WHAT IF? vol.2 #27 (1991)
by Ron Maz & Gavin Curtis
“What if Namor had joined the Fantastic Four”? Don’t you mean Fantastic Five?
The point of divergence from the main timeline, once Namor recovers from his amnesia, is that apparently the existence of Atlantis is publicly known.
So the solution to avoid fighting him for years was just to talk instead of going straight to punching? Who would’ve thought!
And so in this reality there’s a team with TWO guys going around in their underwear. Gotcha.
We jump straight to the Fantastic Five fighting Doctor Doom. Well his first appearance WAS in the issue immediately following Namor’s return, so it checks out!
Needless to say, having the king of Atlantis in your team is really helpful when you’re dealing with a sunken pirate treasure.
Which means in this reality the good guys don’t have to trick Doom into thinking they have recovered Merlin’s jewels: they can just bring them to the 20th century… and kick his #ss with them!!!
For a second I thought Susan developed her power way earlier in this reality, but it’s Namor who is using the jewel to protect her from Doom.
Doom manages to escape (they were dealing with a Doombot), and Susan wastes no time with Namor.
Interestingly, most of the early Fantastic Four fights don’t change that much with the addition of Namor. Although having a powerhouse like him is obviously helpful.
The most hilarious one is that Namor is the only one with the good sense to suggest avoiding abusing time travel, resulting in them never meeting Rama-Tut.
You’d expect having THE SMARTEST MAN IN THE UNIVERSE on the team would make such precautions unnecessary!!!
In his defense, he has other stuff to think about in this reality.
I guess the cover was correct after all: after the marriage Reed leaves the Fantastic Five to become a full time scientist, so Namor is part of the Fantastic FOUR now.
And things seem to be going pretty great for the planet!
Reed even finds a hot redhead super-scientist to be his love interest.
Which means it’s bound to go horribly wrong: the readhead is actually a Doom agent!!!
This is a particularly vicious version of Doctor Doom. I can’t imagine the mainstream one to do something this underhanded, even against Reed Richards.
It’s also a bit hard to believe any Doctor Doom worthy of the name would need to go through all this trouble just to infiltrate the FF’s headquarters…
…just to attack Namor (and his pregnant wife!) in his pajamas.
Sooo… why exactly was this Namor such a challenge for Doom up to this point?
This is when I check out. I was willing to accept this Doom, since it’s an alternate version… but choking to death a pregnant woman?
Watching Susan suffer frees Reed from mind control… for all the good THAT does.
Doom flees once the rest of the FF arrive, and Reed is saved by the redhead who really did fall in love with him after all.
Reed ends up marrying the redhead…
…and their daughter will eventually get powers, just like the son of Namor and Susan.
That’s kind of out of nowhere, but it’s refreshing to see a What If that doesn’t end in tragedy.
Did any of this show up in continuity?
There is no counterpart of Lisette in any other continuity. But Chris Claremont will eventually create a super-scientist love interest for Reed (we’ve seen her)… if he had any idea this story existed he could’ve used her name.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Despite most of this taking place during the Silver Age, there is no use of any of its tropes… for good and for bad reasons.
Does it stand the test of time? 6/10
Let’s start with the positives. The plot is fine, the dialogue fits, the artwork while not spectacular is fine (it really reminds me of Mark Bagley), and having many situations fixed by applying common sense is refreshing.
That being said… this is a TERRIBLE Doctor Doom, the redhead is a walking cliché, and the ending is very lackluster.
We don’t even get a final showdown against Doom! He nearly chokes Namor’s pregnant wive and he doesn’t retaliate? NAMOR!?!?