Dynamite Entertainment 2020
Written by Ryan Parrott
Illustrated by Jacob Edgar
Coloured by Kike J. Diaz
Lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou
TEAM ASH (we’re really calling them that?) travel to ANCIENT EGYPT to destroy the Deadite curse once and for all. Unfortunately, they run into LORD DEADITE, the scariest guy in all of history. But before Ash can scoot, Team Ash (sigh) challenges L-Dead to a contest of skills!?!?!?!?
I really haven’t been a big Army of Darkness guy but this arc is utterly amazing, so much fun and a completely different take on the television version of Team Ash. I don’t know what it is about Ryan and his ability to write a team book but it’s probably one of the strongest I have ever come across. Granted these are all aspects of Ash himself and I find it incredibly interesting to see the different sides of himself being shown through them. Also how is it that Ash himself still maintains all of his traits, bravery, knowledge (smarts), cowardice etc., etc,. This borders on bloody genius if you want my opinion.
The way that this is being told is fantastic. How we see the story & plot development moving forward through how the sequence of events unfold as well how the reader learns information is presented perfectly. I am thoroughly enjoying seeing Ash trying to take charge and lead this team of well his various selves and failing miserably at that. Yet regardless of that we all know that in the end through blind dumb luck and a little skill & knowhow he’s going to pull through and get a win. This leads me into the character development that we see within these pages. I love, love, love seeing how the different bodies possess different aspects of his personality. There is something uniquely different about how it’s being accomplished here and showcasing how impressive Ash really is in the end. The pacing is fantastic and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way we see how all of this works together to showcase how well the book is structured and the book's overall ebb & flow.
The interiors here are never what I expect them to be and I am totally okay with that. Jacob has his own style and it’s more on the all-ages side of comic book art but somehow he manages to make it both humorous and serious at the same time. Tiny Ash is phenomenal and I want one lol while the skeleton version really makes me think more Scooby Doo and the rest fall somewhere in between which is what makes this so gosh darn good. I would like to see backgrounds being utilised more often. They really make an impact and with this being Ancient Egypt and inside a Pharaoh's temple I was hoping to see the panels decked out ya know. Kind of like watching Discovery Channel and the secrets of the Pharaoh’s that kind of thing. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a really solid eye for storytelling. The colour work is quite simple but now that it’s done, I hope you don’t, I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words, but seriously it is quite simple but it works with the whole tone of the book. How we see the various hues and tones being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is really well rendered.
There are few franchises that seem to work regardless of the medium we see them in. This is definitely one of them and so long as folks like Ryan understand or find a way to represent the characters so fully we’re never going to be without them. This is brilliant on so many levels and the entire creative team down the expert lettering plays their in making this such a good time.