Comic Books

Is It Good? Army of Darkness #2 Review

David Brooke

January 5, 2015

If “Ash in Space” isn’t enough to sell you on this series maybe, “good art” and “crazy action” is.

Sometimes that isn’t enough, though. So, is it good?

Army of Darkness #2 (Dynamite Entertainment)

Last issue we learned Ash snuck onto a space shuttle set to hit outer space in order to stop a little old Deadite with the Necronomicon in its possession. With no idea why it’s heading off planet Ash took it on himself to stop the beast only to find all the astronauts converted to the dark side. The issue was filled with action and ended with a plot twist of handsy proportions.

Creepy hand!

Cullen Bunn writes what is a pretty straightforward action comic book. If you’re expecting anything more than a wacky action comic book you’re in the wrong place. The premise alone should convey that, but heck, some people just don’t get it. This issue progresses the plot minimally, with a rather awesome cliffhanger splash page to get us giddy for the next issue. I will say a lot of time was spent on an Ash versus mechanical hand sequence. It goes on for 6 pages, a third of the book, and while it looks great it doesn’t surprise or titillate as the previous issues sequences did. There is a nice Deadite vs. Ash battle here though.

Artist Larry Watts continues to do a great job mixing up the layouts to convey the mood and stakes in each panel. Sure the hand vs. Ash scene is long, but considering it’s still entertaining shows how good the art plays out the scene. The colors by Aikau Oliva aid in this sequence with a good balance of striking red backgrounds to make the hand pop out at you. Most importantly the gore continues to look as chaotic and disgusting as possible which is a must in these sorts of comics.

I also really enjoy the mechanical demon hand Watts has rendered here. It’s like something out of Puppet Master in its creepiness.