THE AVENGERS' APPEARANCES IN WHAT IF?
Compiled by Scott Harris

This is the What If? list, as it appeared on the Avengers mailing list:

I don't claim that it is comprehensive, so if you know of any I missed, feel free to add them on.

SPOILER ALERT: I included synopses of each of them, so if you don't want to know, 
close your eyes here. (This includes some info about the original stories too, so it's sort of double spoilers)

First Series:

#3 - What If the Avengers had never existed?
departure point: Avengers #3.
story: When the Hulk leaves, the Avengers decide to just leave him
alone. This decision causes a large argument, as Iron man thinks they
have a responsibility to keep track of him (as they did in Avengers
#3). The other disagree, and the Avengers break up, with Giant Man and
Wasp retiring and Thor returning to asgard. The Hulk and the
Sub-Mariner don't know this, so they challenge the Avengers to a fight.
Iron Man decides he'll take them on solo. It doesn't exactly work, but
Rick Jones, Wasp And Giant-Man, all wearing suits of Iron Man armor
that Iron Man had devised for them (yes, a tiny suit for Wasp and a
huge suit for Giant-Man) show up. Iron Man ends up dying to save them
all, and Hulk and Sub Mariner leave.

#9 - What If the Avengers had fought in the 1950's?
departure point: no specific point
story: A group of costumed heroes and other powered misfits join forces
to combat Yellow Claw ( I think). They happen to pick the name
Avengers. ( with the battle cry "Go, Avengers, go!") What is
interesting is that it isn't known whether this is an alternate reality
or the actual Marvel Universe, as the team splits up after one mission
and is sword to secrecy about their existance.

#20 - What If the Avengers fought the Kree-Skrull war without Rick Jones?
departure point: Avengers #96
story: Rick Jones pisses off Ronan the Accuser, who kills him. So it
falls to Captain Marvel to avenge him and stop the war; meanwhile, the
Avengers gather up all of earth's mightiest champions (X-Men, Fantastic
Four, Inhumans, Hulk, Spider-Man, etc.) and ship them into space, where
the whole lot fights off the invading armadas. Marvel knocks the fight
out of the Skrull leaders, and the Supreme Intelligence merges with
Rick's corpse to wrest control of the kree back. At the end, it is
foreshadowed that Mar-Vell would marry the new Skrull Queen and 
forge a new, peaceful empire to rule the galaxies.

#25 - What If Thor and the avengers fought the gods?
departure point: Thor #136
story: Jane Foster is banished from Thor's sight by Odin. Thor gets
really steamed and goes to the Avengers, where he makes up a story and
tricks them into helping him try and overthrow Odin. They travel to
Asgard and rally a bunch of Asgardian troops, then assault Odin's
palace. Odin makes Loki his hier and give him some of the Odin power to
fend off Thor. Loki of course plots to take over himself, but his plans
go awry when Iron Man, trying to call a truce, is killed. Thor goes
ballistic and he and Loki fight a duel to the death, but Loki somehow
ends up getting killed by the Wasp (!) whose powers, along with the
rest of the Avengers, had been amplified through godly means. Thor and
Odin then calm down enough to stop the war, but Thor takes all his
followers and builds a new city, splitting the realm in two.

#29 - What If the Avengers defeated everybody?
departure point: Avengers Special #2
story: As in Avengers Special #2, the Scarlet Centurion shows up after
the events of Avengers #2 and convinces the Avengers that the huge
abundance of super powered beings is going to cause the destruction of
the earth. The Avengers decide he's right and end up capturing all the
other powered beings, turning them over to the centurion for
rehabilitaion. Finally, it's just the Avengers. Unlike Avengers Special
#2, however, no team from an alternate future shows up to stop them, so
they end up fighting amongst themselves. After the Hulk is turned over
to the centurion, they all quit forever. centurion then takes over the
planet. before he can quite finsih, though, the Avengers, pissed at
being played for fools, attack. He creams everyone but Thor, who
proceeds to take him down solo in about 5 seconds. Iron Man wants to
keep the Avengers going, but everyone else leaves, leaving Iron Man
alone to debate whether he should retire or not.

#32 - What if the Avengers had become pawns of Korvac?
departure point: Avengers #177
story; In his hour of need, Korvac turns to Carina for support, and she
gives it to him. So he continues on his path and kills all the
Avengers. Then he resurrects several of them to do his bidding. Well,
this issue has a ton of things happening in it, but I'll try and be
brief. The Watcher assembles a group of cosmic powers and they join
together to overthrow Korvac. Captain America kills Galactus (go, Cap,
go!) One by one all of the Watcher's group falls to Korvac:
In-Betweener, the Gardener, the Stranger, the Grandmaster, the High
Evolutionary, the Collector, Galactus...finally the Living Tribunal
turns the sun nova. When this does nothing, he seals off the universe
from the rest of the multiverse and books it. An armada comprised of
every warship in the universe shows up to fight Korvac, so he drains
the life from everything on earth, even the biosphere itself, to fight
them. Korvac sees his way to create order of the universe then, and
uses the Ultimate Nullifier on Eternity himself, destroying the
universe.

Second Series:

#1 - What If the Avengers lost the evolutionary war?
departure point: Avengers Annual #17
story: Things start off with a bang, as Jocasta fails to destroy the
Evolutionary's headquarters, resulting in the Evo-bomb going off. The
Avengers quinjet that's making a getaway crashes, killing the team
(Falcon, Beast and Yellowjacket II) except for Cap, who's rescued by
Namor. Well, the bomb has some interesting effects: all humans evolve
into big headed super freaks, while the mutants all get these
incredible powers. (not completely unlike today's Marvel status quo)
Of course, mankind bonds together in peaceful harmony, while Wolverine
becomes leader of all the assorted mutants and other powered beings
that are left. Well, the mutants eventually eat all the cosmic beings,
become death itself and destroy the universe, only to create a new one
instead.
(Written by Roy Thomas)

#5 - What If the Vision had destroyed the Avengers? 
(preceded by What If Wonder Man hadn't died?)
departure point: Avengers #9
story: Wonder Man doesn't die. So, when the original members all retire
in #16, Wonder Man is still there, providing the new line up with some
power. Wonder Man and Scarlet Witch quickly fall in love, which drives
Peitro nuts. He runs off, joins Magneto and becomes the Grim Reaper. In
the battle, Magneto accidentally kills Quicksilver, and the Witch gets
pissed and kills him back. Wonder Man pulls Wanda out of her grief by
proposing and they get married.
Ultron, meanwhile, creates the Vision, but without Simon's brain
pattern to use, he gets a much better idea: he transfers his own mind
into the new body and becomes the Ultimate Ultron. He then shows up at
the mansion and wipes the floor with the team, until Cap, Iron Man and
Thor show up. Then he wipes the floor with them. Luckily, Ant-Man is
around. He flies into the Vision and disconnects some cables, shutting
Ultron down. unfortunately, Ultron stills manages to kill Wonder Man
first. Pym saves the day by transferring Simon's brain into the Vision,
and all is made right. (this will in fact occur again in What If #56.
wait for it...)

#19 - What if Vision of the Avengers had conquered the world?
departure point: Avengers #254
story: there's two stories. In the first, Vision peacefully takes over
all the worlds computers. While the world governments are rather peaved
at first, they eventually vote to let Vision give this a shot.
Everything goes more or less fine until 200 years from now the Kree and
the Skrull join forces to stop the earth from becoming a major galactic
player. Luckily, Vision has kept the Avengers around, as the Cosmic
Avengers. (Iron Driod, Commander America, Jhen the Gammazon, Starhawk,
Thor and a Human Torch) They whip the kree and Skrull, and as a result
both societies collapse, and the Vision ends up assuming rulership of
the whole galaxy.
In the second story, vision rules by gathering all the criminal
superminds under his wing and directing them here and there. They end
up taking over the world and he forges the Earth into a huge fighting
machine, eventually taking over the galaxy through dark means, with dr.
Doom as his right hand man.

# 36 - What If the Cosmic Avengers fought the Guardians of the Galaxy?
departure point: um, its a sequel to #19, so I guess Avengers #254
story: It gets a bit confusing, but there's this council of guys going
from one What If world to another killing characters. They decide to
kill the Vision, so they bring Korvac back in time. He decides he needs
help, so he goes to the future, takes control of the Guardians, and
returns. Then the GotG whip the Avengers silly and Korvac beams himself
into the computer, where he and Vision duke it out; eventually, they
both die.

#41 - What If the Avengers had fought Galactus?
departure point: Fantastic Four #1
story: The Fantastic Four are killed by cosmic radiation, instead of
mutated, which has two major repurcussions for this story: first,
there's no Fantastic Four (duh) so they aren't around to face Galactus.
Secondly, since the FF didn't revive Namor, he didn't revive Cap, so
there's no Cap. With this in mind...
Galactus shows up on earth, ready to eat away. The Avengers, warned
by the Watcher, go and attack him. He sends out his Punisher robot to
fight them so he wont be distracted. Meanwhile, the Watcher sends Iron
Man to Galactus' ship to find the Ultimate Nullifier. The Avengers
make very short work of the Punisher, but Silver Surfer shows up and
they really get into it. Finally, Galactus tires of things and zaps
most of the team, leaving only Hercules and Thor. Thor dukes it out
with Surfer, while Hercules actually begins pounding on Galactus. Both
of them lose; Surfer seizes Thor's hammer in an energy field and he
turns into Dr. Blake, while Galactus finally gets fed up and Galactus
starts beating on Hercules with his fists. At this point the Watcher
realizes that Iron Man has failed, and there will be no ultimate
nullifying this day. So he leaps in and goes toe to toe with galactus.
Galactus gets really peeved at this and eats the Watcher. This sates
his hunger, so he leaves the earth; the Surfer stays behind to find out
what kind of people are so cool that a Watcher would break his oath,
and the Surfer joins the Avengers.
At the end of the issue, which would have been about the time of
Avengers #29, the team ends up consisting of Goliath, Wasp, Hawkeye,
Swordsman, Iron Man (guess he was okay) Thor and the Silver Surfer.
Other members in the issue were Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Hulk and
Hercules.

#55/56 - What If the Avengers lost Operation Galactic Storm?
departure point: well, there were so many parts... I think it was in
Avengers #346 though
story:
part one:Cap prevents Deathbird from assassinating the Kree emperors.
They kill her, then disable the Supreme Intelligence with a pre-planted
virus, and Ael-Dan takes direct control of the empire after killing
Dar-Ben. He then uses the Omni-Wave to destroy the Earth and the Shiar
homeworld, in front of a horrified Cap. Iron Man and Clint make some
plans; they are carried out when Iron Man makes a suicide run on the
Accusers headquarters. While he is fighting, Clint shrinks down, sneaks
in and trades places with Cap, who uses the last gas to shrink and get
away. iron Man self detructs, taking a horde of Accusers with him, and
Clint, thought to be Cap, is executed. Cap meets up with the Kree
resistance, and they break into a concentration camp where the other
Avengers are being held. Crystal and Dane are rescued, but Sersi and
Hercules have been too ravaged by experiments to be of any help, so
they sacrifice themselves so the others can get away. Thy fly off and
are met in space by Quasar, who teleports them away. They meet up with
the other Avengers contingent and the remainder of the Shi'ar Imperial
Guard. They vow to destroy the Kree empire.
part two: There's a top secret Kree outpost on a moon; Vision, Dane,
Smasher and Nightshade try to infiltrate to steal some data but are
caught. In the ensuing fight Dane is mortally injured and Smasher
sacrifices himself so they can get away. The data matrices are too
damaged to be of use, unless they are fixed immediately, so the Vision
records the info over his own brain, killing him. With the critical
info in hand, Cap coordinates a last ditch assault on the Kree
homeworld. A small fleet of various rebels attacks, and is suddenly
backed up when Quasar beams in a group of cosmic powers to help out
(Surfer, Airwalker, Super-Skrull, Drax, Nova, Wonder Man (interesting)
Firelord and someone whos name slips my mind). They divert the enemy
long enough for a contigent to get to the Kree planet. Once there, Thor
II opens a portal and the armies of Asgard pour out to fight the Kree
Home Guard. This allows Cap enough time to reboot the Supreme
Intelligence from the copy stored in Vision's brain. The SI is pissed
and emits a command that causes every bit of Kree technology to self
destruct. The galactic empire is fallen. During the last fight, Wonder
Man somehow gets killed by a ship's lasers but they manage to transfer
his mind into the Vision's body. Then the Avengers set about to rebuild
the galaxy.

#66/67 - These look like Avengers stories, but they aren't. What If
captain America were revived today parts one and two both have Cap
yelling "Avengers Assemble!" on the front as he leads a group into
battle, but niehter group is the Avengers. They don't appear in these.

So there you have it. If you know of any I've missed, let me (and
everyone else) know.

After reading all these, I'd have to say my favorites were:
What If the Avengers had fought Galactus? (#41 2nd)
What If the Avengers had lost OGS (#55/56 2nd)
What If the Avengers had never been? (#3 1st)
What If the Avengers had become pawns of Korvac? (#32 1st)

Feedback?

by Scott Harris