The Avengers Battle an Army of Red Skulls In New Marvel Preview

By Timothy Adams - November 21, 2022 08:54 am EST

If one Red Skull wasn't bad enough, an entire army is out to take down Earth's Mightiest Heroes in a preview of All-Out Avengers. The latest Avengers comic from writer Derek Landy and artist Greg Land is unique amongst its counterparts. While the majority of Marvel's titles have an introduction before jumping right into the action, All-Out Avengers takes the opposite approach. Readers are tossed immediately into an action-packed story from the very first page of All-Out Avengers, with no explanation or backstory given as to how our heroes got there.

The same can be said for the preview of All-Out Avengers #3 by Derek Landy, Greg Land, Jay Leisten, Frank D'Armata, and VC's Cory Petit. The cover to All-Out Avengers features the Captain America duo of Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson fighting a horde of Red Skulls. How the Red Skull was able to duplicate himself is a mystery, but we do know that the last issue of All-Out Avengers saw Doctor Doom split himself into two separate beings via the mystical Soulsplitter stone. It's possible the Soulsplitter is the reason we have the Red Skull army, though we learn in the preview from Sam Wilson that Arnim Zola is to blame.

What Is All-Out Avengers?

All-Out Avengers appears to be in the same vein as Non-Stop Spider-Man by Joe Kelly, Dale Eaglesham, Gerardo Sandoval, and Chris Bachalo. Kelly previously described the series as "relentless action, epic storytelling, mind-melting art, and relevant themes, all grounded by the heart and soul of one of my all-time favorite characters, Spider-Man."

ComicBook.com spoke to Derek Landy in August to learn how writing All-Out Avengers has been different from his past Marvel projects, how the book's concept came about, what threats the team will face, incorporating villains like Doctor Doom, and more.

"Marvel editor Tom Brevoort approached me with the core idea," Landy said regarding how he landed the writing gig for All-Out Avengers. "He wanted to replicate the experience that comic readers of a certain age all share — those occasions when you wandered into a newsagent (here in Ireland) or a drugstore (over there in the States) and you picked up whatever comic you found on the rack. I snagged random issues of X-Men or Hulk or Spider-Man, always seeming to come in right in the middle of an ongoing story with no idea how it started. In fact, it's only now, with collections and omnibus editions and Marvel Unlimited, that I've been able to find out how so many stories from my childhood began and ended!

"So that's the feeling we're trying to capture with All-Out Avengers, where each issue plunges the reader into the middle of the action. The challenge, then, is to have each issue work in and of itself, without a flashback to the "first" part of the story that doesn't actually exist. It's practically an existential crisis of a comic book. All are welcome."

The preview of All-Out Avengers #3 is below. The issue goes on sale Wednesday, November 23rd.

ALL-OUT AVENGERS #3

DEREK LANDY (W) • GREG LAND (A/C) • TIMELY VARIANT COVER BY PATCH ZIRCHER
Hallelujah, it's raining skulls — Red Skulls, that is!
With an unending swarm of Red Skull LMDs on the loose, the Avengers have one last chance to turn the tide before they're completely overwhelmed — even if that means teaming up with the original Red Skull to do it. Dive right in, dear reader, and get swept away by the action!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99