FF Week #15--What If?

It's hard to imagine now, but the Fantastic Four was once so integral to Marvel, that there was really no choice but make them the subject of the very first issue of the new What If? series:

The FF were well-represented during that initial What If? run...

...even though it occasionally got silly:

They even published a sequel story to What If? #1!!

It was clear that Marvel creators of the era knew and respected the Fantastic Four's legacy, and gave much thought to the place in the Marvel Universe:

Of course, sometime the ideas were trivial...

[SPOILER ALERT: They both did continue to mutate!!]

And there were lots of classic FF stories to explore possible alternate ending for:

When the second edition of What If? Came around in 1989, though, there was far less focus on Marvel's first family. It took 11 issues before they got a cover!

But at least they could join in on the trend of telling What Ifs about stories that didn't wrap up all that long ago...

This one was more a Silver Surfer story, but he did join the FF, so we'll count it!

Another What If? based on the Byrne era...

We had already had a What If? based on Franklin's birth, but, well, why not try again?

After that, though, the Fantastic Four's appearances in What If? dried right up. If you weren't the Punisher or a mutant or Spider-Man, good luck on getting a What If? story approved in that era!

Still, it was the 90s, so you could really try and extreeeeeme the story out to get the FF back in the book, right?

I think the premise of this one was, "What If We Made The Fantastic Four As Annoyingly 1990s As Possible?":

And finally, another riff on the John Byrne run:

Which leads us back to today, and the greatest What If? of all:

What If Marvel Actually published A Fantastic Four Book?

I know, that one is so remote a possibility, even the Watcher couldn't sell it...