What If Marvel pages

[Dark-Carioca]

Given the inclusion of MCU What If characters and the fact that we have alternate What If-esque versions of comic book characters like Dreadpool (and beyond the realm of comics there are all the different Ben 10s which fill a similar role to Marvel AUs), I was wondering what our stance on Marvel's What If comics are, since I haven't seen any pages for those but figured we could always include some, since there are a lot of very interesting scenarios and characters in those, especially in the older stories.

While this is mainly for Marvel it can apply to similar franchises and mediums that do the same thing.

I couldn't find any thread on the matter so apologies if this has been talked about before.

 

[Confluctor]

I don't think actual what ifs are allowed, but alt reality like dreadpool and the end are allowed to be here. Comic what ifs will bloat everything because of how important most of them are.

Also it's extremely hard to scale them unless you want to cross scale th em to canon which would be extremely wrong.

 

[Antvasima]

We allow alternate timeline pages for characters such as the Maestro, but only if they are sufficiently prominent in terms of appearances and impact and can be properly scaled to from other characters or their own feats, as different timelines tend to differ a lot in terms of power levels.

See here for a bit of information:

Power-scaling Rules for Marvel and DC Comics

There are several massive problems with using power-scaling for these two prominent franchises that have shared hundreds of different authors over several decades. Said writers naturally tend to have highly differing opinions and interpretations, which is reflected in their stories. Quite often...

vsbattles.fandom.com

Canon

Canon is a term used to designate works that are generally accepted as the genuine work that apply to the fictional verse. With few possible exceptions only canon material is featured in the character pages, with non-canon material to be ignored. The generally agreed-upon definition is that the...

vsbattles.fandom.com

 

[Confluctor]

Alt realities are different, and we do allow that, yes. But what ifs, not at all. They can't be indexed properly.

 

[Antvasima]

I thought that he intended the two terms to be used in a synonymous manner.

 

[Confluctor]

Nah, I believe OP is talking about the what ifs series where we saw the heroes and villains do stuff or events transpire which isn't possible in canon. The single issue stuff.


Dreadpool isn't a what if either, just an alt reality

 

[Dark-Carioca]

Also it's extremely hard to scale them unless you want to cross scale th em to canon which would be extremely wrong

But the original What Ifs are specifically Earth-616 with slight turns in some stories. Is that still not allowed, if it's just the same world but slightly different?

Comic what ifs will bloat everything because of how important most of them are.

I mean naturally we can't include them all, I figured only the most distinct characters.

In one of the first What Ifs, there's a Bruce Banner/Reed Richards/Charles Xavier fusion for instance.

 

[Antvasima]

Nah, I believe OP is talking about the what ifs series where we saw the heroes and villains do stuff or events transpire which isn't possible in canon. The single issue stuff.

Okay. Then that definitely isn't reliable or notable enough to feature in our wiki.

Again, please check through what I linked to above.

 

[Antvasima]

But the original What Ifs are specifically Earth-616 with slight turns in some stories. Is that still not allowed, if it's just the same world but slightly different?

In theory, sure, but in practice the writers have taken even greater liberties with the power levels and plausibility than normal with What If?! comic books over the years, and the characters in them still do not have sufficient appearances or feats to reliably index.

 

[Confluctor]

But the original What Ifs are specifically Earth-616 with slight turns in some stories. Is that still not allowed, if it's just the same world but slightly differen

Not really. Most are treated as being completely different with minor similarities.

mean naturally we can't include them all, I figured only the most distinct characters.

Good luck with that. Especially someone like Spidey whose most of his stuff are extremely important and popular/notable.

In one of the first What Ifs, there's a Bruce Banner/Reed Richards/Charles Xavier fusion for instance.

There are a lot of fusions like that, way too many.


Like I wouldn't mind it if there weren't too many of them and if they were scalable. But most aren't unfortunately. And the similarities to 616 are most of the time very minor.

 

[Dark-Carioca]

they still do not have sufficient appearances or feats to reliably index.

Okay so if a What If characters appears in more than one issue is fair game, ok.

But shouldn't that also apply to the MCU show then? Many of those characters aren't notable beyond the one episode they majorly appear in (even Infinity Ultron only appears in three).

And the similarities to 616 are most of the time very minor.

Not for the first couple of What If series though (the '77 and '89 ones), considering they're directly based on stories that ocurred beforehand.

 

[Antvasima]

No, I think they need to appear in at least 20 issues and have reliable feats to scale from, in combination, according to our rules.

 

[Antvasima]

But shouldn't that also apply to the MCU show then? Many of those characters aren't notable beyond the one episode they majorly appear in (even Infinity Ultron only appears in three).

The MCU is making a greater effort, and has a much easier time, to keep its power levels considerably more consistent than the comic books. Please read the pages that I linked to above.

 

[The_Impress]

No.

I am not maintaining the bajillion ******* What-If files in addition to the 500 pages we already ******* list.

So if they hit the 20 issue limit, only then it's remotely valid to get a file, and guess-guess? 99% of them don't.

 

[Dark-Carioca]

Fair enough

 

[Antvasima]

So is it fine if we close this thread then?

 

[Dark-Carioca]

Yeah it can be closed, if anyone else wants to share their thoughts on the matter they can probably ask for it to be opened again, but I doubt anyone will be interested.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. I will do so then. Thank you to everybody who helped out here.