Comic Book / Avengers: Back to Basics

Avengers: Back to Basics is a 2018 short series, released between March and May of that year, written by Peter David, depicting Kamala Khan studying various moments in the history of the Avengers using a VR headset given to her by the Vision. The series consists of six issues grouped into three stories:

• In the first, Thor, the Hulk, and Iron Man must avert a plot by ancient undead beings to bring about Ragnarok.
• In the second, a plot by the Magus sows division among the modern Avengers, and then sees them cast into a post-apocalyptic future.
• In the third, a malfunction in the headset leaves Kamala stranded in the past. She joins the original Avengers, but soon finds herself dealing with much bigger problems than fighting villains.

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This comic contains examples of:

• After the End: In the second story, the Magus brings himself and the Avengers into a future where Earth has been devastated by a global war, leaving only ruins. He states that every timeline he has ever seen ultimately leads to a future of this kind, and is amused by how the endless alien invasions that threatened Earth might as well not have bothered, since despite fighting off all threats humanity is destined to destroy itself anyway.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Bruce calls out Thor on this when the latter claims that the undead warriors trying to bring about Ragnarok are a myth, since according to common wisdom so is Thor himself.
  Loki: Tell me, Thor — do you remember the Desir?
  Thor: They... they are myth.
  Bruce: Says the Norse god of Thunder.
• Butterfly of Doom: In the final arc, Kamala is extremely cautious about revealing any information about the future, including the simple fact that she is from the future, in order to avoid altering history and causing a potentially disastrous paradox.
• Celestial Body: In the final issue, the future, cosmically-empowered Kamala has night-dark skin dotted with twinkling stars.
• Cold-Blooded Whatever: In the second arc, frog Thor is repeatedly described as a lizard. This is subverted when the Maestro irritatedly points out the difference when the Magus makes this mistake.
  "And second, he's not a lizard, he's an amphibian. God, I hate stupid people."
• Continuity Snarl: The central problem in the last issue is that Kamala's mother Muneeba is hit by a bus and killed before her daughter was ever conceived, giving the latter only a few years to live before the timeline reaches the point where she should have been born and she puffs out of existence. However, issue #9 of Ms. Marvel (2014)'s second run, which was published earlier, established that Muneeba was already pregnant with Kamala when she moved to the United States. The issue isn't entirely insurmountable, as it's still entirely possible for Muneeba to have been carrying her unborn daughter when she died, but a number of the story's statements are made explicitly incorrected by this.
• Cutting the Knot: The Desir bind Pepper Potts with Gleipnir, a magical chain that, as they gloat to Iron Man when he tries to slice through it with a laser, cannot be cut, broken, or melted in any way. Tony deals with it by using a rocket to destroy the stone slab that Pepper is chained to.
  Desir: All right. I should have seen that coming.
• Delayed Ripple Effect: After Kamala's mother dies before she can be born, Kang explains that she will not vanish quite yet — she will only disappear once history reaches the moment when she should have been born.
• Evil Versus Oblivion: Loki tries to prevent the destruction of Midgard not because he has any particular interest in its welfare, but because its demise would bring about Ragnarok and thus the destruction of everything, including himself.
  Thor: Since when do you care about this world?
  Loki: Since its imminent demise would lead to Ragnarok, and the end of all. And being part of "all", I would much rather keep myself intact, thank you very much.
• For the Evulz: When Kamala tearfully asks Kang why he manipulated events to kill her mother's past self and thus doom Kamala to nonexistence, the latter callously replies that he did it simply because he felt like it. However, this is later subverted with the reveal that Kamala's future self will go on to become one of Kang's most formidable foes, and that Kang's actual motive had been to try to remove her from history to prevent this.
• Framing Device: The stories are presented as simulations of the Avengers' past missions recorded on a VR headset, which Kamala is browsing through while studying the team's history.
• Future Badass: At the end of the final issue, Kang is foiled when an older, cosmically-empowered Kamala arrives from the future and forces him to flee.
• Grandfather Paradox: The central issue in the final issue is that events conspire so that Kamala's mother dies before her daughter can be born, making Kamala's existence a temporal paradox and dooming her to vanish once the date of her birth comes around.
• Human Sacrifice: The undead spirits in the first arc plan to kickstart Ragnarok by using Pepper Potts as a human sacrifice.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • In the second issue, when Fenris takes on a humanoid form, he also manifests a breechcloth around his private parts and a mace to fight with. The Hulk wonders where exactly this stuff came from; Thor questions his priorities.
    Hulk: Where'd the breechcloth and weapon come from?
    Thor: Seriously? That is what concerns you?
    Hulk: Just wondering.
  • When the modern Avengers are magically placed back in the older uniforms, they have quite a bit to say about them — Captain America wonders why he ever thought that a cape was a good idea after tripping over the one in his Nomad outfit, and when Captain Marvel pokes fun at Black Panther's T-shaped Cleavage Window the latter asks what was the point of having an outfit that leaves her legs bare but her arms covered.
    Carol: Uh, T'Challa? What the hell is that outfit?
    T'Challa: It's... it's what I wore before I inherited the mantle the Black Panther.
    Carol: What's the "T" for?
    T'Challa: T'Challa, obviously.
    Carol: Oh, sure. "Obviously".
    T'Challa: You don't get to criticize, Carol. Long sleeves but bare legs and midriff? So you get to be equally uncomfortable in hot or cold weather?
  • After the Maestro steps into the fight between the Magus and the Avengers, he complains about the former speaking almost entirely in exposition.
  • When using Doom's time machine, Kamala notes that it also accounts for spatial travel in order to match the Earth's motion in space and muses that the titular device in The Time Machine should logically have left its creator stranded in deep space, before snapping herself out of this tangent.
• My Instincts Are Showing: After being turned into a frog, Thor pauses a dramatic speech to snap up a passing fly.
  Thor: You did not see that. Nobody saw that.
• Mythology Gag: The comic's central premise is a revisitation of several earlier points of Avengers history, including slapping the modern group in their outfits from the Eighties and sending the modern Ms. Marvel back in time to the era of the original team.
• The Nose Knows: In the second story arc, T'Challa realizes that Carol isn't a Skrull imposter like they'd been led to believe because she still carries her own scent, and there's no trickery in the universe that can fool his nose.
• Time Machine: In the third story, Kamala returns to her time by using Doom's time machine. While using it, she notices that it also moves one in space as well as time and muses that time machines must need to do this to account for the motion of the Earth through space and not leave erstwhile time travelers stranded in space.
• Time Travel:
  • In the second story, the Magus uses the powers of the Cosmic Cube to send himself and the Avengers into a post-apocalyptic future.
  • In the third story, Kang's tampering with the headset causes Kamala to be physically sent back to and stranded in the time of the original Avengers.

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