Agree that without Mercury, there'd be no Queen (heck he named the band) but May definitely would have made a noise with or without him, probably in some Fripp like manner. Mercury probably would have eventually found a recording deal, given his songwriting ability, but May's unique guitar work and gearhead fascination with sound complemented Mercury's fastidious artistic nature perfectly. Not to mention Deacon basically gave the band a new lease on life when he wrote "Another One Bites the Dust." It's like the Beatles -- Lennon and McCartney would have been stars in any band, but it was Harrison that gave the Beatles real soul, and Starr, while no songwriter, perfected rock 'n' roll drumming in a way that propelled their early to mid 60s work with energy no other band could touch at the time. Mercury may have been 80 percent rock god but he still needed that 20 percent of contrast and compliment to become the star that he was.