Peter B. Gillis Big Comics Readthrough

What if the Hulk Went Berserk? #45 (1984) Pencils: Ron Wilson Inks: Ian Akin, Brian Garvey This issue came about chiefly because Ron Wilson wanted to draw the Hulk smashing stuff up. Thankfully, there's a little more to it than that. The divergence here is that Banner failed to save Rick Jones from exposure to the Gamma bomb. Jones slowly dies from radiation poisoning, while telepathically linked to the Hulk. This trauma drives Hulk into a killing rage, even murdering some of the heroes who try to stop him. This makes for a very dark, rather unpleasant, action heavy story that I haven't really gelled with. What if Uncle Ben Had Lived? #46 (1984) Pencils: Ron Frenz Finishes: Sam De La Rosa On the face of it, May biting the burglar's bullet rather than Ben seems an arbitrary change. Yet as Gillis pointed out, Peter Parker's only surrogate father figure in the early stories was J Jonah Jameson. Gillis paints Ben as a much wilier cookie then his dear departed. Ben finds Pet...

After penning 4 What If issues plus 2 backups, PBG was told by Mark Gruenwald that they wanted to give other writers a chance. The situation changed when old friend Ralph Macchio took over as editor in 1983. He happily bought whatever great ideas Gillis threw at him, which resulted in writing credits on 7 of the final 8 What If issues.  What if Dr. Strange had Never Become Master of the Mystic Arts #40 (1983) Pencils: Butch Guice Inks: Guice / Sam Grainger An alternate spin on Gillis' previous Strange What If, this sees the mantle of sorceror supreme go to Baron Mordo, while Stephen returns to a career in medicine. Mordo pretends to be a reformed character to fool the Ancient One, but he's under the thrall of Nightmare. Eventually the good Doctor is dragged into the fight and the universe rebalances to how it was meant to be. It's interesting to an extent to see Mordo wearing the cape and his blunter approach to classic encounters. A story about Mordo redeeming himself migh...