What If? Peter Parker Became The Punisher? #1

For the month of October, the alternate timeline comic What If? returns in a series of one-shots. In this issue, the question 'What If Peter Parker Became the Punisher?' is explored. 

For those of all wondering why put Peter Parker in the role of the Punisher, let me explain why it's not such a far-off idea. First of all, the Punisher originated in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man (#129, the Holy Grail of comics for those Coyote Ugly fans out there) as a villain of Spidey. Secondly, when Spider-Man first decides to fight evil-doers, he questions whether to do it out of justice or revenge. In his origin story, Spider-Man chooses justice. But what if he choose the path of murderous vengeance instead?

This is one of those few times where I read a comic, rated it in my head, did some research and then gave the book a higher rating. My issue with the story was that Peter Parker went dark from the very beginning. Before fighting crime, Parker went on TV as a celebrity wall-crawler to make money for his ailing caretakers. It's not until his Uncle Ben was murdered in response to Parker's selfish actions that Spider-Man becomes a superhero. To have Spidey wearing the Punisher's skull on his costume  before Ben's death didn't make any sense. So I went back over the first couple of pages again.

In this alternate tale, Peter is bitten by a radioactive 'false widow' spider, in which he obtains his spider-like powers from. The spider in this story has what looks like a skull on it's back. I decided to google this spider and there really is a false widow spider! And this spider will sometimes have markings that looks like a skull on it's back!!! So, I upped my rating of this book from a 6 to an 8.

One thing that prevented me from going any further in my ratings adjustment is the lack of a host. Both the original, 90s revivial and other one-shot What Ifs have had the Watcher as the host, guide and sometimes narrator of the title. I know that currently, the Watcher is dead. But it's not the same What If? without him. Couldn't Marvel have used one of Uatu's kind? Or even have the new Watcher, Nick Fury hosting this issue? Either would have been better than no host as all.

This one-shot was pretty good. With real-life science, this is a great example of the scope of science fiction storytelling. However, this modern version is missing that X-factor (and I am not talking mutants here) that could have made this story an all-time classic What If.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.