Warning: Spoilers for Army of Darkness #12!The ever-expanding Army of Darkness comic book franchise adds new context to the overall evil Dead the most confusing issue in the franchise. Fans often wonder why the opening of Evil Dead II: Dead at Dawn begins with what appears to be a recap of the original evil Dead film without the rest of the cast. Either that or Ash decided to go back to the same cabin that caused him misery before.
Happily, Dark Army Forever #12 by Tony Fleecs, Pop Mhan, Brad Simpson and Troy Peteri finds a way to canonize the most confusing parable in history. evil Dead franchise. At the end of the series, Forever implies that history repeats itself at the beginning of the Evil Dead 2 (and to some extent, Army of Darkness), as Ash and the Necronomicon were trapped in a kind of never-ending time loop.
The reasoning behind the sequel’s opening is complicated and worth delving into as much as the newly canonized reasoning behind the franchise’s biggest question.
All Army of Darkness Fans’ Biggest Question, Explained
Anyone who starts Evil Dead II: Dead at Dawn moments after finishing The Evil Dead You’ll probably have a bad case of déjà vu. The first film, of course, features a group of friends – among them Ash Williams and his girlfriend, Linda – whose cabin vacation is interrupted by the sudden discovery of a book of the dead called the Necronomicon. The book ruins the night by possessing the undead (and a tree) to unleash pain and chaos on these unsuspecting teenagers. Evil Dead 2inexplicably, it starts in exactly the same way.
This time, instead of a group of teenagers, it’s just Ash and Linda, except she’s played by a different actress. At first glance, it appears that the only surviving member of the group left the first film only to return to the same cabin with a new girlfriend in the sequel. However, upon realizing that the girl in question is a returned Linda, it becomes clear that Evil Dead 2 reconstructs the original 1981 film. The sequel is dedicated to spending the first few minutes remaking the original filmwith minor adjustments, and it’s not clear why.
THE evil Dead the sequels are practically “requels” in this regard, but there is a real-life reason. Bruce Campbell explains in the special features of Evil Dead 2 DVD that why director Sam Raimi didn’t own the rights to his own film, the sequel needed to recap the first film to make up for not being allowed to play the old footage behind it. Since the entire cast was unable to return for the sequel, this meant that its recap needed to become something entirely new.
As Army of Darkness Forever Canonizes This Iconic Creative Choice
Giving Ash a tragic ending
What caused confusion for fans is that none Evil Dead II: Dead at Dawn nor Army of Darkness directly addresses Raimi’s creative choice in the narrative, making the timeline behind Evil dead unclear tradition. All of the fan questions about these opening scenes (and then some) are answered in the most unexpected way in Dark Army Forever comics. The 12-part series (not including the epilogue from issue #13 which occurs halfway through the series) attempts to canonize both the theatrical and alternate endings of the third film.
The comic series tells the story of three simultaneous timelines. The first is the dystopian future where Ash reaches the alternative ending; the second is the current ending of the theatrical version where, it seems, it was Evil Bad Ash who arrived in the 90s, making the theatrical ending even darker. Finally, readers find themselves in the past where the good Ash left Sheila, which, it turns out, had dark consequences for the happy ending, revealing that an evil cult rebuilds the Evil Ash of that timeline from scratch with the help of the wizard Wiseman, now corrupted by the Necronomicon.
“As it was before…so it will be again.”
At the end of the series, after a wild goose chase to find several Necronomicons that inexplicably fuse to create a baby Deadite, Ash finally defeats Bad Ash’s army. When jumping through the portal one last time to end the series, the reader gets a close-up of the original Necronomicon with narration “As it was before…so it will be again.” Panels slowly shrink to reveal the beginning of the original evil Deadwith Ash and friends arriving at the cabin for the first time. These panels seem to suggest that the series ends where it originally began.
Ash ending in a time loop explains why all movie openings are different but still canon
This explanation puts the sequences in a new context
The series finale not only adds new context to the sequels’ opening sequences, but also manages This feels like a swan song for the franchise as a whole, including the comics. As Ash narrates his misadventures in different timelines, the comic shows brief flashbacks not to the films, but apparently to others. Army of Darkness comics under the Dynamite Comics banner. In these final moments, the series not only tries to make sense of the film sequences, but also the comics, specifically to validate them as canon alongside the films.
An ending like this ties together all of the sequels and spinoff media into a cohesive narrative, but it also presents a final chapter for its protagonist. Ash, as a central character with 43 years of history to his name, has a tragic ending that makes tying this story to all the films and all the comics a creative and rational choice. Throughout all of his stories (comics, shows, and movies included), the recurring theme has been that Ash is forever cursed by the Necronomicon, constantly tormented by its enchantments, prophecies, and impending doom. wherever he goes.
This series takes this curse literally, as Ash will literally be forever tormented by the Necronomicon. He is always destined to end up at the beginning of the franchise, constantly reliving his trauma (perhaps with slight variations in the timeline, explaining the small adjustments that the sequels’ openings have) with no way of breaking this cycle. Ash is the unluckiest hero in history and is forever doomed by this fate. Dark Army Forever finally responds to evil Dead the most annoying question in the franchise regarding the beginning of the franchise, but at the cost of a happy ending for Ash.
Dark Army Forever #12 is now available from Dynamite Comics.