Actually, I like Quasar, although the art disappoints a little on this one: we've got a Greg Capullo cover (long before he started in on all the Spawn whatnot) and a bit of a hodgepodge of artists. Poor Wendell looks cool some pages, and on others his hair looks like Conan's.
In a previous issue, the Living Laser escaped Quasar by taking a shortcut through the Watcher's house on the moon, and fleeing to another reality through the machine Uatu watches 'what ifs' on. Uatu summons Quasar back, after throwing him out the first time, because the Laser is now creating divergent counterparts of himself. Quasar isn't sure about the how or the why of it, but the Watcher is going to have his alternate reality cable cut off if he doesn't help, so he agrees. (Mainly because Quasar's just a nice guy. I guarantee you, even when he hadn't been an active Avenger for years, he was still the first guy anyone calls when they have to move.)
Quasar ends up taking a tour of some of What If?'s greatest hits, including the Avengers as pawns of Korvac, Quasar vs. Set, and the one in which Wolverine eats a baby.
On his last stop, Quasar hits a reality where he probably died fighting Maelstrom, his personal 'big bad' from earlier in the series. Having gained huge power by absorbing a lot of the universe's kinetic energy, Maelstrom is currently fighting Thanos: they are playing tug-of-war with the sun, a gimmick I would have thought DC's Spectre would have a lock on. As they blow up the sun, Quasar decides it's time to split, and Maelstrom sees him. Maelstrom proceeds to zap Quasar so hard he wakes up in the New Universe.
I don't know how this would make me feel: would you rather see an alternate universe you that was a pathetic wretch, or a god among men? The wretch would be depressing at first, but then you would realize all the right choices you made in your own reality. The god would be initially inspiring, and you may even hold out hope that he could help you achieve your potential, but would then crush your spirit by underlining the mistakes that you made, or the random lucky break you missed.
To learn more about What If?, read more comics; or check out 4th Letter, which did a Top 100 Countdown of What If's. Good stuff there, hit it up.
Thanks for the linkage.
ReplyDeleteSwear to Foom, I read the first line in the article as "Quesada" instead of "Quasar". Which goes with the image, since that world's Joe Quesada would be a chunky snake man.