What If? #1

Don’t you just love pleasant surprises?  I sure do.

I had one just the other day.  For months I’ve been trying to find a certain Bronze Age Marvel Comics issue that I knew I had.

I searched and searched to no avail.

While I was sorting through my comic books the other day I came across a The Champions #17.  Lo and behold on the back of the comic book, double boarded was my issue of What If? #1 where Spider-Man joined The Fantastic Four.  I found the issue I was looking for!

For those of you unfamiliar with Marvel’s What If? it is based on the premise of Marvel stories that ‘might have’ happened.  It’s sort of like Marvel’s version of DC Comics’ Imaginary Tales or Elseworld series.

Way back when Steve Ditko and Stan Lee created the story for Amazing Spider-Man #1, Spidey decided he wanted to join The Fantastic Four.

When he found out here was no pay involved he went his own way.

In What If? #1 Sue Storm (The Invisible Girl) convinces Spider-Man to join The Fantastic Four and Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) loosens up the purse strings so everyone get some spending cash.

And so, Spidey joins the F.F. and proceeds to go on all the classic adventures F.F. have taken part in over the years including an aquatic showdown with the Submariner.

It’s a great story and a heartfelt homage to the classic F.F. tales with Spidey thrown in for good measure.

Did I mention the Watcher shows up?

Near mint raw copies go for about $20 with slabbed copies fetching close to $100.