What If...? #50 (Fall of the Mutants)

What If...? #50 (June 1993)
Rating:  ★★★
What if the Hulk Killed Wolverine?
Writer:  Joan Arcudi
Artist:  Armando Gil
Inker:  Armando Gil

So, I have finally finished my Fall of the Mutants issues and back to "normal".  However, I figured that a good way to send it off would be to review the What If...? issue that explores the question "What if the X-Men's battle had gone just a little differently?"  For those of you who don't know about the What If series, it was several self contained stories that took a look at a particular event in Marvel and wonder what if things had gone a little differently.  Most of them were told by The Watcher (the big bald guy, but not the one in the wheelchair) who could see all realities.  I actually enjoyed most of the series (until the more recent issues that weren't actually numbered).

Unfortunately, What If #50 wasn't one of them.

See, it turns out that right before the X-Men's adventures in Dallas, Wolverine encountered the Hulk.  They fought.  Wolverine stabbed Hulk through the heart and then walked away to join up with the X-Men.  The rest is history (see the last two issues I reviewed).  However, here one little thing changes and everything is altered.  Ever see The Butterfly Effect with Ashton Kutcher?  No?  Well, it's actually a good movie.  But the idea is that one little change can have drastic and unforeseen consequences.  Here, Hulk doesn't just walk off, but he gets up and is totally enraged.  In his rage, he actually manages the impossible:  he kills Wolverine by severing his spinal cord.  To be fair, I can somewhat see how this could kill Wolverine back in the day.  The spinal cord is one part of your body that can't actually heal.

Once Wolverine is dead, the Adversary makes his move early, killing Madeline Pryor, Longshot, and Dazzler.  Once things calm down, Freedom Force finally arrives.  Spiral then announces the approach of the Hulk and Rogue takes off to avenge Wolverine.  Of course, the Hulk beats her.  Freedom Force and what's left of the X-Men then join in the fight.  Of course, the madder Hulk gets, the stronger he gets, and by now he's pissed.  He easily kills Avalanche (see the picture below) and when the rest charge, he kills Blob and Pyro (it's actually kind of funny - Pyro tries to burn the Hulk so Hulk picks up Blob and uses him as a shield - he then tosses Blob on top of Pyro creating a Pyre - like the play on words?).  Blob then clobbers Super Sabre killing him.

Then Rick Jones shows up to try to calm the Hulk down.  It's actually working until a Wolverine appears (much to everyone's surprise).  The Wolverine then stabs Rick through the heart and it's revealed that Rick was just Mystique in disguise.  Hulk then attacks Wolverine and it turns out that Wolverine was just the Adversary in disguise (sure are a lot of disguises around here).  The Adversary then takes a moment to kill both Destiny, Psylocke and Havok.  Meanwhile, Forge and Storm are freed (because the Hulk managed to reveal the Adversary's true form by throwing a lamp post through him) and with the help of Spiral, they drive the Adversary back to the portal but not through it.  Then Forge decides to sacrifice himself and use his own lifeforce to temporarily ban the Adversary long enough for Roma to regain control.

What...what?  You mean that all Forge had to do to stop Adversary was to kill himself?  That's all it took?  Then why the hell did he sacrifice the X-Men's lives in the regular world?  I guess Forge really is a coward and a villain.

See, that was one of the problems I had with this issue.  It didn't really stay true to the source material.  I mean, sure, I can believe that Wolverine's death would kick things off like this, but the ultimate climax made the ending of the original story completely worthless, showing that the X-Men's sacrifice actually meant nothing.

On top of that the various deaths don't really seem to mean anything.  Many are killed just as background characters, so if you really like Longshot, Dazzler, or Destiny, you'll be disappointed.  They barely get a mention (in fact they don't even get referred to by name, only getting killed in the background).

And the artwork.  Oh, don't get me started on the artwork.  I hated this artist.  It's confusing and inconsistent.  The faces all look misshapen and the artist seems to fail to grasp basic anatomy.

The story may have had such potential, and it's too bad that a better artist didn't tackle the issue.  Too bad that a better writer didn't pick it up.  Heck, too bad that Marvel didn't give it to a college writing class to figure out.  They probably could have done better.