Ash and the Army of Darkness Annual 2014 was a 40 page one-shot released by Dynamite Entertainment in March, 2014. Written by Shannon Eric Denton and featuring art by Nacho Tenorio, the story takes place after the events of the Ash and the Army of Darkness maxi-series, but before Ash Gets Hitched.
Plot Synopsis[]
After having his soul stolen from his body by a trio of Deadite witches, Ash Williams leads a siege on the undead legion's fortress to reclaim his spirit. Before Ash can dispose of the Deadites, the necromancer sisters disappear into the time-stream. Luckily, a young sorcerer's apprentice has been dispatched by his master to bring Williams a magic potion which would allow him to follow the witches through time.
Ash's first stop is in ancient Egypt, finding himself looking over a "city of the dead" hidden within a deep canyon. Williams eventually finds the first Deadite witch surrounded by mummies in an old temple, getting ready to make a human sacrifice on a stone altar. Fighting his way through the mummified minions, Ash destroys the witch by blasting her into a roaring fire with his Boomstick. Before he can get some sugar from the harem girl who was going to be sacrificed, he's dragged into the time rift.
Ash lands in the Pacific Ocean in the midst of a storm, but is rescued by a ship full of beautiful women who are headed to the Barbary Coast to become nuns. Williams realizes he is in the age of pirates as a ship captained by the second Deadite witch attacks. The soon-to-be nuns take arms against the undead sailors as Ash goes for the witch, blowing her right off the deck with a cannon and into the shark-infested waters below. With the witch gone for good, Ash is pulled into the time-stream once more.
Ash's final stop is Arizona during the late 19th Century. After procuring some cowboy clothing and a donkey from some travelers passing by, Ash rides into a nearby town, noticing that the graves in the local cemetery have been dug up. Upon entering the town itself, Williams gets into a shoot-out with Deadite outlaws before taking on the witch in the nearby saloon. After several shots from a lever-action rifle, the witch finally drops dead, and Ash disappears back to the Middle Ages.
Landing in front of the young sorcerer's apprentice, Ash says he wants to see the sorcerer for himself and them a piece of his mind for all the trouble he went through. Ash is shocked to see that the sorcerer is a beautiful woman, and opts to kiss her instead.
Trivia[]
- The cowboy hat worn by Ash during the "old West" sequence is identical to the one worn by Bruce Campbell in the 1993 television series The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
- Though this issue takes place after the events of Ash and the Army of Darkness, it was published while the series was still ongoing.
Continuity Errors[]
- Ash's narration on the first page of the story states that he is "trapped in the past", though he had actually willingly chose to stay in the Middle Ages at the end of the Ash and the Army of Darkness series.
- Though Ash is seen with his Boomstick while leaving the pirate sequence, it is absent when he lands in the cave at the beginning of the cowboy scene.