What If?: 10 Essential What If? Comics To Read Before Disney+ Series

What If…? will show Marvel Cinematic Universe fans how one simple change could alter the entire dynamic of the MCU. What if Sharon Carter became Captain America? What if Yondu took T’Challa instead of Peter Quill? These are some of the alternate realities shown in the What If…? trailer. They will then play out to show how things change drastically thanks to the one change, similar to the comics the Disney+ show is based on.

To get a feel for what fans can expect when What If…? hits Disney+, there are years worth of comics in the format, originally printed as a regular series and now released as special editions from time to time. These stories often show what happens when a major event takes a turn, and it is often for the worse.

10 What If The Phoenix Didn’t Die?

One of Marvel Comics’ most famous storylines was “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” which saw the Shi’ar come to Earth to put Jean Grey on trial for genocide. Jean ended up sacrificing her own life to save the X-Men and stop the Dark Phoenix. What If…? #27, the story asked what would have happened if Phoenix didn’t die.

In this story, Jean Grey saved the Shi’ar homeworld from Galactus and earned their respect. They did not come for her and Jean lived on. However, she still lost herself to the Dark Phoenix and ended up killing the X-Men when no one was powerful enough to take down Phoenix.

9 What If Wolverine Killed The Hulk?

In What If…? #34, the first appearance of Wolverine played out with one major difference. That first appearance saw Hulk go to Canada and Wolverine was sent in to deal with him and stop him from reaching populated cities. They fought each other, but then they teamed up to fight Wendigo.

But, what if the team-up never happened because Wolverine killed Hulk when he fought him. By killing Hulk, Logan got a big head and kept killing, ending up a wanted man. He joined Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and ended up an X-Men enemy.

8 What If Elektra Lived?

In What If…? #35 by Frank Miller, the series looked at what would have happened if Bullseye had not killed Elektra. The book started when Daredevil was mourning at Elektra’s grave in Daredevil #182 when The Watcher showed up to show him what would happen if Elektra had lived.

If she had not died, Elektra would have spared Foggy Nelson’s life and ended up sticking together and eventually marrying Daredevil. This put her in Kingpin’s sights and the couple had to make a harsh decision.

7 What If Punisher Became Venom?

In What If…? #44, the book had a huge change for the Marvel Universe. When Spider-Man rid himself of the alien symbiote, it went to bond to Eddie Brock, and Venom was born. However, what would have happened if it chose to bond with The Punisher instead?

This made the powerful symbiote a ruthless killer of villains and made Frank Castle more dangerous than ever. When Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Moon Knight, Punisher had to make a decision on how to deal with the symbiote.

6 What If Cable Destroyed The X-Men?

In What If…? #46 by Kurt Busiek and Tod Smith, the series questioned what would have happened if Cable and Professor X came to blows. In the series, Professor X returned to Earth and confronted Cable about how violent the teams had become.

Cable went to war with Professor X and his mutants and ended up murdering Xavier, Cyclops, and Jean Grey. With the three X-Men leaders dead, the team fell apart. Eventually, more mutants died, and in the end, Wolverine led the surviving mutants against Cable and his allies.

5 What If Wolverine Fought Conan?

In What If…? Vol. 2 #16, Wolverine ended up going to Earth-90816, which was the Earth where Conan the Barbarian lived. While Conan ended up coming to Earth-616 and becoming Wolverine partner in the Savage Avengers years later, this was the first time they met.

What resulted was Wolverine meeting Red Sonja and Conan accidentally ending up traveling to Earth-616 without Wolverine, where his actions led to the end of the world.

4 What If Spider-Man Remained A Celebrity?

In Spider-Man’s first appearance, he gained his powers after a radioactive spider bit him. Instead of becoming a superhero, Spider-Man tried to make money as a celebrity and appeared on late-night talk shows. He gave this up when his Uncle Ben died.

In What If…? #19, Spider-Man stopped the thief, thinking it would make him a bigger star so Uncle Ben never died. As a result, Spider-Man became a major celebrity rather than a superhero and began to make very irresponsible decisions, which ruined other’s lives and almost destroyed his own.

3 What If Captain America Was Found Two Decades Later?

Captain America will be involved in the What If…? Disney+ series and his story will show what would happen if Captain America’s true love Peggy Carter became the super-soldier rather than Steve Rogers. In 1983, Marvel released a book that asked what would happen if Captain America was not revived until that year.

This was two decades after he showed up in Marvel Comics, which meant the Avengers went on without him for years before he returned. What he found was a man who had taken on his identity and had become deadly, helping turn the U.S. into a prison state that Steve Rogers had to save.

2 What If Korvac Beat The Avengers?

In What If…? #32, Marvel examined what would have happened if Korvac had defeated The Avengers and decided not to bring them back and leave. In the original story, Korvac did beat the Avengers but he realized that what he believed in was a lie and he resurrected all the Avengers and set things back to normal.

In this book, he doesn’t go back on his plans and brings the Avengers back to life as pawns to use for his plans. He blocks off the Earth from any other dimensional realms from reaching it and ends up driving the entire universe to its destruction.

1 What If? Civil War

In 2008, Marvel released the one-shot What If…? Civil War. This pitted Iron Man and his pro-registration superheroes against Captain America and his pro-freedom fighters. While Captain America and Iron Man both thought they were right, it ended when Cap realized the damage done and surrendered.

In this story, two important changes occurred that changed how things turned out. In one, Iron Man died in Extremis, and Captain America led all heroes against the government and lost badly. In the second, Iron Man asks Cap for help instead of threatening him and they work together, eventually agreeing to work on the registration, but with changes allowing heroes to protect their identities, only revealing them to Cap.

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