What If Classic Vol. 3 Collection (Vol. 1 #14-15, 17-20), What If Vol. 1 #16

(Note: #16 was apparently so bad that it was not included in the series, but I've reviewed it anyway as a separate entry.)

#14 (Apr 1979): Leonardo DaVinci is a lot more creative than usual, creates flying machines
which speeds up humanity's technological process considerably. By 1942 humans are capable of
flying around in "faster than light" starships. Interesting premise but then they just copy
the history of World War II as the plot, only with aliens instead of humans (and nothing
resembling the ethnic tensions behind the war). Fuck outta here. D-

#15 (Jun 1979): Four different versions of Nova. All of them suck!!! F

#17 (Oct 1979): Ghost Rider, the first Spider-Woman, and Captain Marvel are
bad guys. Ghost Rider gets the worst end of the deal while Captain Marvel
ends up kicking Earth's ass. Spider-Woman just manages not to get herself
killed by backstabbing "allies". Blah. D

#18 (Dec 1979): Doctor Strange chooses the dark side instead of the light side, I guess. He
still ends up being a good guy at the end but with even stronger magical powers. Reeks of
"munchkin"/Mary Sueness but whatever. D+

#19 (Feb 1980): Spider-Man becomes an media celebrity instead of a superhero. J. Jonah
Jameson becomes a washed-up hack who hires all of Spidey's traditional foes to kill him
in some sort of harebrained revenge scheme. Daredevil is Spidey's bodyguard. Horrid. F

#20 (Apr 1980): Rick Jones dies during the Kree-Skrull War. For some reason he's really
important to this storyline, so the Kree Supreme Intelligence (the Kree's hivemind
master) merges with Jones's corpse to become a new superbeing, and singlehandely ends
the war. Why the fuck was this dude so important back in the 70s? F

Overall: Could be the worst of the What If Classic collections. Ugh. D-



#16 (Aug 1979): Chop socky Chinese stereotypes ahoy! Only person I recognize is
"Fu Manchu". I know nothing about the protaginst of this plot or his background,
and the story doesn't make me want to learn anything more about him. So bad they
didn't even include it in the What If Classic reprint graphic novels. F