. And the Beast, of course, continues to mutate (without any real impact) at the whim of whatever creative team is out of ideas. Look--now he's a cat. Look--now he's an ape. Look--now he's Kelsey Grammer!

Speaking of X-Men stories...

Well, that's close enough to the vile retcon of X-Men: Deadly Genesis to count in my book.

And speaking of vile:

Yeah, that one became not so much a What If?. Yay, deals with Mephistopheles!!

In the "there's no way they could have forseen this one actually happening" department:

It took an alternate universe and Franklin "I Can Do Anything The Plot Requires" Richards mucking about, but yeah, she lived.

And then there's the perennial:

Something tells me that one is not going away anytime soon...

Not long after this, What If?, in the covers at least, devolved into premiseless sales fodder. "What If?...Starring Wolverine!" Or "What If?...Civil War!" Cowards.