We get a pretty anti-climactic ending to this series this month.  The positives this series had going for it were that it really nailed the Army of Darkness tone and Ash’s voice.  The action was fast paced, but well done and all in all it was a nice addition to the series. Well… it didn’t detract from the series. Traditionally when a franchise heads to space it provides an opportunity for one of two things.  Those being a freefall into mediocrity by way of clown shoes ridiculousness or a subject of satire mocking all the other crappy space installments made by other franchises.  Examples of the former being Hellraiser 4 and Leprechaun in Space and an example of the latter is Jason X.  It’s sort of the last bastion of storytelling when you have nothing else to write about because it’s easy to take something and install it into a sci-fi setting in an attempt to make it interesting.  I think this makes a pass at being Jason X but manages to be more Leprechaun in Space.

This issue follows Ash as he finishes off the Deadite satellite with the Necronomicon.  It starts with the most ludicrous history lesson ever that completely fits with the Ash character as it meanders from Ben Franklin inventing the television to the US fighting England for the right to call television its own.  This issue moves at light speed as a good third of it is completely word free action but the action doesn’t really flow as well as the action in the previous issues.  It’s kind of bland actually and I found it a little hard to follow.  So as the middle third goes screaming by we close with a twist ending as Ash and astronaut lady land on some weird looking Earth that looks like it’s possessed by the Deadites anyway.

As I’ve said the earlier issues really nailed the tone and the voice of the series and this issue isn’t really all that different, but it just feels like it went flaccid after about 2/3’s into the last issue.  When Ash finally got a hold of the Necronomicon to send the evil back the story seemed to run out of steam.  It was somewhat promising that the huge satellite came to life because it offered an impressive final enemy.  Instead we kind of get the equivalent of a slap fight between the twice defeated Evil Ash (I’m counting Army of Darkness as loss number one) and Ash while the giant demonic satellite just vanishes from the story.  It’s just hard to hold your heat when you’ve already been beaten twice.  At the point of the third fight I’m expecting you to lose and, much like a prom night date, I just want to get this over with so I can tell all my friends how crappy it was.

As an ending of a story I didn’t really need to read this, I could have left it up to my imagination at the end of the last issue and just waited for the next mini-series to assemble the pieces.  Granted that wouldn’t be all that satisfying but honestly this wasn’t all that satisfying either.

Score: 2/5

Army of Darkness – Ash in Space #5 Writer: Cullen Bunn Artist: Larry Watts Colorist: Aikau Olivia Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment Price: $3.99 Release Date: 4/1/15 Format: Mini-Series; Print/Digital