Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-6312663-20130302175900/@comment-11836-20161024224915

Well, they are officially published by Marvel, and Marvel treats other What If?s as alternate realities, (also note, that it's realities, not universes) so why not the joke ones? Also, the Ben Cooper Halloween reality only exists because the Spider-Man from it appears in Spider-Verse.

If anything, it's a good thing that Marvel considers these part of the multiverse at all, whereas DC has only comic universes considered canon, where even popular things like the DCAU or Nolanverse aren't considered part of the multiverse.