| “ | Sometimes I look at her and see the beautiful woman that she is. Sometimes I just see black. Real Stygian witch type darkness. | „ |
| ~ Simulacrum Ash Williams thinking about Annie Knowby (Evil Dead 2: Cradle of The Damned #1) |
Annie Knowby is the daughter of archeologist Raymond Knowby and Henrietta Knowby. After dying and finding herself trapped in the depths of Hell itself, Annie created a simulacrum copy of Ash Williams to aid in her escape. Returning to the world of the living, Knowby aided the clone in battling the demonic forces which they unleashed upon their escape.
This version of Annie Knowby is exclusive to the continuity of Space Goat Publishing's Evil Dead 2 comic series, and first appeared in Evil Dead 2: Beyond Dead By Dawn #1.
Biography[]
Recovery of The Necronomicon[]
In 2015, Annie Knowby was part of an archeological team led by her father Raymond which explored the ruins of Castle Kandar in England. Within these ruins, Raymond found the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, an ancient Sumerian text which he had been searching for throughout his life. Though Raymond and Henrietta quickly retreated to the United States to begin translating the Ex-Mortis, Annie stayed behind to continue to examine the castle's ruins.[1]
Death[]
After a few weeks, Annie returned to the United States with several "lost pages" of the Necronomicon to give to her mother and father, who were now staying in a secluded cabin in the woods of Michigan. Upon arriving, Annie was horrified to discover her father had unwittingly unleashed a malevolent demonic spirit upon the property, which killed him and turned Henrietta into a soul-hungry Deadite. With the aid of a man named Ash (who had broken into the cabin with his girlfriend, believing the cabin to be abandoned), Annie used the pages of the Ex-Mortis to turn the spirit into a thing of the flesh and open a rift in time to banish the demon back to its point of origin. However, while reciting the incantation to open the time rift, Annie was killed by the severed hand of Ash stabbing her in the back with the Kandarian Dagger.[1]
Into Hell[]
With her dying breath, Annie closed the time rift, and the chaos of the demon's reign of terror was finally over. As she lay dying on the floor, the ground beneath the cabin opened up, sending the structure and everything within to the depths of Hell itself. After exploring the underworld, Annie heard the voices of her parents calling out to her, crying that their very souls were in pain as they had been consumed by the demon Rabisu. Wanting to escape Hell and save the souls of her parents, Annie returned to the site of the cabin and used a spell found within the Necronomicon to create a simulacrum of Ash Williams using his severed hand and her blood to aid her.[1]
Eventually, the duo devised a plan of escape after finding a doorway out of the underworld: Annie would gather a sample of virgin blood (required for unlocking the gateway) while the simulacrum Ash rescued the Knowbys from Rabisu.[2] After getting a small bowl of blood from a recently deceased teenager, Annie used an incantation found within the Necronomicon itself to open the threshold just as the Ash clone returned from defeating Rabisu. Emerging back into the world of the living, Ash revealed that the spirits of her parents were held inside the dagger. Though a bit reluctant at first after realizing that releasing the spirits inside the blade would also unleash whatever demons had been killed with the dagger over the years, Annie opted to release the souls held within the Kandarian Dagger.[3]
Christmas At Santa's Secret Snowy Garden[]
Annie attacks the demonic spirit of Robbie Dawes (A Merry Deadite X-Mas)
Two months after the demise of her parents, Annie and the simulacrum Ash were summoned by the spirit of Robbie Dawes, an employee at the Santa's Secret Snowy Garden theme park who found a copy of the Necronomicon and accidentally awakened the demonic spirits held within the book. The following day (Christmas Eve), the duo set out to investigate the supernatural activity, only to be attacked by all manner of Christmas-themed monsters: ranging from Deadite Elves, possessed toys, evil gingerbread men, and sentient candy. Moments before the demonic gingerbread men could kill Annie and Ash, the two were rescued by two children who had been left behind in the park after the evil spirits had been unleashed. After learning that Robbie Dawes intentionally released the Deadites, Annie proceeded to attack the former employee with the Kandarian Dagger as his soul was banished to another realm, ending evil's reign over the park.[4]
Trapped In The Mirror Dimension[]
In the months that followed, Annie committed most of her time and resources to capturing and destroying the evil forces she had unleashed from the Kandarian Dagger. This task had taken her and Ash away from Michigan and down to South Carolina, where Annie purchased an abandoned cat food factory (which the two converted into a Deadite processing plant). Upon "harvesting" these Deadites, Annie was able to harness their dark energy to open a rift to the Mirror Dimension, which would pull in anything tainted by evil en masse. Upon opening the rift, Annie had forgotten that the simulacrum Ash was made from the real Ash's infected hand. Though the clone told her to let him go, Annie followed him into the vortex, realizing that she couldn't fight these monsters alone.[5]
Upon arriving in the otherworldly realm, Annie and Ash were bombarded with horrific illusions of each other dying or melting in some manner until finally being found by a man named Regardie, who had been banished to the Mirror Dimension in the late 19th/early 20th Century. Regardie offered to help Annie escape the dimension, as her soul had not yet been claimed by one of The Dark Ones which dwelled there, though he needed the simulacrum Ash to aid him in performing a ritual which would completely purge any evil within her soul before she could leave.[6] Upon releasing the pent-up transgressions within her spirit, Annie and Ash made their way through a strange canyon leading to the gateway between worlds. Though Annie was initially attacked by an oily-black tentacle beast, Ash managed to distract it while Annie escaped, but he was instantly consumed by the monster. Annie found Regardie waiting for her at the gateway, returning her cleansed soul and sending her back into the world of the living alone.[7]
Attack of The Dark Ones[]
With the Necronomicon and Kandarian Dagger destroyed, Annie Knowby decides to start life over (Dark Ones Rising #1)
Annie spiraled into a state of depression for several days after escaping the Mirror Dimension, until finally concluding that she needed to rid herself of any reminders of her demon-fighting past. Destroying the Necronomicon, Kandarian Dagger, and the cat food factory, Annie headed out to start a new life for herself without monsters. After several hours of walking down the rural roads of North Carolina, Annie came across a farmer struggling to help one of her cows going into labor. Offering to help, Annie was shocked when she reached inside the cow to find a boot, followed by the simulacrum Ash. The Williams clone warned that The Dark Ones were coming through the rift which had been opened when Annie escaped the Mirror Dimension, and that they would need all the mystical weaponry they could get to battle the coming monsters.[8]
With no Ex-Mortis and no Kandarian Dagger, Annie and Ash raced to New Orleans, hoping to find aid from Miss Ginnie, a hoodoo practitioner associate of Raymond Knowby, as The Dark Ones began to emerge across the world. Ginnie offered them the captured souls of some of the most powerful bokors of the last two hundred years, believing perhaps one of them would hold the answer on how to fight The Dark Ones. Upon taking possession of Annie's body, the spirit of one of the bokors realized the seriousness of the situation, though before it could devise a plan, Ash smashed the remaining jars of souls, unleashing a whirlwind of spirits.[9] The two watched as the souls merged into Damballa "the sky father", a great white serpent that attacked the approaching Dark One. After Damballa's defeat of the great demon, the Dark One arose from the ground, crushing Ash and Annie under its large fist. The two awoke in the Mirror Dimension, where they found Regardie looming over them revealing that everything since Annie's soul-cleansing ceremony had been a mere illusion on the part of The Dark Ones, who were testing to see if the souls of Earth were worth harvesting. Regardie informed them that it was not worth the effort of his masters and that Earth just might destroy itself before they were "worthy" in another thousand years or so. Annie and Ash were sent back into the real world, only to find that a group of teenagers had broken into the cat food factory and began reading from the Necronomicon.[10]
What happened to Annie following these events remains unknown.
Weapons & Equipment[]
- Necronomicon Ex-Mortis: Following her time in Hell, Annie Knowby took ownership of the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, where it became a pivotal tool in her and Ash's fight against the Deadites.[5]
- Kandarian Dagger: Though shared between her and Ash, Annie was the primary wielder of the Kandarian Dagger both during and following their escape from Hell.[1][4]
Powers & Abilities[]
- Philology: Being the daughter of an archeologist, Annie could read and translate the incantations found within the Necronomicon, which proved to be extremely useful in her battle against the demons.[1][3][4][5]
In Other Media[]
Board Games[]
- Before its cancellation, this version of Annie Knowby was going to appear in Space Goat's Evil Dead 2: The Official Board Game.
Gallery[]
Comic Books[]
Concept Art[]
Evil Dead 2: The Official Board Game[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Evil Dead 2: Beyond Dead By Dawn #1 (June, 2015)
- ↑ Evil Dead 2: Beyond Dead By Dawn #2 (September, 2015)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Evil Dead 2: Beyond Dead By Dawn #3 (November, 2015)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Evil Dead 2: A Merry Deadite X-Mas (December, 2016)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Evil Dead 2: Cradle of the Damned #1 (January, 2016)
- ↑ Evil Dead 2: Cradle of the Damned #2 (March, 2016)
- ↑ Evil Dead 2: Cradle of the Damned #3 (April, 2016)
- ↑ Evil Dead 2: Dark Ones Rising #1 (October, 2016)
- ↑ Evil Dead 2: Dark Ones Rising #2 (October, 2016)
- ↑ Evil Dead 2: Dark Ones Rising #3 (December, 2016)