What If? Infnity Rewrites Marvel History

With Thanos having a prominent place in the ongoing Secret Wars storyline at Marvel Comics, being the biggest, baddest of the big bads in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and having two Avengers films named after his biggest storyline ever, is it any wonder Marvel’s going back to that well in print once again?

With the newest What If? 5-week event, Marvel Comics is tasking writer Josh Williamson with five different one-shot takes on how things might have gone differently in their recent event comic Infinity. He’ll team with artists Mike Hendersen (Thanos #1), Riley Rossmo (Inhumans #1), Mike Norton (Avengers #1), Jason Copland (Guardians of the Galaxy #1), and Goran Sudzuka (Dark Reign #1) to see how the Builder War might have gone differently. This follows the last two volumes of What If? that re-examined event comics Avengers vs X-Men and Age of Ultron.

In an interview with Marvel.com, Williamson talked about how he and editors paired each artist up with specific characters for their one-shots.

“Like with Riley, I knew he wanted to draw Black Bolt. With Mike Henderson, we do so much gritty work with Nailbiter, and I know Mike loves space battles and knights, so he felt like the best fit for the first issue with Thanos. Goran likes to do darker work, so he would be great on the Osborn story while Norton is always perfect on the X-Men. Meanwhile, Copeland has some strong humor vibes along with the being awesome at drawing monsters and aliens, so he’s a great fit for working with the Guardians cast of characters.”

Williamson said he worked closely with the artists as he was writing to “see what they were interested in” and draw to their strengths.

He also gave a little insight into each story:

Thanos: Thanos joins the Avengers in their attack, but only because he wants to be the one to destroy the universe.

Inhumans: Black Bolt takes over and tries to rebuild civilization on Earth as the Inhumans search for any hope that the Avengers will return.

Avengers: The X-Men are the actual stars here, as they, as far as they know, are the last remnants of Earth after the Avengers lost the war. “They’ve been doing it a long time” indicates that this one takes place several months or years after the initial story.

Guardians of the Galaxy: “This issue could be called Guardians of the Galaxy vs. The Avengers. It’s one of my favorite scripts I’ve ever written.”

Dark Reign: Norman Osborn gets his hands on the Infinity Gauntlet. Uh-oh.

What If? Infinity hits each week in October, 2015.