(W) Gerry Duggan (A) Jan Bazaldua (CA) Lucas Werneck WHAT IF...CYCLOPS HAD STAYED WITH MADELYNE PRYOR? Imagine a world where Madelyne Pryor, the Goblin Queen, had survived the Inferno. What would have happened if Cyclops had saved her soul? What would have happened if he and Maddie had raised their son, Nathan Summers? What would that world look like? And why would that be the most terrible thing to happen to mutantdom and Earth itself? bump if you are reading
>>154028665reading bumpI used to love What Ifs and shit like Exiles before every story ended up being some multiverse shit that diluted the purpose of them
>>154028814Costume is a bit over the top.
right that's all wow talk about a bad ending still at least jean is still alive despite being a exile in space. Who knows maybe she has the phoenix force to keep her company. the ironic part is she is the sole sole survivor of the mutant race. I wonder how she will feel about that once she learns it from the Phoenix force.
>>154029364>a single married couple = the end of the worldyep that’s modern marvel alright
>>154028659I feel like we've done this before
I feel like the ending was a little excessive? Being a father to your son is wrong?
variant coversWhat If...? Uncanny X-Men #1 Germán Peralta VariantWhat If...? Uncanny X-Men #1 Mahmud Asrar Promo VariantWhat If...? Uncanny X-Men #1 Mark Buckingham Homage VariantWhat If...? Uncanny X-Men #1 Stefano Caselli Promo VariantWhat If...? Uncanny X-Men #1 1:25 Michele Bandini VariantAlso this issue needed a better inker.
>>154028895Recycling old event names for "new" stories even in a what-if?
>>154029475With this being set after Inferno, it should've been a simple, smaller-scale story of Cyclops trying to turn a murderous villainess back into a wife and mother and failing horribly, but instead he manages that successfully before this story even starts, and they try to cram almost 40 years of history into one issue so we can have a version of Krakoa that went even worse.
At that point Madelyne didn't have telepathy
>>154029740Maybe Jean woke up her dormant abilities in her DNA before peaceing out for the stars.
>>154029735Maddy gets killed halfway through the story. You'd think it would at least have the decency to have the reason why everything gets fucked rely on her being around.
>there's no actual story or characterization, just Uatu going "and then X happened, then Y happened">halway through it turns into Cuckoa shillingWhat a rotten book. Duggan sucks.
>>154028659This comic feels substandard even by modern What If standards and I can't really figure out whyArt seems ok
>>154029364Ah, the classic "Fuck You For Suggesting We Write Something Less Sexist" What If? ending...
>>154029740>>154029821The opening pages show this is taking place after an alternate ending to Inferno where Maddie lived.>>154029885True, the ending where everything goes wrong during X of Swords has nothing to do with the entire setup o this story at all.>>154029956It's one of those comics that feels more like an infodump than an actual story.>>154029981If nothing else, it's something of a What If? tradition to have worse ends just to drive home to readers that the canon version of events was the best possible outcome, but this is retardedly extreme.
>>154029475This is the same company that placed Peter Parker in a state of perpetual bachelordom and recently ragequit on their Ultimate relaunch when it became apparent that universe's Married Parker proved to be more popular than their beloved "Swingin' Single"
Duggan should be killed for writing something that ass even by what if standard.
>>154028895Was Jameson still running the Bugle?
>>154029022>w-waitKWABotY
>>154029070I skipped the entire krakoa period so I can't really follow after this point or tell if it's asinine. But I liked it up to this point, basically Claremont's original idea of letting them retire.
https://aiptcomics.com/2026/06/03/what-if-uncanny-x-men-1-review/>Even the shill article points out some of the problems, using terms like "light fridging".
>>154030520Interesting... AIPT tends to be unusually kind to X-Men books, even the Brevoort ones...
>>154030065>guy who only reads spider-man: “getting a lot of spider-man vibes from this”
>>154029475I think people here just go looking for things to be pissed off about it. It's just a pretty standard "something something good intentions, hell, butterfly effect, and so on" what if story, there isn't some secret message.
>>154030673If it was obvert, she'd be a manipulative toxic influence on Scott and then later use period blood magic to make Inferno 2: Inferno Harder and sacrifice everyone on Earth's souls
>>154029070>world goes to shit once Krakoa arc startshmmmmmm…
>>154028704Wait, this is Scott staying with Maddy after Inferno? What about What If Scott Stayed with Maddie instead of running back to Jean in the first place?
>>154031437You can't get an enticing cover of Goblin Queen with Cyclops if it forks from back then.
>>154031563Covers are pure lies, so why should they pretend to care now?
>>154029735If anything it SHOULD have been a happy ending where Cyclops raises his son, Maddie doesn't go crazy and Cable gets to live a normal happy life the bad ending should come from the Future not having Cable there to help stop Apocalypse from fucking everything up
>>154028881Cucked so hard she left the planet.
>>154029003so in this universe Emma was a pothead instead of a cocaine sniffing slut, bad ends all around
>>154028814Cable being called Cable is vestigial here. And the following page suggests Madelyne is operating under the name Marvel Girl, which is bothersome. She really is being treated as just a spare Jean that things can go wrong for while keeping the "real" one's prestige intact from having her leave Earth before shit happens. >>154029070Wasn't Hope Summers was born in the present? Her not existing seems viable in general, but "coming into the timeline" is a weird way to phrase it. In any case, Mr. Sinister gets actually killed which causes the X-Men problems even further down the line is a very strange point to have things go wrong on the world-ending level.
>>154029210>psylocke and beast sharing a deathspotawww
>>154032339Hope was born from Jean going back in time and impregnating Hope’s mother. No Jean, no Hope.
>>154029364I'm never a fan of extreme bad end What Ifs, even the older ones. I'll take the bittersweet ones or those that feel like the start of an interesting AU like Spider-Man vs Wolverine leading to assassin Spidey.
>>154032424>Jean going back in time and impregnating Hope’s mother
>>154032463You could have just ended it with dead Maddie and call it a day, using the rest of the pages to flesh out their relationship. Still a bad end, but makes it less meandering.
>>154028773lmao he didn't gaf about jean but the second he sees Emma he's down
>>154029210>gold skin IscaDid Isca switch sides and still lose?
>>154029022satisfying, fuck sinister.
>>154032424the phoenix man, come on.>>154032339Its forced, doesn't have anything to do with preventing house of M and thus preventing hope's existence. Even then I don't see why they couldn't do Mars, no one died in the tournament of swords except Gorgon.
>>154028756Am confused sometimes, so these fake minorities are okay with their son not being one of them, no pride for one without being straight up horrible people?
>>154031812But then it's not a Cyclops story, it's a Cable story. They clearly wanted the Cyclops story.
>>154028773Scott turning down Professor X made me chuckle. Imagine how many times he must have tried pulling that move.
>>154028786wait a minutethat bulge...
>>154029475Marvel editorial has forever been butt hurt that fans were Team Maddie and not team Scott/Jean. And Duggan is a huge Jean apologist like Simonson was
>>154036865Maybe if X-Factor didn't have multiple bone-headed things in the premise to start with.
>>154029475of course, a woman's job is to get sex from a black gentleman and then raise said son alone
