Writers: Brian Reed, C.B. Cebulski, Jim McCann
Pencils: Paolo Pantalena, Patrick Spaziante
Price: $3.99
In Stores: 12/4/2008

This round of What If?’s starts off with ‘What If? House of M’. First off, a brief, spoiler-free run down:

At the end of House of M, instead of whispering “No more mutants…”, Scarlet Witch says, “No more powers…” extinguishing all super powers world wide when it is restored. This comes as a reflief to some, such as Peter Parker, who can now start a family, and Ben Grimm, for the obvious reasons. The problem comes when super villains such as Vulture, Shocker, and other’s who derive their “powers” from mechanical means begin to run a muck. Tony Stark is the only man on the front line with S.H.E.I.L.D. agents fighting them now. Not long after, Tony’s worst fears are realized when major crime organizations such as Hydra and AIM come together with Red Skull and a mysterious super weapon and try to take over the world. It’s up to Tony to come with a plan, and a team of no-power Avengers to save the world again… I don’t want to spoil anything for you, so I will leave it at that.

I really like the “What If?” and other alternate reality one shots and I thought this was one of the better ones. I really appreciated the fact that they don’t treat the reader like an idiot, they just jump into the story with minimal background and don’t answer every single aspect of this reality. The writers allow the reader to put the pieces together and just enjoy an exciting story.

This story really tackles a lot of aspects in a short amount of time, from those in the Marvel U that rejoice of being freed from the responsibilities of heroship, to those who feel like they have lost meaning in their lives and are frankly lost; I would have liked to see a few more character’s reactions to this event explored but I understand the length restrictions. The whole situations puts a lot of strain on Stark being the last hero standing and when the Red Skull heads up a new super-threat Stark has to step up, and with the help of power-less allies, once again save the day.

The build up in the book is well done and a lot of heroes fall in the face of the Red Skull in some pretty brutal, sudden ways, that I feel really represents their “normal” humanity; while others have just flat out stepped out of the spot light to move on with their lives leaving the world more vulnerable than ever.

Stark’s techno-solution to the the threat, and the heroes who step up despite being only human, is pretty cool to watch, a little inspiring and results in an exciting and satisfying climax and conclusion that I recommend picking up the book to check out. The whole story wraps up nicely with an epilogue set about 30 years later, in which Peter and Stark have a pretty intriguing conversation about the nature of superheroes and why they exist and what will happen in the future if they are needed again. I would say if you’ve got the extra bucks to spend on your comic shop trip this week this is work checking out.