Greetings, Groove-ophiles! Let's kick this week off with one of Ol' Groove's favorite comics:
What If? #20 (January 1980)! "What If the Avengers Had Fought the Kree-Skrull War Without Rick Jones?" might have been a mouthful of a title, but it was a fistful of far-out and fabulous four color comics! All of Groove City knows that t'was the
Kree/Skrull War (
Avengers 89-97) that solidified Young Groove's standing as a comicbook fiend, so this comic was a particular pleasure when it came out--and it still is! Author Tom DeFalco (future Marvel EiC in the early days of his Marvel career, here) gave the original story some very cool twists and turns (including letting most every 1971-era Marvel character join in the fun). The art by Alan Kupperberg and Bruce Patterson was very different from Neal Adams' style on
Avengers 93-96 (though Kupperberg
had worked for Adams), and much closer to Sal Buscema (who drew
Avengers 89-91--and according to Kupperberg, the first three pages of
What If #20!) captured the look and feel of the original epic and did a great job of showing us the
war side of the
K/S War. We got a virtual graphic novel in 35 pages, baby! Dig it!
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| Cover art by Al Milgrom and Joe Sinnott |
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| Yep! There's the infamous DD miscolored panel! Whodunnit? |
This is one of the better issues of What If? It was the first time I'd read anything about the Kree-Skrull war (I only got around to reading the original saga afterward), and I was absolutely fascinated by the whole thing. Yes, there's a lot of story packed in here. I thought the art was pretty darn solid, too.
ReplyDelete"What if..." was among my favorite titles, two of my particular faves were "What if Rick Jones has become the Hulk" and "What if Sgt. Fury had fought World War 2 in outer space".
ReplyDeleteI may have to go buy this. The Kree-Skrull war around Avengers 90 was when I entered comics in 1971. The whole thing was an enigma to me esp. since the piss poor distribution left me hanging from Avengers issue 94 - 100 before I saw another issue!
ReplyDeleteRick Jones was also a frustrating enigma to a youngster, being passed around from Hulk to Captain America to Avengers to Cpt Mar-vell like a Hukkha pipe or something.
I mean, that war, rick jones, and mar-vell just confused the heck out of me... BUT I want to get this What If if for no other reason than I may understand it all, finally, lol!
I consider Avengers # 93 the greatest comic of all time. Roy Thomas, Neal Adams and Tom Palmer at their peak. When I mentioned that to Neal he said in his inimitable manner, "I tried to make it that way."
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