What If? # 81 - What if the Age of Apocalypse Had Not Ended

In "What If the Age of Apocalypse had not ended?" it took two years longer to defeat Apocalypse then it should have but in the end he was destroyed. In the days since then tensions between Humanity and the Mutants are on the rise as both sides struggle to rebuild what was lost but then during a mission to the Moon, Magneto and his X-Men (along with several humans and superhumans) discover the abandoned abode of The Watcher and are shocked to discover that the machines have been recording Galactus and The Silver Surfer as they get closer and closer to Earth. With little time to spare Humanity and the Mutants must put aside their differences in order to find a way to either destroy Galactus or at the very least drive him off-world and they do with one of the stupidest Deus Ex Machina's imaginable. Not to mention that Wolverine somehow kills The Silver Surfer single handedly just by puncturing his chest once.

The art is one of the major problems that I had while reading the story. It is a horrific mesh of early CGI and Cell Shading that has been merged with painted art. This causes several parts of the book to look either strange, indistinguishable or just plain absurd thanks to an imbalance of dark and light colors. The story would have been better if it had been placed in the hands of a different writer, the only new concept introduced that wasn't entirely absurd was the romantic relationship between Quicksilver and Tony Stark's Bodyguard, Gwen Stacy, yeah you heard me. Also...be warned that if you read this comic, Galactus is wearing the armor he did all the way back in Fantastic Four #48-50 which of course means he has no pants on whatsoever.