New Year, New Comic Guides! In 2023 I launched a massive 33 new comic collecting guides and reading orders exclusively to Patrons of Crushing Krisis, released 11 guides to the public, plus updated dozens of existing guides to Marvel, DC, & Indie Comics. What if I beat those numbers in 2024? That’s a reality I want to live in, and it’s also the titular question of today’s brand new guide for CK Patrons: Guide to What If?
Creating a What If? Guide is a different kind of project than my typical comic reading orders. That’s because What If? doesn’t have an order – and it hasn’t had a single ongoing series for over 25 years!
What If? was Marvel’s original way of exploring alternative realities, as narrated by The Watcher. It debuted in 1977, with each issue asking a “What If…” question that altered one essential building block of the Marvel Universe. What if Spider-Man Joined The Fantastic Four? What if Jane Foster Had Found the Hammer of Thor? What If Phoenix Had Not Died? What if Spider-Man’s Clone Lived? What if Conan the Barbarian Were Stranded in the 20th Century?
Of course, we’ve seen all five of those What Ifs come to pass in the decades since the original series launched, and many more of the questions posed by the original series. What were seen as immutable building blocks of the Marvel Universe in 1977 became fun and sometimes shocking story beats in the 90s and beyond. [Read more…] about Guide to What If? (New for Patrons!)
The Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection, Vol. 22: Round Robin