Saturday, October 4, 2014

What If What If? #48 Actually Existed?"

From the letters page of What If? #47 (1984):

Unfortunately, this was almost entirely wrong. #47 was the very last issue of this volume of What If?, which would vanish for the next 4 years.

And honestly, this blurb is filled with what seems to be B.S. Not to pick on Mr. Macchio, but let's break this down:

**"Back-breaking bi-monthly schedule"?!? Really? In fairness, this volume of  What If? was always "giant-sized" issues. But back-breaking? Now we know where Jim Lee picked up this attitude...

**"What If #48 will appear when we feel it is perfect--and I mean perfect." I guess it's not perfect yet...

**What if Doctor Doom had kept the powers of the Silver Surfer?!? By Stan Lee and Butch Guice?!?! If this was ever real, I don't believe it ever appeared anywhere. Butch Guice did draw one prior isse of What If?--#40--but no others. Stan wrote a short thing for What If ? #200, in 2011. Did this story ever actually exist?

**A two-part X-Men What If by Peter Gillis and Jerry Ordway?!?! Well, while there was no shortage of X-Men What Ifs in future volumes, this story doesn't seem to have been one of them. Gillis wrote a ton of stories in the last year of What if? Volume 1, but after that only the Special in 1988, and that didn't involve the X-Men. Jerry Ordway has never drawn a What If?. Again, did this story ever exist?

**"We want to spend as much time as possible polishing these gems until they glisten." It's been 30 years...perhaps you polished them so hard they turned invisible?

**"We have some unbelievable things planned for this book..." You're right, I don't believe it.

Yeah, I'm being a bit of a dick here. Still, you have to admit there's an awful lot of highfalutin' promises here for a mag that was actually cancelled, and would vanish for 5 years.

Of course, that doesn't mean Macchio knew that this really was the end of the line, or that these proposed stories didn't actually exist, at least as approved pitches.

So Quesada and Alonso--why don't you rifle through some of the desks there in the Bullpen and see if these stories are really buried there, gathering dust? Because I would like to read them...

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