Die!Namite Lives was a five-issue comic book series published by Dynamite Entertainment in 2021. Written by Fred Van Lente and featuring art by Vincenzo Carratu, the series is a sequel to the Die!Namite event from 2020, and features crossovers between several Dynamite titles (including Red Sonja, Vampirella, Project Superpowers, Army of Darkness, Peter Cannon, Miss Fury, Jennifer Blood, and Chaos! Comics).
Plot Synopsis[]
The story opens at an S-Mart warehouse, where Ash Williams is being chastized by his co-worker Tammy for disregarding the building's safty protocals. Ash and Tammy's coversation is interrupted when a hoard of zombie employees and customers begin to make a mad dash towards the duo. Knocking over a pallet of alcohol, Ash puts an end to the undead when he tosses a lit ciggarette lighter into the soaked mass, causing them to explode into a brillaint fireball. As Williams notices more zombies coming their way, he sends Tammy over to the aisle containing power tools and tells her to bring back the biggest saw she can find as he goes over to hunting supplies. Arming himself with a shotgun, a rifle, shurikens, a crossbow, and a fishing rod, Ash begins to blast away until Tammy returns with a long cardbord box. To Ash's suprise, Tammy did not fetch a chainsaw, but rather a weedwhacker. Intially dissapointed at Tammy's screw-up, Willaims discovers that the weedwhacker is surprisingly effective against the undead. As Ash goes to praise Tammy, he discovers his co-worker has become a zombie.
Meanwhile, the trio of heroes who witnessed the inital zombie outbreak (Vampirella, Miss Fury, and Tabu the Death Defying 'Devil) are teleported to the Sekhmet Club, where they encounter Tabu's girlfriend, Pantha. Pantha informs them that Vampirella's homeworld of Drakulon has fallen to the undead plague, as well as the nearby planet Mars. Earth seems to be the galaxy's last hope, and they need to recruit as many allies as they can find.
Back in S-Mart, Ash is monologing to the decapitated head of Tammy as he shoots and whacks his way from aisle to aisle, telling her that he has come to grips with being the world's best Deadite destroyer. Just as he makes his way to a machine gun mounted to a small wooden watchtower display, Ash realizes that all the zombies have dissappeared, and watches as Tammy's head bounces outside to join the rest of the hoard. Ash follows the monsters out of the building as he realizes that someone is leading them, just as Evil Ash had done in medieval times. From atop a burning skyscraper, Evil Red Sonja, and the zombified Peter Cannon and Black Terror watch the chaos unfold on the city streets below. Laying on the street itself, Smiley The Psychotic Button rants and raves about being chucked out into the cold by Sonja until someone notices him. Initially believeing it to be Red Sonja coming back for him, Smiley finds himself in the hands of Jennifer Blood.
In top secret location, United States Goverment officials review footage of a nuclear bomb that was used in an attempt to stop Sonja and her legion in Taipei, but all the blast did was create new mutated zombies with superstrength. Arriving at the end of the breifing is Captain Future, who claims that he has an idea on how to stop the zombies.
At the Sekhmet Club, Pantha leads the remaining heroes to a museum of mystical artifiacts that she has been collecting during her time here on Earth, informing them that one item she has been unable to procure might be able stop this onslaught of evil for good: the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis. And while she doesn't have it herself, she has a good idea on where to find it.
Back on the city streets, Jennifer Blood and Smiley get aquainted with eachother as he helps her find the man she was after when the zombie apoclaypse started. Blood is dissapointed when they find her target, as he's now one of the aimlessly wandering zombies paying her no attention. After killing the zombie, Jennifer states her new mission is find out who was responsible for starting the apoclaypse and destroy them.
The remaing team of superheroes (Miss Fury, Tabu, Pantha, and Vampirella) arrive at the S-Mart Warehouse where the online tracking number of the Necronomicon led them. As soon as they walk in the door, they're greeted by "Generalissimo Ash", who intends to defend his store from who he believes are looters. Before a battle between Pantha, Vampirella, and Ash breaks out, they tell him they're looking to pick up a pagage they ordered online. When Ash touches the pagage, the cardboard burst into flames as the Necronomicon reveals itself. Ash then grabs the book and tries to outrun "the monster chicks", believing that they're responsbile for this if they're after the Neconomicon.
On Hawaii, Red Sonja and Peter Cannon fight against the goverment's new army made up of Frankenstein's Monsters. When Cannon realizes that Hawaii is the most isolated landmass on Earth, he tells Sonja that the monsters are being controled from orbit. When the flying zombified members of Project Superpowers go to investigate, the satilate explodes with the power of 250 kilotons, sending them into the depths of space.
In S-Mart, Miss Fury and Tabu see the explosion in space, which unfotunately distracts them long enough that zombies break in through the door they were defending. As they try to hold the undead back by bracing themselves against the door, Miss Fury is bitten by one of the zombies. Ash, having managed to evade Vampirella and Pantha, takes the Necronomicon to a barbecue grill, where he threatens to roast the book. Before Ash can toss in into the growing flames, Jennifer Blood and Smiley arrive guns-drawn.
Moving to another goverment bunker, Captain Future has managed to capture Red Sonja and Peter Cannon, dismembering them limb from limb as he begins to interrogate them. Future reveals that he wants to take control of the zombie army, but after he begins to monolog to Sonja, her dismembered arm picks up her sword and cuts Captain Future's brain out of his head.
Before the showdown between Blood and Williams can go down, Vampirella and Pantha arrive to "save" Ash. In the mists of the chaos, Jennifer gets her hands on the Book of The Dead and makes her escape. Before the trio can go after her, the zombified Miss Fury and Tabu make their debut, but are quickly defeated.
In the bunker, Peter Cannon places his own decapitated head on the body of one of Frankenstein's Monsters. It is shortly thereafter that Sonja realizes Cannon is not under her control like she thought he was, as he informs her that he plans on launching the nuclear missles hidden within this base without opening the silo doors.
On S-Mart's rooftop, Jennifer Blood and Smiley begin to read a passage from the Necronomicon: "Klaatu, Verata, Nikto". Blood, angry at Smiley for not "curing" her infected children as he had promised, demands to know what is going on. Smiley informs her that the spell just took away control of the army of the dead from Sonja. At that moment, another spell is used to bring Sonja to S-Mart's roof and away from the bunker, moments before the missle takes off.
Sonja kills Jennifer Blood and regains control of the zombies. While she is distracted, Ash grinds the Necronomicon to shreds with the weedwhacker. Smiley then assumes the form of Sonja's sword, finally bonding to her as he originaly wanted. While the group believes the war between the living and dead is finally over, Smiley tells Sonja that the zombies of Drakulon and Mars are coming to finish off the Earth...
Cover Gallery[]
Main Covers[]
Variant Covers[]
Virgin Covers[]
Trivia[]
- Ash Williams had previously appeared with Vampirella, Red Sonja, Pantha, and the Project Superpowers cast in the 2012 crossover series Prophecy, though this story is not connected to the continuity where that series took place.