Philip Sheldon dying before he can publish his book and his notes and photographs scattering in the wind may be a pointless Shoot the Shaggy Dog ending, but it does fit with the book's theme of everything in the Marvel Universe that could go wrong having gone wrong. Phil's inability to get his book published before his demise when his main universe counterpart was able to publish his thoughts about the heroes and marvels of the world well before he met his demise is how his life went wrong in this universe!
Philip believes that the expedition to space never resulting in the Fantastic Four was the reason for the world being so wrong, although the likes of Captain America, who lived before the astronauts did, already being a twisted version of himself implies otherwise. However, it could still make sense if you consider if the world being messed up was because it was never going to happen. If the most major moment that shaped the Marvel universe's mythos never happened, why would anything else? It also helps that the Murphy's Law theme of the story stay in place, as anything that can go wrong will go wrong regardless of the time period.
One should be thankful this was made in '95 before characters like Miles or Kamala were even thought of. Can you imagine the hell they would've went through if they developed their powers in this universe?
