What If We Kissed on the Blue Area of the Moon? 05 – What If...? Spider-Man #1

“What if Kraven survived his ‘last hunt’?” by JM DeMatteis, Yildiray Çinar, Alex Sinclair, and Joe Caramagna

What If...? Spider-Man #1 is a bit of an anomaly in this year’s crop of What If...? issues in that the writer of it is the writer of the story it’s jumping off from. JM DeMatteis wrote the famous “Kraven’s Last Hunt” story and, here, returns to present an alternate version where, instead of rising from the grave and defeating Kraven to reclaim his life, Peter Parker rises but is dramatically (and understandably) affected by the experience of being buried alive, suffering a mental break, which allows Kraven to continue on as the new Spider-Man. Unlike a lot of What If...? stories, though, because DeMatteis is the original writer, even when breaking from the established continuity, what ensues here feels like it genuinely could have been the rest of the story of “Kraven’s Last Hunt.” If this was released as the ‘true’ conclusion that DeMatteis had pitched and Marvel rejected, you’d almost believe it except for how compressed it plays out to fit in a single issue (and Kraven actually killing Spider-Man villains). Suffice it to say, this is the best 2026 What If...? comic by quite a distance.

One of my favourite approaches to What If...? stories is when the writer takes the original story and applies a bit of realism to how things played out. Granted, sometimes, this can be a little frustrating, like in the What If...? Civil War issue where Captain America and Iron Man talk things out like mature adults with a long friendship; for the most part, it’s an easy way to both lean into ‘darker’ ideas and make the What If...? story seem like a plausible alternative. We all know that superhero comicbooks are far from realistic and, far too often, the demands of the larger idea of these characters as immortal franchises outweighs any concept of realism, so getting to see stories play out in a manner more in line with how people would act/react is refreshing. Peter climbing out of his grave and defeating Kraven is a fantastic climax to “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” one that never comes off as too far-fetched within the context of the story; however, an alternate where he’s left broken and requiring psychiatric help to return to normal feels equally valid. (The amount of experiences that should have left Peter Parker with a mental breakdown that requires months or years to repair... I’m looking at you, House of M!)

That logical storytelling applies to everything that follows. With Peter’s mental state, that leaves Kraven confronting the truth that he was never fighting against ‘the Spider,’ some sort of mythical god-like being whose power he could claim as his own, it’s just a man. When he tries to repeat the same process with Vermin and kills the seeming monster, the reversion to its human form after death has Kraven similarly empty. It’s not until he confronts Dr. Octopus and kills him that he gains a purpose: being the new Spider-Man and ridding the world of his various recurring enemies – hunting the villains. Meanwhile, Peter’s stay at Doctor Kafka’s Center is yielding slow progress that’s interfered with by the return of the Symbiote. If there’s one part of this story to nitpick, it’s how the Symbiote returns when, in regular continuity, it immediately sought out Eddie Brock after Peter finally expelled it completely. That’s where this feels much more like an alternate ending conceived at the time of the story before the retcon creation of Eddie Brock/Venom occurred than a true looking back What If...?

From there, the story plays out pretty much how you’d expect given the original story and what’s been shown here: Peter, bonded with the Symbiote again thanks to his weakened mental state, breaks out and goes after Kraven. In the ensuing fight, Kraven offers himself up to the Symbiote as a more suitable host and, then, stuns with the Symbiote with his traumatic memories, and then poisons them both to give his life to kill the Symbiote. More than the original story, this one is aimed at a redemptive arc for Kraven as he confronts the truth about Spider-Man, Peter Parker, and himself.

Yildiray Çinar replaces Mike Zeck from “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” and delivers a visually stunning performance. While his style is a bit rougher in the line work, that adds to the unsettling feeling of the story. In numerous places, the use of repetitive panels to show a gradual chance is brought back, showing Çinar’s panel-to-panel storytelling is up to the task of delivering this alternate take on a classic story. Given the nature of the story, there isn’t much ‘new’ that Çinar needs to come up with or redesign. The closest we get is the new version of the Peter/Symbiote bond, which is more Venom-looking than the previous pairing. That choice for visual (along with replacing the white parts of the costume with red) shows how much more control the Symbiote has in this bonding. The page where we see the new pairing is stunning with a big panel of them swinging through the New York rooftops and, then, entering Kraven’s mansion with a fantastic four-panel sequence of them slowly lowering from the ceiling upside down with each successive panel revealing more and more of the Symbiote-dominate side of the character. Where Çinar really excels is in the frantic action of the final confrontation with Kraven as Peter re-asserts himself, refusing to kill the man who buried him alive and left his mind shattered.

In the end, Peter’s return to Spider-Man isn’t confirmed but heavily implied (Alex Sinclair colouring his vest/shirt/jeans outfit at Kraven’s grave in a way to visually allude to the original Spider-Man costume is nice, subtle touch) as is Kraven’s return from the dead. All in all, as I’ve said, what makes this issue work so well is how much it feels like it could have been the published issue (or issues if expanded) for the original story. Given how beloved “Kraven’s Last Hunt” is with fans, DeMatteis returning to it like this could have been a massive disappointment; instead, it’s the best What If...? issue not only of this year, but for a long while.

What If We Kissed on the Blue Area of the Moon? 04 – What If...? Jessica Jones #1

“What if Jessica Jones was bitten by the radioactive spider?” by Justina Ireland, David Messina, Brian Reber, and Joe Sabino

Ah fuck, whatever, man. Look, there are some strong bits in this issue, pretty much any of the flashbacks to the time right after Jessica Jones got bitten by the radioactive spider instead of Peter Parker. And I do admire the central conceit being that Peter Parker is a selfish prick who only overcame that particular brand of nasty solipsism thanks to the death of his uncle. But, most of this comic is predictable mediocrity that does very little interesting with the concept. Spoiler alert: Jessica was just as terrible at being a superhero here as in the regular Marvel Universe and ends up in basically the same place as a result. Hey, I admire the whole idea of sticking to the character and all, but, I do have one question: what’s the point of this comic?

In the history of What If...? there have been numerous issues where the broad concept is that some characters can’t escape their fate or themselves. Stories where everything is different and, yet, somehow someway the character in question still lands in the same situation that we’re familiar with in the regular 616. Usually, there’s some ironic twist baked in or some tragic outcome, and I suppose Jessica’s family getting blown up or her teenage crush trying to goad her into putting the mask on by mimicking her worst enemy could qualify... but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like an ending where she suggests becoming a PI to Misty Knight and everything is converging with the regular comics. It feels like there are no real stakes or that Jessica’s shit life hasn’t been replaced with a remarkably similar-looking shit life.

Like nothing matters.

To a certain extent, that is the message of What If...? Uatu watches the world we mostly read our comics about, but he also watches all of these. These endless stories about endless variations where one thing changes and life still goes on. How many does he see where a seemingly important moment in time is dramatically changed and, yet, the ending is the same? Uatu watches as fate is unavoidable. Free choice is an illusion. Nurture versus nature is the fight that obscures the truth. Some would call that bleak; others reassuring. All I know for sure is that it doesn’t necessarily make for a good comicbook. It mostly makes me wonder how this was worth the cover price of $4.99 (and that’s USD... as a Canadian, that price gets raised via a very unfriendly exchange rate) and why I keep reading this year’s crop of What If...? comics and finding them so lacking, in general...

In a sense, there isn’t a lot different between this issue and What If...? Secret Wars #1 where it also ended with a hint towards converging with how things roughly played out in existing comics. In that case, it was the original Ultimate Universe continuing under the somewhat watchful eye of the god of the multiverse, the Maker, and eventually giving birth to a resistance in the form of the Ultimates ala the second Ultimate Universe. But, I found that ending charming and a little clever. I guess that’s because the route was surprising and somewhat logical. While the route that What If...? Jessica Jones #1 takes to a familiar place is logical, it’s hardly surprising. The journey itself is tedious. The ‘big reveal’ of Peter Parker is obvious and Jessica’s adult life is too much of a retread of the regular MU. Put simply: one comic had ambition, the other did not. And holy fuck will I overlook a lot of faults in an ambitious comic...

I’ve been surprised at the class of artists on this crop of What If...? comics. We’ve had some serious talent wasted on mediocre-to-bad scripts and David Messina is the newly wasted talent. The moment they saw his ‘retro’ pages come in, why did no one think to rewrite the whole thing to take place in the past? Moreover, that’s the only time Justina Ireland’s writing approaches anything like charming. Every page that takes place in the past overshadows every page that doesn’t by a large margin and it only serves to make the issue all the more frustrating to read. The rest of the issue feels like a dry walk-through that’s compulsory somehow.

The final insult: everyone involved seems to know all of this to a certain extent. The final word of the issue is given to Uatu: “NO MATTER THE PATH IT MUST TAKE, DESTINY ALWAYS FINDS ITS TRUE COURSE.” But, we’d already seen a whole comic that was the barest of changes for Jessica. Pretty easy to find the ‘true course’ of destiny when nothing matters.

What If We Kissed on the Blue Area of the Moon? 03 – What If...? Secret Wars #1

“What if the Ultimate Universe survived the Secret Wars?” by Alex Paknadel, Cafu, David Curiel, and Ariana Maher

Three in and only now finding its way, this latest revival of What If...? I don’t know, it’s my instinct to nitpick and that’s where my mind goes immediately despite this being an improvement over the first two issues. What we have here is pretty much a Proper What If...? comic that follows Proper What If...? logic to tell a Proper What If...? story. In as much as we can call it a story. That’s where I keep lingering. That it isn’t really a good story. For all that What If...? Secret Wars #1 does right, it doesn’t actually do much more than pitch a high concept. Plenty of What If...? issues have fallen into that trap, mind. Come up with a clever idea and focus more on the cleverest way to convey that clever idea, never mind if the story is actually good or told well. But, I’m a tough audience.

Alex Paknadel gets one big thing right in What If...? Secret Wars #1 and it’s following the logic of what this comic is meant to be. As I’ve harped on over the first two installments of this look at these comics, the way What If...? works is that there is a point of divergence (usually the question that Uatu the Watcher asks) and, from that point, the issue plays out, but still follows the vague logic of a Marvel comic. Bad versions of this just do whatever the fuck they want like “What if Peter Parker got bitten by Dracula?” and, then, suddenly, Adam Warlock vampire hunter appears out of nowhere like that makes a lick of sense. This issue changes the ending of Secret Wars and proceeds from there in a logical fashion. However, like this year’s What If...? Thor #1, it kind of has a secret question at its heart and that’s the big twist that overshadows the issue. It’s a bit of a subtle tweak that is what leads to the Ultimate Universe surviving: What if the Maker didn’t betray Mr. Fantastic? That lack of betrayal meant that it was both Reed Richards confronting Doom and the one to emerge with the godlike powers was the Maker, not Mr. Fantastic – meaning, the multiverse is now being managed/rebuilt by the Maker, hence why his home Universe survived.

It’s a clever twist that the entire issue revolves around. Paknadel follows the logic of the real comics by having Peter Parker survive similar to Miles due to their kindness to the Molecule Man and uses his presence in the Ultimate Universe to analyse its differences to the regular Marvel Universe. It’s a darker, more chaotic place. More violent. Crueler. Highlighted are the endless events of mass destruction as Parker learns the history of the world as part of Nick Fury’s pitch to recruit him to SHIELD, where he operates at the Scarlet Spider. It gets darker when Peter’s physiology turns against him in this world and the radioactive blood in his veins gives him cancer. Learning that the interdimensional portal that could take him back to his universe is actually still active, Miles and Ultimate Peter’s friends team up to get Peter to it... and that’s the big reveal for the Maker and that Peter’s universe is no more. From there, it’s a bit of a lecture on the nature of the Ultimate Universe and it’s chaotic, destructive nature, and that leads into a tease where it suggests the birth of the Ultimates ala the second, recently-ended Ultimate Universe.

I admire the larger ideas at play and the core idea at the heart of the point of deviation (the Maker’s betrayal of Mr. Fantastic actually occurs after the defeat of Doom instead of before), and even the way it seeks to play off the concept of the second Ultimate Universe with the Maker trying to improve upon his home universe. But, as a story, it doesn’t quite hold together. Peter is told the portal is destroyed instead of simply that it’s being used to monitor the Maker, and the ensuing conflict that destroys the Triskelion is there just to prove the point that the superhumans on the world will eventually destroy it – there’s no real logic at the core of this, though, except as a way to showcase the big twist.

What I’ve been pondering is if that’s a problem or not. Like I said, plenty of What If...? stories are no more than a high concept wearing the bare minimum of compelling storytelling. The core appeal of the comic is the clever high concept and the twists that come with it. In that regard, Paknadel nails it. You read the question for the issue and you think, perhaps, it’s Mr. Fantastic showing a kindness and restoring the Ultimate Universe, and Paknadel delivers a much better explanation, gives a quick thesis on the nature of the Ultimate Universe, and ties it into the second one. I mean, how can you not be a little impressed? Even the lack of a compelling story logic can be handwaved away to a certain extent by muttering a few words about how Nick Fury is a bastard who doesn’t trust Peter or was worried about his mental state if he learned his entire universe was no more. Still.

A few words about Cafu, an artist that I’ve long been an admirer of, going back at least to his work with Nick Spencer on THUNDER Agents for DC... He’s always struck me as bit of a cross between the weird not-quite-right realistic elements of Gary Frank and the cartooning of Frank Quitely. In this issue, the former remains, but the latter is excised as it seems like he tries to channel some Bryan Hitch bits here and there. It fits well for the Ultimate Universe, but also the way that Paknadel’s story plays up the dark elements of it. Things don’t look right. They look realistic but also twisted and a little freaky. We’re told that this is a bit of a universe-gone-wrong and it looks that way. I can’t think of a better choice of artist, honestly.

This issue comes pretty damn close to hitting all of the notes for a What If...? comic, save a story that really stands on its own. But, I’m a sucker for clever high concepts and great visuals. I hope this isn’t the high point of these issues as we’ve got five more to go... 

What If We Kissed on the Blue Area of the Moon? 02 – What If...? Thor #1

“What if Thor got Spider-Man’s Symbiote suit?” by Torunn Grønbekk, Sergio Dávila, Aure Jimenez, Bryan Valenza, and Joe Sabino

Like the first of this year’s crop of What If...? issues, the second has some problems for this ol’ friend of Uatu. Unlike the first, it tells a coherent single story rather than a series of montages punctuated by truncated scenes. The premise is very simple: instead of Spider-Man getting the Symbiote as a new costume on the Beyonder’s Battleworld during Secret Wars, Thor does. Throw in Torunn Grønbekk on writing and I figured that this issue would be fairly good given her recent history writing the Thunder God in various places in recent years. It’s not bad by any means. It’s a bit worse than that. It’s solid. And, really, the only part that I tend to question is, like the first What If...? issue, is the way it works with the premise of the book.

As I said last time, the way What If...? works is to proceed from a single point of change where everything that happens up until that moment is the same as the regular Marvel Universe continuity. From that point on, things play out differently due to the change – but should still adhere to the same general logic of the original stories where anything that is different should flow from that specific change. Now, this idea has been played with in a whole bunch of different ways and stretched fairly far – particularly in the mid-90s ‘dark’ period of the title where the stories were rather large deviations, often without a clear single moment of change. So, I get that there isn’t any true ‘hard and fast’ rules for the title, except maybe in my own head. And I’m not entirely convinced that Grønbekk actually breaks those rules with the story she’s written – but knowing that means really knowing your continuity as the seeming point of change is not, in fact, the point of change.

On the surface, the point of departure seems to be that moment on Battleworld where Thor uses the machine that Spider-Man did in Secret Wars to obtain a new costume and receives the Symbiote instead. From there, Thor’s mood and tone is immediately altered/influenced by the Symbiote, which grates a little at first given that the changes for Spider-Man were much more gradual – but that’s easy enough to forgive given the one-off nature of the story requiring things to speed up a bit and, possibly, explained away by two things: Thor’s differing nature/temperament to that of Spider-Man making that side of his personality come out much easier – and that, in this world, the Symbiote was targeting Thor. See, the real ‘What if?’ in this issue isn’t “What if Thor got Spider-Man’s Symbiote suit?” it’s “What if Thor never slew Knull’s Grendel?” which leads to him getting the Symbiote.

The main plot of this issue has Thor, bonded with the Symbiote, investigating an issue with Frost Giants on Earth, revealing their bonding with Symbiotes. As Thor and the Asgardians battle them, he eventually finds himself confronted with a Symbiote dragon and, then, once captured, Knull. In the regular Marvel Universe, Knull was, at this point, still imprisoned, not on Earth. A key bit of dialogue is Thor looking at the Symbiote dragon and thinking, “IT IS LIKE NO DRAGON I HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE,” implying that Thor never battled and killed the Grendel when it arrived on Earth, thus never weakening Knull and causing him to be imprisoned by the Symbiotes. Instead, Knull has been on Earth this entire time, preparing to take it – and the Battleworld Symbiote was sent to bond with Thor specifically to aid in that process. I think. It’s not 100% clear and I’m relying on what I’ve been able to research online about the history of Knull. My first instinct was to dismiss the appearance of Knull and that plan as a wild deviation that breaks the rules of What If...? by altering what happened before the point of deviation... until, reading how Thor killed Knull’s dragon, it occurred to me that that was the point of deviation: Knull and his dragons arrived on Earth with no opposition from Thor. It’s a clever little nesting doll of ‘What ifs’ that I’m not entirely sure I’ve seen before.

The only problem is that, at first glance, it takes you out of the story to a degree – or it did for me. Instead of focusing on what was happening, I spent the rest of the comic half-wondering if I was wrong about Knull being off the board at the time this story takes place and what was going on. Now, I know that “What if Thor never killed Knull’s Symbiote dragon?” isn’t quite as catchy a title/hook as the one we got, but, if that’s the true difference and it’s not a story you’re willing to stand behind as a concept, why do it at all? Why bait and switch? And, if I’m reading it wrong, why completely deviate from established continuity in a manner that doesn’t work for a story that, honestly, is fairly by the numbers in the way it plays out with Thor influencing the Symbiote more than it influences him? As I said, it’s a solid story that plays out largely how you’d expect once Knull is revealed. It’s a banal plot that comes with a big question that may be a clever twist that just raises more questions about the creation of the book.

Visually, the book is fine. Sergio Dávila is a capable artist with good instincts and character work. An oddly specific focus of mine is the look of Thor once he receives the Symbiote suit. Spider-Man’s Symbiote costume (and the ensuing design of Venom) is iconic to the point where there’s legitimate arguments to be had over if it’s an improvement on his original costume (which is an all-time great). Dávila’s design is, like the Spider-Man costume, all black with white highlights and brings to mind a combination of the Olivier Coipel, Esad Ribić, and Nic Klein designs for Thor’s costume. Definitely a modern sheen to it and an effort to make it fit with the logic of how Spider-Man’s costume changed. But, like the plot, it’s a little dull and straight forward. If you were to give an assignment for an all black Thor costume that suggests he’s under a dark influence, this is pretty much what you’d get back nine times out of ten. And, while that is correct, it’s also underwhelming. The Spider-Man Symbiote suit is great because it’s striking, has key elements from the original, but also stands apart. This mostly looks like a Thor costume that’s coloured black instead of blue and red. Hell, I would have been satisfied with a variation on how Thor looked in What If...? #4 during that final battle with Spider-Man when the Symbiote goes hero-hopping. Ah well...

We’re two issues in and, so far, the 2026 What If...? revival is a bit of a let down – albeit, in this case, an almost interesting one with the way that the true “What if?” question is buried and left unasked, which is something. Just not enough.

What If We Kissed on the Blue Area of the Moon? 01 – What If...? Uncanny X-Men #1

“What if Cyclops has stayed with Madelyne Pryor?” by Gerry Duggan, Jan Bazaldua, Arthur Hesli, and Clayton Cowles

I don’t always dip back into the periodic return of What If...? as I find the modern versions often unsatisfying. When I was a child, I was always fond of the monthly series that was so random in its offering of what bit of Marvel history would be warped. Every issue featured a recap of how it went down courtesy of Uatu the Watcher and, then, how it’s all changed in the issue at question. Part of the charm was in how mundane it all was. How ephemeral and temporary due to the monthly cadence and self-contained nature. If an issue didn’t quite land, well, next month would be something entirely different. Each issue was like a mini-event unto itself. The modern iterations group together to be a mini-event of sorts. They tackle ideas so broad that there isn’t always a coherent point or story to be told.

That’s what I found with the first of the 2026 batch of What If...? issues, focused on exploring how things would have been different had Madelyne Pryor not died in Inferno and been redeemed in the process. Somewhat shockingly, this isn’t territory ever covered by What If...? with the only Inferno­-based stories asking what if the X-Men had lost or what if Wolverine had been lord of the vampires during the event. That this issue is also written by Gerry Duggan, one of the main recent X-Men writers during the Krakoa era suggested something that would probably tie into that era of the title, presumably when Nathan Summers would be coming of age – possibly to supplant the roles of the likes of Nate Grey or Hope Summers. While What If...? doesn’t need to follow such logic, it’s pretty typical to try to play off what actually happened when possible, giving ironic twists of known events. Duggan doesn’t opt for that.

Instead, the issue unfolds with random, haphazard choices. The timeline of events is shuffled randomly from the regular Marvel Universe for reasons unclear and nonsensical. The breaking point is the conclusion of Inferno where, here, Pryor is saved and Jean Grey, in her anger at Scott choosing his wife, takes revenge on Mr. Sinister, wiping his mind of the knowledge of cloning her and the existence of Nathan Summers. This means Nathan is no longer a pawn in the Sinister/Apocalypse conflict, and is never infected with the Techno-Organic Virus. Instead, Scott quits X-Factor to remain a devoted husband and father. It’s not until Nathan’s mutant abilities manifest that the Summers family becomes a little superhero team that participate/help stop such events as Atlantis Attacks and Acts of Vengeance, two events that were published at the same time as/immediately after Inferno, but, here, randomly take place a good decade later... after we also saw Wolverine and Emma Frost in their Morrison/Quitely New X-Men era costumes, which, somehow, preceded the Fantastic Four wearing their Claremont/Larroca era costumes. And, eventually, it all leads into Sinister regaining his memory and launching the Mutant Massacre on the Mansion... despite that story happening before Inferno. There’s a sense of all of Marvel history happening whenever desired despite there being no cause and effect or logic at play. It’s incredibly distracting – and breaks from the logic of What If...? where it’s the Marvel Universe that we know until the point of departure. Then, things unfold differently, but would still have the same broad sense of progression unless there were specific moments that would result in a change. Duggan just lobs out names of stories and events at random.

Also random is the way that Nathan Summers is handled. He gets his powers and wants to be a hero, which is fine. That makes sense. The Summers Family as a hero unit is an idea with legs that isn’t explored at all. For some reason, Nathan still has the codename Cable despite there being no reason for it other than that’s what his future self calls himself in the regular universe. Nathan is largely used only to be threatened in the new Mutant Massacre at the hands of the Marauders alongside other students and Madeline dies (which Cyclops is blinded) to inspire Cyclops to lean heavily into dark ops X-Force style actions to obtain revenge. And that’s largely a detour until the Krakoa era that ends with the conflict with Arakko going poorly for the Krakoa mutants and Earth at large. It’s a bit of a speedrun through X-Men history that doesn’t do anything interesting with how it’s different, aside from Cyclops eliminating Sinister means that Krakoa doesn’t have the Resurrection Protocols. That seems to be the big point of emphasis for Duggan: saving Madelyne means Sinister is eventually eradicated, which means Krakoa is weaker, which means Earth is weaker...

You can squint and see the logic, but it glosses over doing anything interesting with Nathan, a mutant of immense power. With no Hope Summers, would he have filled the mutant messiah role after M-Day (which isn’t here) or what about Utopia? Or any other of the endless X-events? In fact, part of the hole here is that Krakoa largely seems to exist as normal, except without a key element to its function, the Resurrection Protocols. The original sin of partnering with Sinister is lacking, as is the sense of power that would be at the heart of the nation. It’s glossed over how exactly Krakoa would develop almost identically when missing such a key element – in fact, the primary visual that begins the Krakoa period is the Resurrection Protocols. Moreover, there’s something unsettling that the core idea of this comic is that the bargain with Sinister was the morally correct thing to prevent the destruction of the Earth. The comic winds up being an argument for why it was the right thing to do... rather than one that actually tells an interesting story with the characters at hand.

None of which is necessarily a bad thing or makes for a bad issue of What If...? honestly. Big, broadly glossed over stories are as much a hallmark of the book as tightly plotted character pieces. This one, though, is so uneven with where it decides to focus, particularly in how it ignores the usual flow of events, that it doesn’t do either well.