I wasn't being productive, so why not take a moment to read a
What If? I hadn't read before? (Five minutes later.) I
had read it before, and I hate it. From 1991,
What If #31, "What If Spider-Man had kept his cosmic powers?" Written by Glenn Herdling, pencils by Scott McDaniel (with some corrections by John Romita), inks by "Col." Jim Sanders III and Sam de la Rosa.
We all know where this one's going, right? Captain America even says it six pages in: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." And of course that means even corrupting our boy Peter, even though in this universe the Uni-Power stays with him, due to his heightened sense of responsibility. While he stops Nebula cold, he does mess up trying to help the Hobgoblin, and inadvertently changes his face to look like Peter Parker's! Already under a spell and mentally unstable, Hobby thinks Spidey made him a demon again, so is a bit peeved. Spidey does beat an outclassed Venom, challenging him to protect the city; but Venom notes his symbiote didn't think he was himself.
Much to Mary Jane's dismay, Spidey continues to escalate, stopping the Gulf War and bringing in a thinly-veiled Saddam-alike. He then tries to make Thor help him turn the Sahara desert into a garden, then Thor is dropped from behind by Doctor Doom, who wants the Uni-Power and has the first Captain Universe, Ray Coffin (from early
Micronauts, which isn't mentioned here!) as a hostage. Spidey, now identifying solely as Captain Universe, refuses to negotiate, and Ray is killed. This triggers a metaphysical/astral-form fight between Spidey and the Uni-Power: Spidey's responsibility won't let him go with sacrificing any "trees" to save the "forest." The Uni-Power leaves him for Doom, but only for a moment, since it was only a Doombot--ah, that's the last straw! If you can't use the real, proper Doctor Doom in a bloody
What If? where can you? Phooey on this one.
Not sure who was clamoring for this but it certainly got made anyways and not very well was it? I barely remember him having the Captain Universe powers and even then I don't think I or many others wished he's kept them.
ReplyDeleteI think a much better writer would've executed this concept much better, someone like a Slott, Waid, Peter David, DeMatties, someone, anyone other than this issue's writer.
Personally I feel Peter would not only be an ideal candidate due to his strong moral code & sense of responsibility but he'd certainly has the temperment for it. Then again, he'd probably just feel guilty about having the powers & his rogues gallery would hit a major upgrade & not in a good way.
How the hell didn't the Uni-Force not quickly figure out it was being attracted to a robot? Weird. As is MJ being all flaky as well. Seems forced. The art's also pretty damn bad to top it all off.
I enjoyed Peter with cosmic powers during Acts of Vengeance (although I really liked Acts of Vengeance overall). He tended to worry about having so much power. Whether he'd lose control, whether he should be doing more with the power than he was. If the Uni-Force wanted someone who was careful not to abuse it, Peter would be a good choice. If it wanted someone to use it a lot, I think he'd be hesitant.
ReplyDeleteExactly. Although hell, Captain America would've been another solid choice then as well.
ReplyDeleteThat's true. There must have been some "What if Captain America Became Captain Universe?" story at some point. I mean, they gave X-23 the Captain Universe powers at some point, how do they not land on Captain America?
ReplyDeleteDafaq!? Someone legit gave Captain Universe powers to a clone of Wolverine but not Cap!? How the hell do you skip Steve Freaking Rogers!? F'n cray cray.
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