Marvel Celebrates the 50th Anniversary of What If? With New Alternate Universe Stories

Believe it oregon not, Marvel's long-running What If? bid turns 50 this year. That's a batch of alternate beingness superhero stories. But there's inactive plentifulness much crushed near to cover, arsenic Marvel reveals a marque caller batch of What If? comics publishing successful Summer 2026.

There's nary peculiar unifying taxable this clip around. These What If? books instrumentality to the classical formula, with each exploring realities wherever iconic Marvel storylines played retired differently. For example, 1 of these issues is titled "What If... Cyclops Had Stayed With Madelyne Pryor?", revealing a satellite wherever Cyclops ne'er near his woman and kid to reunite with the recently resurrected Jean Grey. For a batch of X-fans, Cyclops ditching his household remains a achromatic people connected the character's bequest adjacent decades later, truthful we ideate there's going to beryllium a batch of involvement successful this story.

Art by Lucas Werneck. (Image Credit: Marvel)

Other intriguing titles successful this What If? lineup see "What If... Thor Got Spider-Man's Symbiote Suit?" and "What If... Cassandra Nova Killed Charles Xavier?" The afloat lineup is below:

• "What If... Cyclops Had Stayed With Madelyne Pryor?" by Gerry Duggan & Jan Bazuldua (June)
• "What If... Thor Got Spider-Man's Symbiote Suit?" by Torunn Grønbekk & Sergio Davila (June)
• "What If... The Ultimate Universe Surved Secret Wars?" by Alex Paknadel & CAFU (July)
• "What If... The Radioactive Spider Bit Jessica Jones?" by Justina Ireland & David Messina (July)
• "What If... Kraven Survived His Last Hunt?" by J.M. DeMatteis & Yildiray Cinar (July)
• "What If... Captain America Was Unfrozen successful 2099?" by Marc Guggenheim & Ron Lim (August)
• "What If... The Runaways Hadn't Run Away?" by Rainbow Rowell & Zulema Scotto Lavina (August)
• "What If... Cassandra Nova Killed Charles Xavier?" by Ashley Allen & Sumit Kumar (August)

Art by Mahmud Asrar. (Image Credit: Marvel)

This caller What If? enactment kicks disconnected with the merchandise of What If... The Uncanny X-Men #1 connected June 3 and continues done August. Which What If? conception intrigues you most? Let america cognize successful the comments below.

In different Marvel news, the steadfast precocious revealed caller details astir 2 of its biggest 2026 storylines, Avengers: Armageddon and Queen successful Black.

Jesse is simply a mild-mannered unit writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intelligence thicket by following @jschedeen connected BlueSky.