All-Out Avengers (subtitled Teachable Moments for the collected edition) is a 2022 comic book series from Marvel Comics. It's written by Derek Landy with art by Greg Land and Jay Leisten. Color art is from Frank D'Armata.
Set in the shared Marvel Universe, the series is part of the wider Avengers franchise. It's published in parallel with The Avengers, the team's main ongoing title, but doesn't directly interact with the other series.
A short prologue in the Free Comic Book Day 2022: Spider-Man/Venom one-shot pits the Avengers against Thor's old enemy Ulik and sets the tone for the series.
Each issue of All-Out Avengers starts midway through a single-issue adventure, typically with the team in the middle of battle. However, it gradually becomes clear that the adventures are linked - and that there's a reason why the start of each mission isn't shown.
All-Out Avengers contains examples of the following tropes:
- Call-Back: The villains of the first issue are the Sinnarians, who were also antagonists in Derek Landy's Black Order series. Their new leader is Queen Arrok, daughter of the leader the Black Order faced.
- Daddy's Little Villain: Arrok the Seventh, queen of the Sinnarian Empire, is the villain of the first issue. Her father was the Big Bad of the Black Order series, and now he's dead she's following in his footsteps. Not only is she just as malevolent, she's also using similar tactics, with the mutagenic 'Bow of Attican' replacing the 'Bow of Gabriel' her father acquired.
- Enemy Mine: The Avengers and the Red Skull (who's usually Hated by All) form a shaky alliance against an army of Red Skull LMDs. Subverted as the story, like all the others, starts In Medias Res and both sides swiftly question how they agreed an alliance - at which point the narrator adds a little more Laser-Guided Amnesia so that they stop questioning his schemes.
- First-Person Peripheral Narrator: Zig-zagged, as it's clear from the start that the narrator has an in-universe existence and is part of the story (as they're occasionally inflicting some sort of Laser-Guided Amnesia on the cast), but they seem omniscient and remain The Ghost until the very end of the fifth issue. The end of that issue reveals that the narrator is the all-powerful Beyonder.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: The fifth issue ends with a variant of this, as Captain America feels the narrator's watchful presence, identifies him as the Beyonder and makes it clear that he's going to be seeking him out to settle things.
- Hated by All: As usual, Nazi supervillain the Red Skull is despised by pretty much everyone. When fighting a mob of his duplicates, several Avengers comment on how beating him up is feel-good, guilt-free violence.
- In Medias Res: Every issue starts midway through the Avengers' battle with a new threat. There's no How We Got Here flashback, and previous events are established purely through dialogue. However, it's also made clear that this isn't just a narrative device - the heroes know what's already happened, but don't directly remember it. As the series goes on, this aspect becomes more prominent and the narrator's attempts to hide it with Laser-Guided Amnesia start to fail.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Amnesia is a recurring theme in the story. The Avengers start each chapter midway through an adventure, but they don't exactly remember how they got there. The same is true of their foes - in the prologue, Ulik almost immediately realises that something's wrong, but he assumes it's a trick by the Avengers.
- Literal Split Personality: The second issue begins with Doctor Doom allying with the Avengers... against Doctor Doom. The good and evil sides of his personality have been separated into their own bodies.
- Robot Me: The Avengers and Red Skull are forced to team up against an army of LMDs modeled after the latter. They're more effective than the original, because their programming is modified to eschew all his personality flaws like bigotry for cold efficiency in fulfilling their plans.
- Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: The fifth issue ends with Captain America confronting the narrator, the unseen Beyonder. As it's presented from the Beyonder's perspective, that means he's jabbing a fist and pointing a finger directly at the reader.
- The Virus: The 'Bow of Attican' immediately transforms everyone in its target area into monstrous humanoids who are subservient to Queen Arrok.
