A comic book set in Evil Dead universe, published by Dynamite Entertainment.
Continuing from Army of Darkness (the third Evil Dead film) the comic chronicles Ash Williams' on-going battles against the demonic Deadites across the space-time continuum.
Come get some:
- Actor Allusion: In the second crossover with Reanimator, Ash sarcastically tells Herbert West that his name is Elvis Presley as a nod to Bruce Campbell playing Elvis in Bubba Ho Tep.
- Adaptational Villainy: It's implied that Lust of the Seven Deadly Sins was originally Eve (as in the Biblical Eve).
- Alternate Continuity: The Army of Darkness comics follow the adventures of the young Ash Williams living in the early 21st century on Earth-818793, oppose to his 50 year-old film/TV counterpart played onscreen by Bruce Campbell.
- Artifact of Doom: The Necronomicon develops into this as the series progress, possessing a malevolent sentience, corrupting the people who stumble upon it for its own purposes, and generally trying its best to get rid of the hero once and for all. Oddly enough, as the comic develops the Necronomicon into an Artifact of Doom, its Tome of Eldritch Lore traits seem to diminish accordingly: more often than not, the comic version of the Necronomicon simply uses its powers as it or its owner sees fit, with no spell recitation involved. This might be a Pragmatic Adaptation for the comic's episodic format, since very few people in the Evil Dead universe are qualified to translate and read the book's ancient language aloud.
- Between My Legs: One of the covers
for the Shop Till You Drop Dead miniseries features a grossed out Ash sitting between some rotting Deadite's legs. - Captain Ersatz: Ted, the half-dead, middle-aged midget that (briefly) becomes Ash's sidekick in 2012's Army of Darkness Volume 3 #7-#12 is an obvious Captain Ersatz of Sam, the half-dead, middle-aged midget from the 2005 video game Evil Dead: Regeneration. It's even more obvious when the two have a similar origin, and the fact that Sam, named after Evil Dead creator Sam Raimi, was played by his younger brother Ted Raimi in Evil Dead: Regeneration.
- The Chosen One: The comic go into much further expositions and machinations that revolve around just how much it sucks being The Chosen One (aside from all your friends and loved ones going deadite ). Makes sense seeing as The Necronomicon itself has its ties directly to each one of each generation. Even going so far as to have a Werewolf assistant type with his mentor's full journal account of the last generation's Chosen One who apparently worked himself into the Jack the Ripper mythos.
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: Averted. Ash can easily beat one deadite and only has problems when there are several.
- Cosmic Retcon: The climax of Army of Darkness: The Long Road Home does a complete cosmic overhaul of Earth-818793.
- Doppelgänger Crossover: Army Of Darkness/Bubba Ho-Tep has Ash meet Elvis from Bubba Ho Tep who was also played by Bruce Campbell.
- Dual Wielding: Ash's fight against his past self in Ashes 2 Ashes miniseries becomes more troublesome when he manages to get a hold on both of their chainsaws.Future Ash: We're both good guys here!
Past Ash: Good, bad... I'm the guy with both chainsaws! - Enfant Terrible: In life, Wrath of the Seven Deadly Sins was a child soldier from the Children's Crusade who, after witnessing all of his friends being butchered, took out his rage against the priests who had sent them to die. In death, he became the most powerful and sadistic of the sins, every other Sin unwilling to involve him in their plans since he has a tendency to go overkill in his rampages. It's even implied that he's killed other members of the sins in a case of friendly fire in the past.
- Evil Twin: Evil Ash (from the Army of Darkness film), is a recurring villain in many story-arcs.
- Fight Dracula: Ash fights Dracula and various other classic monsters in the storyline appropriately named "Ash vs. Dracula".
- Intercontinuity Crossover:
- In the main comic, Ash comes across Herbert West of Re-Animator fame.
- There are separate miniseries' that that are crossovers with Darkman, Danger Girl, Marvel Zombies, Xena: Warrior Princess and Hack/Slash.
- Ash is finally Killed Off for Real after dying, getting punched by Zombie!Sentry into the Marvel Zombies universe and escaping into the Marvel Werewolves universe. And it's canon that, like most Marvel characters in their alternate universes, Ash also has alternate universe counterparts. Sadly, in most universes, heroes mean he never really got a chance to shine.
- Kid from the Future: Technically from an alternate present, but in Xena Warrior Princess/Army of Darkness: What, Again?, we meet Solan, the son of Ash and Xena's friend Gabrielle.
- Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Since Dynamite Entertainment only has the rights to use characters from the Army of Darkness film, none of the friends Ash slaughtered in The Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 can appear. However, that didn't stop them from using Annie Knowby, Jake, and Henrietta Knowby from Evil Dead 2 in the Old School story-arc, although it's possible that nobody cared enough to do anything about it since the comic rights to Evil Dead 2 didn't belong to anybody at the time of it's release.
- In Army of Darkness vs. Hack/Slash #1, a lawyer-friendly version of Jason Voorhees appears in a montage/flashback of important events in Ash's life. This is a reference to the two Freddy vs Jason vs Ash crossovers.
- Although she can never physically appear in the Army of Darkness comics thanks to her comic rights currently belonging to Dark Horse Comics, that hasn't stopped the Dynamite writers from mentioning Ash's younger sister, Cheryl Williams (from The Evil Dead (1981)) twice: the first time in the Tales of Army of Darkness one-shot and the second in Ash's biography page in the Prophecy crossover series.
- Left Hanging: It's very likely we'll never know where and when Ash and Evil Ash are sent to via time-vortex at the end of the Furious Road story, since the story-arc itself was just meant to cash in on the then new Ash vs Evil Dead television series by featuring a 50+ year-old Ash living in a trailer park.
- Thanks to Army of Darkness/Xena Warrior Princess: Forever And A Day #5, we know that Ash (now in his 70s) has returned to what he would consider "the present", but it still doesn't explain where he and Evil Ash went or how he got back.
- My Future Self and Me: Volume 3 #8 has the teenage Ash of 1979 bump into the old Ash from the 21st century, because, as the older Ash put it: "I suddenly remembered this happening to me when I was a kid".
- Mythology Gag: As Ash and the Wise Man venture through the woods in Ashes 2 Ashes miniseries, the Wise Man suddenly points out that something is approaching them "from within the woods!" Within the Woods was the short film that Sam Raimi used to secure funding for The Evil Dead (1981).
- Ash often refers to people as "Shemps", a reference to "Fake Shemp", a term that Sam Raimi coined while filming The Evil Dead (1981).
- Power Fist: The gauntlet Ash makes in the Army of Darkness film carries over into the comics. However in Army of Darkness: Shop 'Till You Drop Dead, Ash is sent to the future where he receives an upgraded gauntlet that is capable of shooting lasers from the fingertips and also doubles as a flamethrower. Unfortunately, this gauntlet doesn't last long (only two issues) before it is taken away by police at the beginning of Army of Darkness vs. Re-Animator.
- Recursive Canon: In 2004's Army of Darkness vs. Re-Animator, it is revealed that two television movies based on Ash's life have been made in the six month period since his arrest for the events of the Shop 'Till You Drop Dead story. Apparently Hollywood couldn't resist making a big screen adaptation of Ash's story, because in 2009's Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors, two of the main characters are watching Army of Darkness in a movie theater although later it's implied to be a dream.
- Reimagining the Artifact: The Necronomicon Ex-Mortis is reimagined as an indestructible, talking book that can cause it's blood inked pages to reform into another image. The talking aspect of the book would later become canon when it was used in the Ash vs Evil Dead episode, Bound In Flesh.
- Reset-Button Suicide Mission: The plot to Issue 27 in Volume 2. After Earth has been overrun with evil, the remaining members of the League of Light and the ghost of Ash go back to the events of Issue 14 to stop the evil from being unleashed in the first place. It's a suicide mission in the sense that if they were successful, they would be erased from existence since the "bad" future would be erased.
- Rule 63: The main story-arc of Army of Darkness Volume 3 is Ashley J. Williams meeting Ashley K. Williams, his female counterpart from an another universe. She also has the ability to manipulate her left hand into any weapon she desires.
- Series Continuity Error: Too many to count, but just a handful are:
- In Ash vs The Classic Monsters, it was established that this version of Ash living on Earth-818793 was born in 1969. Later in Army of Darkness Volume 3, Ash is thrown back in time to 1979, where he must protect himself as a high school senior.
- Also in Ash vs The Classic Monsters, Ash brings Eva, the daughter of Dracula, from 1499 to 2006. In Eva's one-shot origin issue: Eva: Daughter of The Dragon, released just a few months after her debut in Ash vs Classic Monsters, she was living in 1599, still unaware of the fact that Dracula is her father.
- In the 2008 story-arc,The Long Road Home, Ash resets the world to the way it was before he killed everyone in S-Mart, fought the Re-Animator, destroyed the cabin, fought Dracula, and died. However, when he meets Herbert West/Re-Animator in Dynamite's Prophecy crossover in 2012, West recognizes Ash from when he met him in Army of Darkness vs Re-Animator (unless there's something West doesn't tell us, he's already immortal according to this series).
- In Ash vs The Classic Monsters, it was established that this version of Ash living on Earth-818793 was born in 1969. Later in Army of Darkness Volume 3, Ash is thrown back in time to 1979, where he must protect himself as a high school senior.
- Seven Deadly Sins: The Seven Deadly Sins are a group of sinners who've died and are reincarnated into Cenobite-like demons in Purgatory, tasked with torturing souls who're most guilty of their respective sin. Because Sloth has a tendency to ignore its duties (as is its nature), they try to make Ash Williams (who's status as The Chosen One was suppressed by the Necronomicon) the new Sloth since his new, normal persona represents the ultimate wasted potential.
- Spin-Off: Several Dynamite Entertainment books have spun out of Army of Darkness, such as the Eva: Daughter of The Dragon one-shot in 2007 and the Reanimator limited series in 2015.
- Spin Off Spring: Parodied in Army of Darkness: Ash Saves Obama. At the convention in issue one, a new comic is announced at a Q&A panel: Solan: Son of Darkness. In Xena Warrior Princess/Army of Darkness: What, Again?, Ash has a son with Xena's friend Gabrielle named Solan. It should also be noted that Ash Saves Obama takes place in a different continuity than the one the Xena and Army crossover took place in.
- Those Wacky Nazis: Ash takes on a group of Deadite Nazis throughout Volume 3 of the Army of Darkness comics.
- Variant Cover: Since 2004, not a single issue of Dynamite's Army of Darkness series has gone by without a variant cover.
- Wolverine Publicity: Speaking of variant covers, for the first issue of Army of Darkness: Ash In Space, Dynamite released three variant covers where other, more obscure Dynamite characters appeared alongside Ash. Somewhat averted because the various artists had the decency to make it a running gag on every one of these covers that the characters point out that they do not appear in this book.
- Yet Another Christmas Carol: Ash's Christmas Horror special has Ash, who had previously declared to have had enough of Christmas, having a Necronomicon-induced dream where he is visited by three spirits, who take the forms of Wiseman from the middle-ages, his boss at S-Mart and his late girlfriend Linda. Waking up, he is filled with the spirit of the season and even takes the role of S-Mart's Santa Claus.
