Army of Darkness #1, by Marc Alan Fishman – Snarky Synopsis – @MDWorld

March 4, 2012 Marc Fishman 1 Comment

Written by Elliott R. Serrano
Art by Marat Mychaels, Chris Ivy, and Gabriel Belluco

As it came to pass, I reached a week where all the books I bought have already recently been reviewed (Justice League Dark, FF, and The Ultimates). Given that I don’t want to beat a dead horse, or bore you with a review you’d felt like you read before… I opted to venture to the other side of the comic rack this week, and snag a new book. You know, just for the hell of it. Because indy books in mid-arc are not easy to jump into, I opted for the only #1 on the rack. Albeit a few weeks old, I nabbed Dynamite’s next licensed product, Army of Darkness. Given that I’ve seen all the Evil Dead movies (but don’t profess to LOVE them), and I happen to have met Elliott Serrano a few years back at C2E2… I had little to lose. Well, I read the book, and it appears I’ve lost 15 minutes of my life, and 4 bucks.

This brand new ongoing series joins the rank-and-file of Dynamite’s deep lineup of licensed schlock. Maybe that’s a bit mean. I don’t subscribe to Green Hornet, Battlestar Galactica, The Bionic Man, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, The Lone Ranger, The Shadow, Terminator, or Voltron… but you know what? I’ve not heard from a soul that they are “must own” books, unless you’re a die-hard fan of said property. Many better reviewers have entered the fracas of tackling this book by tackling the issue of licensed book quality. I’m going to steer clear of that. Whether or not a book has a built in audience… a #1 is a #1. It should be a viable entertainment commodity to people who know nothing of the source. For those uninitiated to the Army of Darkness universe, this book is actually counter-intuitive to being entertaining. It pains me to even say it.

I can’t say I bought the book wanting to fall in love mind you… but my expectations were pretty neutral. As I said, my exposure to the source material was passing. I’ve seen all the movies several times, and enjoy them for what they are. Strictly speaking to AoD, as homage to B-movie horror/action flicks, I think it’s done incredibly well. Take away Bruce Campbell though, and that’s another story. With this new #1, Serrano makes a bold choice to not anchor the book on the Ashley Williams we “should” know and love. It’s a choice I have to say did not pay off. Having not read any of the other 12,000 AoD crossover books, perhaps the thinking was to create a new standard, a new setting,, and breathe life in a deadite corpse of a license. It also stands to note that the supposed Evil Dead reboot will feature a female Ash protagonist… so this bold move may very well have roots tied back to it’s master’s garden. But enough dancing around the conceptual, let’s dig into the rotting meat of the book.

Serrano is equal parts clever and lazy in his scripting. When we reach an old stalwart story beat, Elliott is quick to mock it. It pays off; I certainly chuckled a few times reading through. But when the script isn’t being cheeky, it’s being a bizarre blend of the bland and the baffling. We meet our leading lass, and the plot heaves her from one set piece to another, without taking time to explain itself. One second she’s a captured slave. The next, she’s conjuring up evil magic, and is quickly made Cleopatra’s gal pal. Another sneeze, and she’s on the lamb with a maybe-deadite insect from another planet… infiltrating a pyramid so she can jump home. I’m a fan of goofy plot twists, and using the comic book medium to it’s kitschiest… But AoD #1 never feels like it’s earning the cheese it wants us to revel in. The book feels clunky, which is to be expected to a point in an first issue—but I feel like Serrano had a list a mile long of cool ideas he wanted in this book, and is flying through them at breakneck speed. It creates holes in the books’ logic, and more often than not makes the lurching from point A to B to C feel like a chore… where it should be a slapstick romp.

I could overlook the alien-bug-sidekick-maybe-a-villain-but-maybe-not deal if our heroine was more… well… anything. Ashley seems to be a walking Deus Ex Boob with little to no personality. On screen, Campbell’s Ash EATS the scenery, and turns schlock into gold. On paper, yelling “The bitch is back, asshats!!” doesn’t do anything for me aside from raise my eyebrow in curiosity. Does Ashley have a fourth-wall breaking sense of humor? Is she a wee-bit nuts from being infected by deadite magic? Or is she saying something to get a chortle out of the audience because the scene is largely useless? On top of it all, Serrano has the “mysterious cloaked figure” who talks to himself about how pathetic Boobie-Ash is, and how all his evil machinations will soon reach fruition. Here was a prime chance for Elliott to use his obvious wit to put a stamp on a scene we’ve seen over and over. Instead, it’s played for realsies… and does nothing to make me want to continue on the adventure.

Artistically Marat Mychaels employs a style that does nothing to elevate the story. His faces all tend to jumble into the “90’s Image Comic bank of unmemorably-amorphous-yet-oddly-good-looking” bank. The art genuinely feels “passable” at best. When given the chance to draw some nastiness…. Marat softens his style, and gets awfully goofy when it should get creepy. And when his Ashley forms her deadite-infected hand into a useable weapon, it looks unnatural and frankly awkward. It’s as if he can’t quite decide if she should be Plastic Woman, or just a good looking chick with an axe for an arm. I’ll give credit where it’s due… but nothing here strikes me as anything more than churn-and-burn production. Some panels were worked on laboriously… others looked sketched in a rush. If this was to be a big invitation to jump on the ride… I doubt anyone will cite the art as being worthy of the price of admission.

Elliott Serrano’s Army of Darkness simply fails to grab me by my nethers the way I’d hoped. There’s a few laughs, but not enough carried out to call the book a larf. There’s action, but it’s such that we don’t think for a second our heroine is in any danger whatsoever. The book has moments of clarity, but they are dragged down by the wishy-washy plot and cardboard cutout of a protagonist. I think I’ll go put on my copy of the movie, and bury this necronomicon deep in a long box… in hopes that the evil spirits lurking within don’t wreck havoc on my soul. Lest I strap a chainsaw to my hand, and return the foul fiction from whence it came.