Sunday, May 18, 2014

The Runes of Love: Ash and the Army of Darkness and the Resurrection of Dynamite’s AOD brand




If you’ve been an Army of Darkness fan for any length of time, you’ve probably seen them.  Maybe you’ve read one, rejected it with a roll of your eyes, and moved on to another title.  But it’s been around for over ten years, and after an embattled history it’s finally gotten good again: Dynamite’s Army of Darkness series.

Plagued by creator disapproval and suffering multiple changeovers and reboots, Dynamite finally went for it and gave the series a complete makeover, hiring Steve Niles, headwriter of the Walking Dead, to write for it.

And it is amazing.

No seriously, the difference is staggering.  Written with care and thought to the characters’ motivations,  an eye to worldbuilding and a gory sense of humor, Ash and the Army of Darkness takes us back to the S-Mart ending and then immediately plunges us back into the Medieval world.  It turns out the army’s grown in strength since Ash returned to the modern world, and Arthur and Henry need his help to put down the evil for once and for all, as the evil has consumed with Wiseman.



Giving us John the Wiseman as a villain adds a fun, new twist to the series  - maybe the Deadites can use his juicy brains to their advantage, no?

The series continues to develop Ash’s conflict with the medieval world, as well as his burgeoning feelings for his medieval squeeze, lady Sheila. 



Sheila’s the true revelation in this series.   Called up into service in protection of the kingdom, she’s reborn as a knight in Henry and Arthur’s service.  Often used as fetish fuel in earlier incarnations of the series and portrayed too often as a helpless maiden, this version of Sheila is every bit Ash’s equal, remaining her canon-appropriate no-nonsense having self.

With painstakingly drawn art by Nacho Tenorio, the series is a visual treat too.

It had it’s problems, at least at first.  The first two issues failed to capture the movie’s goofy charm, focusing on gore shots.  By the third it finally hit its stride, injecting humor and Raimi’s goofy spirit into the proceedings.

Currently seven issues into its first run, and with a double-printed first issue, Ash and the AOD is more than worth reading.



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