Darkman Vs. Army of Darkness #1

Written by Kurt Busiek & Roger Stern

Arty by James Fry

Covers by George Perez or Nick Bradshaw

 

Dynamite Entertainment has been snapping up licensed properties left and right of late—Red Sonja, Xena, The Lone Ranger, Highlander, Battlestar Galactica—as if they were jockeying to be the new Dark Horse Comics of the early '90s. One of their latest property acquisitions was Darkman, the hero created by Sam Raimi in his 1990 film of the same name.

 

Darkman seemed to have what it takes to do well in the world of superheroes. His costume evoked the Invisible Man-meets-The Shadow, and he had both a nice, Marvel-style tragedy for motivation (his face was melted off, turning him into a monster who could never face his love) and a cool "power," the ability to create false faces using his scientific prowess to disguise himself as just about anyone, but only for a brief period of time, as the masks quickly melt.

 

Alluding to old Universal Studios monster movies and comic book superheroes, the character seemed to have plenty of life in him, but Raimi abandoned him to pursue more mainstream films, leaving it to others to continue his adventures in a couple of direct-to-video sequels.

 

Now he's in comics, courtesy of old hands Kurt Busiek and Roger Stern, and they're teaming him up with another Raimi creation, Ashley Williams of the Evil Dead trilogy, whom Dynamite has been using in a series of miniseries under the "Army of Darkness" banner.

 

The idea is an inspired one, and the talent is solid (the art is provided by James Fry, and covers come from AOD artist Nick Bradshaw and master George Perez), but it all comes down to the execution, which is, frankly, simply so-so.

 

The beginning of the issue is devoted to re-telling Darkman's origin and getting the Necronomicon into the hands of his love and her assistant. Before you know it, they've conjured up another army of darkness, and Darkman retaliates by using the book to call up a great hero. Guess who.

 

Ash and Darkman don't share any panels until the conclusion, so how well the two franchises will ultimately mold is still a somewhat open question, but after reading most of an issue about Darkman, only to have Ash and the Deadites show up, I found myself wishing they'd get lost so we could get back to Darkman.

 

The Ash vs. the Army of Darkness story has been told so many times before that it's awfully tired at this point, and in dire need of a facelift. Including Darkman in the mix might end up doing the trick, but at this early stage, the prospects don't look all that good.

 

Rating – 6