What If...? 37 - Timequake

What If Wolverine and his X-Vampires conquered the world?

(Yes I know that's not the title on the cover but often the stories inside vary a bit from the logo friendly cover titles. This one is more different than most.)

What If...? #37
Writers: Roy Thomas & R.J.M. Lofficer
Penciler: Mark Pacella
Inker: Panosian & S. Montano
Letterer: Janice Chiang
Colorist: Renée Witterstaetter
Editor: Craig Anderson
Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Watcher comments on how he previously observed a world where the X-Men were turned into vampires by Dracula and conquered Manhattan until they were killed by the Punisher with the spirit of Dr Strange. But there is another timeline where Wolverine killed the Punisher first and which contains the next Nexus, Jean Grey. In the timeline Mr Sinister seeks the Darkhold book to purge the vampires, fighting off the vampiric X-Terminators in underground tunnels, whilst Madelyne Pryor plots with N'astirh and S'ym and opens the link to Limbo. Wolverine learns of the demons and leads the X-Vampires against them, killing S'ym. Meanwhile N'astirh is killed by Dormammu who allies with Madelyne and brings the Mindless Ones from his realm to Earth. Many of the X-Vampires are killed and Mr Sinister offers the survivors magic power from the Darkhold to deal with the Mindless Ones and demons if they will agree to being exiled from the planet afterwards. In the final showdown Madelyne and Jean Grey fight when the Whisperer intervenes to pull Jean's spirit away and warn her of potential universal destruction. Jean summons up the Phoenix Force and defeats Dormammu. The X-Vampires go into exile but the Whisperer takes Wolverine with him. Mr Sinister announces plans to clone and recreate the X-Men whilst the Watcher tells the Time Keepers they have lost again as one of the trio fades from existence. Elsewhere the Time Variance Authority detect a massive timequake.

Okay this is an improvement on the first two chapters by presenting an alternate timeline that stands on its own even if it branches off from an earlier What If...? story (issue #24 of the second series) and also avoiding having any interference by the Time Keepers so we can see how things flow without artificial alteration, at least until the Whisperer steps in at the end. It's a refreshing change and makes for what feels like a more regular issue of What If...? rather than a confused mess caused by the Time Keepers diverting foes in an already diverged timeline.

However there isn't any substantial explanation for how this timeline branched off from the main one in the first place or for that matter why the X-Vampires (made up of both the X-Men and X-Factor) and X-Terminators are largely drawn from the late 1980s with costumes and mutations when the original X-Men and Dracula story was from 1982. Or how Jean is able to summon up the Phoenix Force when the point of divergence is from a time when she was presumed dead and she only encountered the remnant of the force in the regular Inferno. The story presents the X-Men almost as they were appearing in contemporary comics with no real regard for history and continuity and it shows in what's not a particularly substantial story. Notably absent from the story are the New Mutants even though reference is made to S'ym wanting the "Sword of Illyana". Instead Madelyne alone appears to be the sole women whom N'astirh and S'ym use to open the portal and there's also no sign of Nathan Christopher. One thing the story does try to do is to establish the demons' Limbo and Immortus's Limbo as being the same dimension although this goes against the way both have been portrayed over the years.

Mark Pacella was taking over pencilling X-Force from Rob Liefeld at this time and brings that style here with this issue featuring lots of dramatic awkward poses and excessive liney faces in a story that's full of endless fights. There isn't a great deal of substance to this tale beyond a succession of foes offering alliances and battles between a succession of different monsters. Even though this was written and edited outside the X-Men family of titles it feels like it shows how radically things had changes in the books in just over three years. Also annoying is a panel near the end that requires the book (or the reader's head) to be turned on its side to be read, something that was again happening more and more as the decade proceeded.

Overall this chapter fixes the problems of the first two but succumbs to the problems that were besetting the X-Men titles and the wider industry in this period. There's a case that this issue is actually a good alternative reality take on what contemporary titles were like but that's pretty damning of the wider industry. However it is the best chapter of Timequake so far.