Ok, so, due to the overwhelming response we received to review this issue*, I'm finally gonna review this issue. I had some technical difficulties the last couple of days, but we're through that now and we're ready to go. Alright, so, What If...#15. I find it totally crazy that this comic is seventeen years old. And while technically it's a comic from the Nineties, it's pretty much a standard comic from the eighties, which means it doesn't suck and it was printed on newsprint, so there's all kind of printer's errors. Which I think is cool. It's also a really long one, I think there were only four ads in the whole thing, which means there's 27 pages of action to get to. So we should probably get to that, don't you think? Ok, here we go.The title of this story is, "What If...The Fantastic Four Had Lost The Trial Of Galactus?", and it's also known by it's working title, "Gladiators Gone Wild!" It starts off with Reed Richards getting killed in the third panel of the first page. What? Wow, that was pretty fast. I guess they decided to mix it up a little and got to the point as fast as possible. So then Uatu starts talking and gives the reader a recap of how we got to this point in a cool double page spread:
So now that everyone's up to speed with what really happened in the normal Marvel Universe, we get back to what happened in this alternate universe. So they show Reed getting killed again, in case we missed it the first time (personally, I can never get enough of seeing Strecho getting killed, he's pretty annoying) and the rest of the FF get sent back to earth instantaneously. So, as you can imagine, they're pretty pissed, so the Thing smashes into Reed's vault and they hop into a Skrull Flying Saucer that just happens to be sitting in there for them. So they fly off, and somehow they know how to fly a saucer full of alien technology. Ok, then. They make it back to the Shi'ar galaxy with no problems, but Lilandra gets on the horn and tells them to back off. Well, Ben ain't haven' any of that and starts attacking their warship, while Sue shields them. Lilandra sends her Imperial Guards to go teach them a lesson, but then Ben fires a laser and blows up the Shi'ar homeworld. Oopsie. It was a total accident, dude, Ben didn't know it would do that. Plus he's really, really sorry bro. He just wanted to teach Lilandra a lesson, he didn't mean to kill her and a whole planet in the process. So, um, what do we do here, just exchange insurance information and let them figure it all out?
Gladiator doesn't take it too well, and he calls a war council with just about every single planet in the known multi-universe, except for Earth. He's pretty much totally pissed. He convinces everyone to go along with his plan of crushing Earth as payback and everyone starts to get ready. There is one wrinkle though. One of the Skrulls was posing as a Kree Admiral and stole an Omni-Wave Projector, which is an intergalactic cellphone. Only one of those cellphones from the eighties because it's pretty huge. Anyways. so then all of the warships from every planet converge on Earth to blow it to smithereens, the Skrulls are going to send a doom ray to wipe all of the ships and Earth, leaving them with the only remaining fleet. Diabolical.
So right about here is where Sue goes on TV and tries to tell everyone that they're super sorry for blowing up a planet. It was totally their bad. So the news reporters go out and get some reaction from a few of the local supersheroes and it's pretty insightful:
Wow. Earth-shattering insight right there, thanks guys. Anyways, while that was going on, the United Nations had a meeting and they decided to turn to the only man that can lead the Earth through a situation like this. That's right, they tell Colonel Nick Fury to come on down! (What you were thinking, that they'd turn to the President of the United States? Please, they go to the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., baby.) So Fury gathers the Avengers to tell them what's up. The Avengers are ready, but it probably won't matter because everyone's gonna get blowed up.
So the FF are hangin' out at their pad and they decide to do something about this madness, so they steal back their Skrull Saucer and head out into space to see what they can do to help. Their sensors pick up another Skrull Saucer chillin' on one of Mars' moons and they find out that it's packin' the Omni-Wave Projector. So they break into the other saucer and start wrecking the place. They find the Omni-Wave Projector, but the fleet that's coming to destroy the Earth is arriving, and back at Skrull Headquarters, they're getting ready to send the doom ray. So the FF decide to destroy the Projector, and the feedback ends up destroying them and Mars' Moon. "In space, no one can hear you scream". Good to know.
So Gladiator and his crew arrive and are ready to throw down. Or are they? Seems that right before they blowed up, the FF sent Gladiator a transmission telling him about the Skrull's treachery, and because of their sacrifice, the fleet will not deliver the Galactic Beatdown that the Earth had coming. It ends with Fury, Cap, Thor and the Vision gettin' all philosophical while an astral projection of Gladiator looms overhead. So basically it's a win-win ending. Unless you happen to be Reed Richards. Or the rest of the Fantastic Four. Or on the Shi'ar homeworld. Or on that moon that blew up. Then it pretty much sucks to be you. But you know what? This really didn't even happen, because it was in an alternate universe. That's the beauty of the What If... series.
*I was being sarcastic here
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