Friday, June 24, 2016

CBR Army of Darkness: Ash Gets Hitched


Time to get hitched and get some sugar, baby!

Ash gets medieval and faces giant naked dudes on his wedding day.

Friday the 13th series - Friday the 13th (2009)
Friday the 13th (NES) 
Book One (Wildstorm) - Book Two / Friday the 13th (Avatar Press)
Jason vs Leatherface / Freddy vs Jason
Elm Street series - A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (NES)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (WildStorm) / A Nightmare on Elm Street (Avatar Press)
Halloween series - Halloween (2007) - HII (2009)
Halloween (Chaos! Comics)
One Good Scare - NightDance - 30 Years of Terror - The First Death of Laurie Strode
Hellraiser 1
Final Exam
Black Christmas / Christmas Evil
Silent Night, Deadly Night series - Part 1 &2 - Silent Night (2012)
Santa's Slay
Jack Frost (1997)/Jack Frost (1998)
Pumpkinhead 1
Chucky series - Curse of Chucky / Chucky (Devil's Due Publishing)
Leprechaun series / Candyman series
 Re-Animator series
Hatchet 1 - Hatchet 2 - Hatchet 3
Hack/Slash: My First Maniac - Me Without You - Omnibus Vol. 1 - Friday the 31st
Series 1 (DDP) - Hack/Slash Meets Zombies Vs Cheerleaders - Hack/Slash/Nailbiter
Series 2 (Image) - Son Of Samhain
Transylvania 6-5000/Transylvania Twist
Tucker & Dale / Cabin in the Woods
The Final Girls / Knights of Badassdom
Darkman series / Darkman (NES)

Comic title: Army of Darkness: Ash Gets Hitched
Art by Nacho Tenorio
Written by Steve Niles 

Published by Dynamite Entertainment
From May 2015
Lineup Evil Dead/Army of Darkness series
Format: One-shot annual special issue Ash and the Army of Darkness: Annual #1.Army of Darkness: Ash Gets Hitched (#1-4)

Following the fan-favorite Evil Dead film trilogy, Ashley J. Williams has had a long history with comic books.

After some pretty good comic book adaptations of The Evil Dead and Army of Darkness at Dark Horse Comics, Dynamite Entertainment launched an Army of Darkness ongoing title in 2004 to much success. These comics were fun, silly and very much true to the B-movie nature of the film series.

Ash and the Army of Darkness follows a complete reboot of this long-running comic book series. This reboot of the comic was long time coming, it was bound to happen as the series was starting to grew out of hand and completely lose touch with what made it so great in the first place. The series was getting harder and harder to follow thanks to several crossovers and complete change of direction whenever a new creative picked it up.

Dynamite wanted to offer a fresh new start to their Army of Darkness comics with a more serious tone, thanks to the success of the Evil Dead remake. After a great first volume by 30 Days of Night creator Steve Miles, Ash found himself back in medieval times, fighting off hordes of Deadites to save the world!

Followed a little break from the current ongoing series with a 2014 Annual one-shot and a silly Convention Invasion special which seemed closer in tone to the previous series, before getting back to the main storyline.

The publication of this story arc marks the 10th Anniversary of the Army of Darkness comics since Dynamite launched them back in July 2004 (time flies by so fast..). For the occasion they brought some of the original artists that worked on those first comics back for the main covers.


The story picks up where the first volume of Ash and the Army of Darkness left off. Our hero Ashley J. Williams was reunited with his medieval girlfriend Sheila and he just proposed to her! The two are about to get married! He might find happiness living there.

While others might have prepared for a wedding with an actual princess, Ash's just happy kicking ass in the past. Hey, it's good to be the king!

But a new threat is around the character. A new more dangerous foe Ash might have summoned by accidentally speaking its name out loud - The Faceless Man! An even bigger monster, a huge naked monstrosity! And now that thing's awakening a new Army of Darkness to unleash the Curse of the Faceless man, an army not limited to darkness anymore!

Even the regular Deadites seem afraid of the guy!

Ash, his girl and the Wizard decide to find the other copies of the Book of the Dead Ash left behind - remember those 2 other knockoffs?

Will Ash be able to live to see his honeymoon?

Well things will suddenly cut abrupt at the end with one of these cliffhangers Ash always finds himself in...


Steve Niles continues his fantastic work on Ash and the Army of Darkness.

This is the real proper direct continuation of the current run. It's really fun. He always gets the characters and gives Ash & co a great voice. Ash now seems having fun killing the undead, compared to his first encounter back in Evil Dead 1!

This is kind of the direct sequel the movie never received. It feels like the proper new chapter of the series, meaning huge changes for Ash. First and foremost Ash deciding to stay in medieval times.

While the quality of some past AoD comics were kind of questionable, this is a much better comic! With a real fun plot, great stakes, pretty funny humor and plenty of thrills. I really like all the humor touches added this time compared to the much darker previous volume.

And this new foes is pretty decent, he's all kinds of gruesome and menacing. (And a great change from the over-exposure of Evil Ash usually.)


10 years of Army of Darkness comics! After such a long run all these years, it's great to see Dynamite still make a great use of Evil Dead. They can still come up with new creative ideas for the license.

And the interiors are actually good. Some recent AoD comics were kind of a mixed bag, but the art of Nacho Tenorio is really good here. Much better than some past books. Great recognizable expressions and characters. And the monsters look pretty cool with slick creepy designs. Great art all around. And great layouts, the story is well-paced.

As a nice little bonus, we have several familiar past AoD comics artists returning to Dynamite for the occasion. The cover gallery features the work of my all-time favorite AoD artist Nick Bradshaw as well as a lot of other fun by Jae Lee, Lucio Parrillo, Francesco Francavilla, Arthur Suydam and Stephanie Buscema! As well as an interesting look into the process with the full script of the first issue.


Overall, Ash Gets Hitched was a really good solid new entry in the Army of Darkness series, perhaps my favorite story arc to date.

It was a really enjoyable read, with great expressions, an epic story, great pacing and lot of twists. That ending! I cannot wait to see what happens next!

Highly Recommended to any Evil Dead or horror fans! You can even directly jump into this arc from only knowing the films!

I give it:
2.5 / 3 ManThings!




Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)