Here is an archive of all the past top five lists I've done over the years.

Over the years, there have been many, many issues of What If...? by Marvel Comics. So many, in fact, that a number of them were bound to eventually happen in the "real" comics. Here, then, are the top five examples of that theme (there are SO many examples that there are tons and tons of honorable mentions, so this is a long one!).

HONORABLE MENTIONS

First up is a surprisingly common one - superheroes working for SHIELD!!







The Daredevil one was co-written by Frank Miller and drawn by Miller and Janson! It's a neat short story (Mike W. Barr co-wrote it with Miller).

Okay, let's see when each of the heroes went to work for SHIELD.

In the last story arc in the original Daredevil series (before the Kevin Smith/Joe Quesada/Jimmy Palmiotti Marvel Knights debut), Scott Lobdell did a fun story where Matt Murdock has his sight temporarily returned and goes to work undercover for SHIELD but then has his memory erased (Lobdell knew it wasn't really going to matter since the book was starting over, so he figured he'd try something very different - D.G. Chichester returned to tell an unrelated story for the very last issue of the first volume)...



During Mark Millar, John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson's famous Wolverine storyline, Enemy of the State, Wolverine is killed and ressurected by the Hand and Hydra and becomes a villain. SHIELD hunts him down, captures him and deprograms him. He then goes to work for SHIELD to bring the bad guys down...



While not really an official SHIELD agent, the Punisher basically joined up with them for the end of John Ostrander's late 1990s Punisher series (drawn by Tom Lyle and Robert Jone)...



I'm judging these things mostly on how surprising it is to see them actually come true. This is why something like, "What if the Beast and the Thing Had Continued to Mutate?" is low on the list, as really, why would you figure that a writer wouldn't do that?



Anyhow, Beast mutated during Grant Morrison's X-Men run...



And then again during Brian Michael Bendis' X-Men run...



And the Thing mutated during Steve Englehart's Fantastic Four run...



By the time that Spider-Girl debuted in What If...? #105, the concept of What If...? had changed to just more general alternate reality stuff...



So it was not a surprise at all to see Spider-Girl get her own series...



Also, since her series took place in the reality introduced in the What If..? issue, does that even count as coming true?

I don't count What If...? #4 (the issue that revealed who filled in for Cap during the 1940s when he and Bucky were presumed dead) because it was intentionally set in continuity, but that wasn't the case for the 1950s Avengers...



who then eventually became the Agents of Atlas!



Like I said, there's tons of examples, so let's go to the next page for some more!

HONORABLE MENTIONS CONTINUED

The Hulk going berserk?!



The Hulk goes berserk so often that we even have a Hulk going berserk comic that has the same cover artist as the What If...Hulk went berserk? cover!



Plus a bunch of other times. Here are two...





I imagine someone looking at the cover being, like, "What? The Hulk going berserk?! That would NEVER happen!"

The whole world knowing Daredevil is blind?



That happened during Mark Waid and Chris Samnee's second volume of Daredevil. Their first volume ended with Matt Murdock revealing his secret identity, and during their second volume, his identity was SO public that he even designed a brand new costume where his face is no longer even hidden!



His identity was re-hidden in the current volume of Daredevil, as noted in this recent Abandoned Love piece.

Elektra living was never really THAT much of a surprise when Frank Miller kept resurrecting her himself (of course, he was still pissed at them for bringing her back anyways).



They've brought her back a few times. She's in the next issue of Daredevil!



The next recurring theme is people joining the Fantastic Four, including the very first issue of What If..?





Spidey sort of kind of joined when he was a part of the New Fantastic Four...



but then joined for real when he took over for the Human Torch when the Torch was presumed dead...



Namor never OFFICIALLY joined the Fantastic Four, but he basically did during the time that Reed Richards was presumed dead...



We'll finish off this page with another pair of themed ones - both Hulk ones!

First up...



Which was done a number of times...





And then also...



Which happened soon before Peter David's run began...



Go to the next page for the last few honorable mentions and then the top five begins!

HONORABLE MENTIONS CONTINUED

Now we're getting into the really farfetched ones (at the time), like Sue and Reed's second child, who they lost due to a miscarriage, somehow surviving...



And yet that's exactly what happened due to some time travel shenanigans, and Valeria Richards is now a major part of the Fantastic Four stories.



Jean Grey being dead dead DEAD was a big deal at the time...



yet within a few years, she was back...



The explanation was that the Phoenix took on the form of Jean Grey, so Jean Grey had never died in the first place. So there was a later series of What If...? comics that addressed what would have happened had the Phoenix entity never died and continued believing that it was Jean Grey...





Chris Claremont actually wrote it, working in a lot of his original plans for the title had Jean not died in the first place.

You'd be pretty hard-pressed to imagine Marvel ever seriously revisiting the Clone Saga...



and yet they did for not just another story, but a couple of YEARS' worth of stories!!



5. What if someone else besides Spider-Man had been bitten by the radioactive spider?

This was one of those What If...? ideas that seems like such a clear "this could never actually happen"...



and yet it did, as we learn that Peter Parker's classmate, Cindy Moon, was also bitten by the spider...



She became the hero known as Silk...



4. What if the Hulk had become a barbarian?

I love this one because it is so hilariously on point...



Who would have thunk it back then?



And it was surprisingly awesome!

Go to the next page for the top three!

3. What if Jane Foster Had Found the Hammer of Thor?



Thank goodness they didn't go with "Thordis" this time around...



2. What if the X-Men Had Died On Their First Mission?



I love this one because it so COULDN'T happen, as how could you kill off the X-Men in regular continuity? Well, Marvel found a way!

They did so by revealing that there was a secret OTHER team of X-men before the All-New, All-Different team. Note how the All-New, All-Different team was made up of international heroes. This is because Professor Xvier had first recruited an AMERICAN team of mutants to be the new X-Men...



And they all got super-murdered by Krakoa...



Xavier then wiped everyone's mind clean and started over with a new team, because he's a sociopath like that. Even in that What If...? above, he still puts together a new team of X-Men, including a pre-teen Wolfsbane! That dude doesn't give a damn about human life.

1. What if the Amazing Spider-Man Had NOT Married Mary Jane?

This is the ultimate in "no way did we think this could be an actual possibility"...



and yet that's exactly what happened in One More Day, as the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson was erased.



That's the list! Agree? Disagree? Let me know!