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Why I Love... Army of Darkness!

Welcome to another edition of the Why I Love column, where I, Eric Ratcliffe, pick something I've read, played, listened to or watched to discuss with you fair readers. This week we talk about not only my favorite movie, but a series that has grown to levels that I didn't even know it could come close to reach. It's a series from which a B-movie actor's career truly took off; a series that has crossed over with Marvel/HP Lovecraft's most famous creation/Classic Monsters and two of the slasher genre's biggest names. I am talking about none other than Army of Darkness!

Army of Darkness is easily my favorite movie. I've gone on record saying it before, but hands down nothing else will ever replace it at that top spot in my favorites. It's B movies at their best and mixes new themes into old movie stereotypes. You have your chosen one who turns out to be a guy who pretty much got crapped on his entire life and works a dead end job at a franchise store. Ashley J Williams truly felt like your everyman, the guy you could end up being who just has his share of bad luck.

Ash's life of course changed forever when he came in contact with the Book of the Dead aka the Necronimicon, which turned everyone he knew and loved into deadites who are extremely intelligent zombies that keep the personalities of those that they turn.

Of course that wasn't the only thing the book did to our hero as Ash soon had his own hand turn against him (which he had to cut off) and then was launched back in medieval times, which is where our movie starts off.

Ash teaming up with Eric the Red and King Arthur is certainly a highlight of the movie if only due to the absurdity of it. But then throw in an evil double, tiny little Ashes and finding the woman he affectionately calls Sheila. Bruce Campbell made this everyman into the hero you could root for and a memorable character for any fan of good movie characters.

The original ending of the movie had Ash waking up years in the future, by himself and not knowing what the hell was going on. The studio made them change it to him being a big action hero and beating the hell out of a deadite woman in an S-Mart. But this would not be the last time the book would torture our fair hero.

The Comic:

About a decade into the future after the movie and its predecessors had multiple DVD releases, Dynamite Entertainment released 2 miniseries taking place after the movie. One had our fair hero returning to the past to finish the job he thought he had completed, and the other had Ash heading to the future to attempt to fix his past and save his fellow S-Mart employees. (Ashes to Ashes and Shop Till You Drop Dead respectively.)

The success of these two minis, the second written by the very talented James Kuhoric, soon had the company launching an ongoing taking place right after the second mini and sending Ash face to face with HP Lovecraft's Herbert West, the Re-Animator and had poor Sheila going to the deadite homeworld, leaving Ash to torture himself for leaving her alone again.

Of course this also changed the status quo for our hero as secrets were revealed about the book and Ash had a new friend join him on his quest to get rid of the book once and for all.

She was a no-nonsense, tough woman who after some time Ash would gain some feelings for and was a strong edition to the cast. After escaping the asylum our heroes decide to return to the cabin where everything started, which, as usual spells trouble for Ash.

When all is said in done at the cabin, this leads Ash to go head to head with Dracula, the Mummy, a werewolf and Frankenstein's monster. It's the first time where Ash really fights something other than the book and leads to him recruiting some very odd allies to fight against Dracula.

This led right into a plotline which was called the death of Ash, which had our hero finding the root of his problems and the book exacting its final revenge against him, leading to our hero's untimely death.

You'd think that this would be the end of the series and our hero, but we soon find out that this is not the case as Ashley J Williams finds himself thrown into the multiverse and comes head to head with the Zombie Sentry who most comic fans know started the Marvel Zombies plague as patient zero.

This led into the Army of Darkness vs. the Marvel Zombies 5 issue crossover. Ash found himself at the start of the outbreak and had the book from this universe once again messing with our hero as he did his best to fight the undead around him. Ash fell for Allison Blair, blowing up an undead Howard the Duck and fighting side by side with Dr. Doom all in order to get home. It was written by Jonathan Layman (writer of the hit image series Chew) and led into the second volume of the Army of Darkness series. It was also not the only time our hero would crossover with established properties. But we will get to that much later in this column.

Relaunch:

Volume 2 landed our hero right where he left off, the apocalypse. Both Honeypot and Sheila had been turned evil and Ash was by his lonesome against Evil Ash and his forces. He soon found himself once again recruiting new allies with incredible powers to help in his fight and went up against evil Ash for the last time.

Sadly, as usual the allies Ash made did not stick with our hero and he and Sheila were by themselves attempting to reset the damage that Evil Ash and the book did to the world.

Ash did his best to fix things and really change the world for the better which led him right back to where his life as the chosen one really started, the S-Mart. Of course, he didn't remember any of it and was acting like a bit of a coward. It was a sudden departure for the character and the book, but it definitely fit.

The positive about this was reuniting a few members of the S-Mart crew we hadn't seen since that first series like Ted Raimi's character from the end of the movie also known as the dude with the glasses who ends up inheriting powers from the book.

Lucky #13 had Ash and Sheila returning back to Arthurian times and had the book once again causing trouble for our heroes as Ash proposed to Sheila. By the end of the story he makes a sacrifice that will keep her safe but unhappy and has him going off into the sunset to face his next adventure.

Ash does his best to leave his world apart from the rest of the world, bury the book and find peace by himself but as usual, it never sticks and Ash finds himself fighting undead hillbillies and working with a couple to save them from the trouble he caused by burying the book.

Issues 18 and 19 were done-in-one stories as Ash goes to Mexico to stop the evil deadite Montezuma who, as usual, is trying to take over the world with a sacrifice. It's a fun little done-in-one that has a play on the usual staples that you'd expect in a story like this. Like a play on the sacrifice of a virgin.

19 had our hero finding love again and thinking he'd finally found some peace, but as usual the Necronomicon had other ideas for him and it turned out that his new girlfriend was actually a Succubus who was going to feed on Ash.

This led us to the end of the series as issues 20 through 27 features a storyline about the lineage of the chosen one and the League of Light who were being hunted down and killed before they could reform. 20 and 21 were Ash finding out about his real destiny and a new friend in an American werewolf named Brad who showed Ash what the previous chosen one had done.

22 through 25 were Brad and Ash recruiting the rest of the League of Light and our heroes questioning if they could truly kill Ash if it came down to it. Without telling our hero of course...even though he's a good guy. 26 had Ash coming face to face with some old friends and sadly it looked like the prophecy was coming true. It also had Ash coming to his friends and telling them he still had a plan for the final battle.

One-Shots:

Army of Darkness Christmas Horror Special had Ash fighting a deadite Santa and doing his best to make sure Christmas didn't completely suck. It was fun seeing Ash in a slightly different light.

Tales of the Army of Darkness was one of my favorite things published through the series and had some of the biggest names in independent comic books adding to the material. A highlight for me was the Robert Kirkman story, which was a really great read where you can tell how much of a fan Robert is.

Crossovers:

Darkman vs the Army of Darkness was an interesting crossover if only due to the fact that it was a Sam Raimi fans dream come true as Evil Dead and Darkman are two of his bigger cult movie franchises. What was even cooler is that comic legend and fan favorite writer Kurt Busiek was co-writer of the series. It's fun and faithful to both properties, and something I'd love to see a follow up to.

Army of Darkness vs. Xena was certainly the oddest of the crossovers, if only because of Ash and Autolycus (the prince of thieves) coming face to face in both books. For those that don't know, Bruce Campbell played both characters and the likeness was played for laughs in both books. It was 8 issues of Xena wanting to beat up Ash, Ash crushing on Gabi, or just the absurdity of everything we were reading. Definitely something worth seeking out.

Ash saves Obama in which the president and Ash are on one page together in the 4 issues. So obviously the marketing and the title were a little off. It's a fun story that has Ash and a young woman who works at a comic shop trying to stop the evil dead from taking over the United States. It takes a few fun shots at comics and overall was a good read but the name of the book is false as Obama technically is the one to save the day.

Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash was a project that was originally slated to be the second Freddy vs. Jason movie. But the studios couldn't come to an agreement so Jeff Katz decided to bring it to the comics and what a 12 issue ride it was. 2 different series that had Ash doing his best to survive being attacked by Jason who he thought was just a big deadite, and Freddy ended up bonding with the book. It had all 3 characters written correctly and perfectly and the sequel brought in all the survivors of both slashers' original movies and had Ash having to work with them. All in all, this was the best of the crossovers and really hit on all points.

Final Verdict:

As of press time the final issue is not out yet, but I expect it to live up to the fun the entire series has been. This is everything a horror fan could love about their favorite movie and has had plenty of material to dig your teeth into.

Ash has traveled the globe, saved the world and made some new friends and it's all worth a read. Dynamite is releasing an Omnibus with the first series and I'm sure they'll be releasing more. Sadly it looks like the series has reached its end for the moment but we'll see what comes in the future.

We will see you next time for the next column!

Eric Ratcliffe is a young writer/pop culture journalist/interviewer currently working on pitching a project named the Hunter chronicles. When not reading his weekly stack Eric can be found watching DVDs, playing on his 360 (gamertag: Zack Hunter) or just surfing online trying to find a scoop or two. Brand new to the Comic Related family, Eric is a fun new voice. Eric shops at TJ's Collectibles. Visit them on the web at www.tjcollect.com!