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Category: Behind the Scenes

The time I got to draw everyone.

My first work in comics, in 1997, was penciling issue #104 of the comic book title WHAT IF? (Vol. 2). The comic starred the Silver Surfer and a character called The Impossible Man, a shape-changing last survivor of the destroyed planet Poppup, a planet of shape-changers. In his appearances, The Impossible Man typically wreaked impish havoc for the heroes he comes across (typically the Fantastic Four).

In this particular comic, the Impossible Man, using newly acquired infinite power, recreates his home planet, Poppup.

The result of this action plays out on the last page of the comic, when a variety of Poppupians appear. The last page of the plot (the text document a comic artist works from to draw the comic) for this story, written by Tom Virkaitis, read as follows:

PAGE TWENTY-SIX

This is an epilogue. We are now back on Thanos’ old altar. The Impossible Man (as Santa Claus) is returning the gems to the Elders of the Universe (who Impy resurrected). The Silver Surfer is also in attendance. The Elders thank Impy who transforms into Captain America and salutes them all. The Elders teleport away as a group. That’s when another Poppupian shows up as the Red Skull and tries to shoot the Impossible Man. Another Poppupian shows up as the Captain America werewolf and yet two others are arguing as to which one is the “real” Bucky (one is the original, the other is the Heroes Reborn Bucky). The Silver Surfer stands silently as all this craziness surrounds him. We pan back as the Surfer tries to convince himself that he made the right choice. “Right?”

Seems simple enough. A good amount of stuff going on, but pretty straightforward.