| What If #24 Lord of the Vampires (1991); What if Wolverine was Lord of Vampires? | |
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| Topic Started: Jun 8 2009, 06:01 PM (831 Views) | |
| Gabriel Zero | Jun 8 2009, 06:01 PM Post #1 |
Administrator
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 Well What If #24 certainly has it all. Vampire Wolverine, Juggernaut pounding the crap out of Dr. Strange, Logan leading a army of supernatural vampires, and Punisher using holy weapon blessed by the church! This is my friends is the perfect example of everything that is wrong about What If comics. Now don't get me wrong, this is a fun comic and you can no way take it seriously. But I would be lying if I said that it's not a cheesy pile of crap filled with horrible one liners and dramatic posturing. I lost count of how many times Logan said "Call me 'Wolverine Lord of the Vampires !!' ". The story picks up right after the X-Men battled Dracula in Uncanny X-Men #159. Only this time instead of Storm turning against Dracula, she continues to obey him and that gets all of the X-Men killed. However Logan's unsurpassed willpower breaks free from the usual servitude that all "sired" vampires feel for Dracula. He quickly adapts to his Vampire powers and kills Dracula, claiming the throne as "Lord of the Vampires." After turning all the other X-Teams into vampires, Logan starts to go after all that could pose as a threat. They take out Magneto first, then the Juggernaut and Hellfire Club. Their greatest fear is this book that Dr. Strange has that can wipe out all the vampires on earth in a matter of seconds. They send old Juggernaut after Dr. Strange which he proceeds to kill the good doctor in a matter of seconds. Dr. Stange's spirit lives on and he contacts the Punisher who has managed to stay alive this long. Together Strange guides him to the Sanctum Sanctorum where the book is located. A few of the mutants try to stand in the way, but the Punisher takes them all down with a assorted bag of Vampire Hunter tricks. To be fair the Punisher also gets a lot of help from Dr Strange's Cloak of Levitation and Eye of Agamotto which also has a lot of powers. The eye can even shoot out a beam of pure sunlight which pretty much kills vampire Juggernaut. Logan is the last one to stand in Frank Castle's way, Logan starts out getting the upper hand by taking out the Cloak and eye. However Frank throws him through the doors of the Sanctorum which is guarded by a lot of spells the undead are weak against. After that Vampire Wolverine can hardly put up a fight, and proceeds to take a massive amount of punishment from Frank Castle. Before he could finish Logan off, Kitty Pryde tries to stop Frank and ends up getting herself killed. The Punisher is shocked for a moment by how young Kitty is, which also sends Logan into a rage and he stabs Frank in the chest. At that moment his human motions break free and Logan mourns the death of his young friend. Dr. Strange speaks to Logan through Franks dead corpse, helping him gain control of his human side. Wolverine's strong will eventually wins out and he is able to push back his vampire nature. He then volunteers to read the book that will wipe out all vampire existence on the earth, which proves almost impossible since merely touching the book slowly dissolves his hand. It's kind of sad but Logan prevails by reading the sacred text while his body decomposes. It shows how strong the human side of Wolverine really is. By the end of the book Logan crumples into ash along with the other superhuman vampire race. Dr. Strange goes to be with his master the Ancient One and humanity rejoices their new found freedom from the vampire race. Hooray for freedom!!  I will say this though. This was no where near as bad as What If #37. The point of the art in a comic book is to help illustrate a story and help move the plot forward. A good artist can tell an entire story in a silent comic, without relying on the presence of a single word of text. However issue #37 was compose entirely of random posing, if you removed the text I wouldn't be able to guess this was a comic book at all. It was basically you typical 90's crap but worse. I will only say that one cool thing about Vampire Wolverine is that he ends up taking over the Dark Dimension which use to belong to Dormammu. When Dormammu invades earth during the events of Inferno, Jean Grey is able to destroy him by transforming into the Phoenix. In What If #39 he returns from saving the Universe with the Watcher, to reclaim his dominion over the Dark Dimension. Note: The Vampire Wolverine in issue #24 and the one in issues #37 - 39 are from different dimensions based on the same scenario. It is to my understanding that this is a popular story among the What If fans. I guess I can see why since it shows how easily Logan is able to become alpha male among the vampire pack. If anything this is more proof that Logan will come out on top in any given situation. Turn him into a zombie and he'll find a way to gain cosmic powers. In this situation if you turn him into a vampire, he'll have the entire country taken over in a matter of months. He's just that bad ass. I didn't really care for the story in Uncanny X-Men #159, I thought it was just as silly as this one. However at least both this What If and the original story knew not to take itself too seriously.  
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| Templedog | Jun 8 2009, 06:44 PM Post #2 |
X-Men Chronologist
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I like most of the What Ifs, but I do agree that most of them are pretty cheesy. |
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