He's been around since early "Fantastic Four". (looks it up) FF #13 from 1963, to be exact.

Own that comic, in terrible condition, but I own this comic.

What If? comics hold a dear place in my heart, though.

That's all very interesting...NERDS! :starts inflicting atomic wedgies left and right:

I had a lot of What If? comics, and the plot was usually a fun way for the writers to poke fun at themselves. Some issues were pretty fun though, even if it usually ended up that the hero would suffer a similar fate as in the other universe.
They had one where the Punisher's family doesn't get gunned down in the park by the mob, but then he becomes a cop and exposes some crooked cops to the press. The crooked cops surround his house at night gun down his family in a hail of bullets, thinking him dead too, and he ends up murdering them all at his own funeral. So yeah, he still becomes the Punisher... and how!

They go pretty hard on Uatu in the Wha-Huh's, but yeah, he sorta is that. I'm actually really surprised Oswald didn't know more about him, that's definitely up his alley. It's still going to take me awhile to get used to people referencing comic stuff/lording over the discovery of comic characters. I swear, every time I come across a tumblr post like: "there's this character named Silver Surfer who might be in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie" I die hours faster.

Especially the unintentional pun about them "lumbering" down the street.