Writer Mary Jo Duffy
Penciler Jerry Bingham
Inker John Stuart
Colorist Carol Gafford
Letterers Simek & Chaing
Cover by Frank Miller
Cover Dated July 1981
Splintered from Uncanny X-Men 137
What If the Phoenix had not Died?
I always say, you can tell something with how many pages an issue of What If commits to the original timeline. For this issue, they commit five pages. Sometimes all Utau the Watcher needs is a simple sentence explaining the concept of the issue, and other times, he needs five pages to tell you what happened originally.
So in this timeline, the X-Men still fight the Imperial Guard on the Blue Area of the Moon. Instead of Phoenix taking her own life, this time the Imperial Guard defeats both Scott and Phoenix.
Phoenix is given a lobotomy to take away her telepathic powers. Once home, Jean makes the X-Men tea as her contribution to the team.
Days later, she is the Danger Room operator. Kitty Pryde has now joined the team. She won’t live long enough to regret it.
Xavier telepathically summons the X-Men to his office. Phoenix likes having a voice in her head again.
Lilandra, Xavier has the nerve to stay in contact with her! Also, she has the nerve to ask a favor! Galactus and his herald, Terrax, are about to devour a planet. Well, Galactus will do the consuming. Terrax just does the scouting.
The planet is in Shi’ar space, but the X-Men are closer to it than Lilandra’s forces. Phoenix believes they should go, so they go.
While there, the X-Men don’t stand a chance against Terrax and the power cosmic. Terrax is about to kill Cyclops when Phoenix gets so mad that it regains its powers.
This gets Galactus’ attention and the two entities fight. Phoenix destroys his stuff and he agrees to leave.
Once home, things don’t go back to normal. First, Days of Future Past happens sort of. The assassination attempt happens but Phoenix squashes it quickly.
At the mansion, Kitty is all by herself. Storm hangs out with her adult sister, Phoenix. Colossus is too modest to make a move on the younger Kitty. Kurt and Wolverine are best friends. Wolverine wonders why Phoenix is still with Scott, she should be with a killer like him. Which is odd, as don’t killers like being the only killer in the family?
Kitty stays being a good student. She works closely with Xavier. He keeps getting painful migraines.
Phoenix begins controlling her powers, even on a microscopic level. She hopes this will ward off any dark urges. Though nightly, she is destroying small asteroids.
Wolverine notices these night exists as does Kitty. Scott isn’t as they are having sex often.
Sentinels are unleashed on the world. Phoenix lets the fight go on long enough until she gets bored, then she straight destroys the robots.
Later, she consumes a star – uh oh!
When she comes home, Kitty confronts her and this happens :
That is right, Phoenix cremates Kitty on the spot! The X-Men don’t think that is cool, at all.
In true What If fashion, she kills the entire team. Colossus tries a fastball special but Phoenix turns Wolverine right round and he stabs Colossus dead. She then drags Wolverine’s body into what is left of Kurt’s burning corpse – Wolverine doesn’t fight this.
Once Phoenix kills Cyclops, for daring to stop her, she destroys the planet we call, Earth.
So, good thing Phoenix took her own life back in the proper timeline.
