Random Happenstance

I might try to ballpark how many Humble Bundle comics I read last week: A Train Called Love was 10 issues, this one was 6. Although they went #0-5, for reasons? From 2017, Ash vs. the Army of Darkness #0-5, written by Chad Bowers and Chris Sims, art by Mauro Vargas and Sam Lotfi.

This series was also from Dynamite, but I think they've had enough Evil Dead/Ash/Army of Darkness issues to offer dedicated Humble Bundles of nothing but those. Sadly, their numbering/naming convention is usually to start a new miniseries, which makes sense when it's just going to a crossover; but perhaps less so when they try to set something up for Ash. Who doesn't go through a ton of growth in his comic, but honestly would you expect him to? The character's pretty established at this point. This run, after the fight at the end of the theatrical cut of Army of Darkness, Ash is canned from his beloved S-Mart; but one door opens as another closes: a local vice principal approaches him, since that Deadite had previously been her school's librarian. With few other options, Ash is forced to go back to high school as a substitute, to find out who had been reading from the Necronomicon; largely in order to get the auto shop kids to repair his beloved Delta 88.

Hijinks of course ensue, with Ash having to deal with high schoolers than are probably more studious than he remembers them being; and encounters with the anti-Deadite task force S.M.A.R.T. The latter had begun, if not with a clever acronym, but back in the 14th century; as Arthur and Sheila decided they needed to keep doing their part against the Necronomicon. The whole thing seems to be trying to set up a new, ongoing status quo for Ash that I'm not sure was revisited: partly because every writer seems to just want to do their own take, which is fine. To me though, the Ash books kind of feel like the tour the X-Men used to do every so often: the Savage Land, Japan, space! Maybe Canada if there's time. Ash tends to run in a set circle, usually with trips to the past, the future, back to the cabin again; and repeat.

We've mentioned these before, and they're usually pretty fun: they tend to stay in the slapstick horror/violence of the third movie; and haven't gone hard on the horror in a bit, unlike the last few movies in the franchise. (I haven't seen Evil Dead Burn yet!) If you check Dynamite's site, they've been cranking out Ash comics for some time, with about a bazillion variant covers. I thought Archie vs. the Army of Darkness was still running, but I guess that wrapped up a couple months ago. That will probably be in a Humble Bundle sometime as well, if you missed it too.