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Army of Darkness: Shop 'Till You Drop Dead was a four-issue miniseries released by Dynamite Entertainment and Devil's Due Publishing in 2005. Written by James Kuhoric and featuring art by Nick Bradshaw and Sanford Greene, the story is a direct sequel to Dynamite's first Army of Darkness series, Ashes 2 Ashes.

Plot Synopsis[]

Believing the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis was swept away in the sands of Egypt in the aftermath of his second showdown with Evil Ash, Ash Williams has returned to S-Mart, where his medieval girlfriend Sheila has recently found employment in the toiletries department. After a rough start to his shift (having learned his pay will be docked for all the items destroyed during a Deadite attack), Ash's night gets even worse when the Kandarian Demon roars through the store, transforming every customer in it's path into a Deadite. With the aid of his co-workers Buck and Iggy, Ash fights his way through the aisles in the hopes to get to Sheila and Mindy, who are held-up inside the store's cellar. Along the way, Ash gets a new chainsaw, Iggy loses his hand to evil's infection, and battles a new batch of Mini-Ashes. Upon arriving in the cellar, Ash finds that the girls are already possessed, as well as his boss Mr. Smart being the new owner of the Necronomicon. Using the power of the Ex-Mortis, Smart opens up a rift in time, sending him to 2501 AD.

Landing in the futuristic world of Deca City One, Ash battles the zombie-like "Deaduns" before being captured by the Deca City One Military Order and taken to the laboratory of Doctor Sagittarius von Cadillac III. Though Ash is quick to demand that he be taken down to "the community time machine" to get back and save S-Mart, von Cadillac tells him that time travel is a scientific impossibility, though the ancient Necronomicon Program hidden beneath the city was said to be capable of such an act. Given a fresh set of clothes made of "hardened synaptic optical molecules" and a new prosthetic hand equipped with various gadgets, Ash fights through the Deaduns and into the Under City until arriving at the abandoned mainframe where the program is locked away.

After failing to enter the proper three-word password to safely download the program, Ash is pulled into the digital landscape, where he's forced to play against Evil Ash in a racing video game. Unlocking the program's failsafe inside the digital world, Williams emerges back into the real world and heads back to Cadillac's lab, only to discover the mindless Deaduns have gone full-blown Deadite. Using the Necronomicon Program to send Ash back to his time, Cadillac realizes that program also allows for the evil plaguing them to also be sent to the 21st Century with Williams. Though he acknowledges it might be somewhat irresponsible, Cadillac opts to send the Deadites into the time-stream to save Deca City One.

Landing in the S-Mart parking lot naked (as the optical molecules making his armor had simply vanished), Williams makes his way into the clothing department, changing into an Elvis-inspired white and gold jumpsuit. Hearing the cries of terror from Sheila, Ash is confronted by his "upgraded" Deadite-ified co-works (Iggy, Buck, and Mindy), but makes quick work of them using his futuristic gauntlet.

Charging into Mr. Smart's office, Ash manages to break Sheila's Deadite possession by confessing his love for her, all while Smart mutates into a giant scorpion-like form. After Ash turns Smart's brain into a smoothie with the super nose-hair trimmer inside the gauntlet's fingers, he realizes that destroying the book will close the new rift opened at the back of the office. Stuffing a flask filled with booze into the mouth of the Ex-Mortis, Ash destroys the book with a shotgun blast, closing the portal and releasing those who remained of their Deadite possession. Embracing Sheila in the smoldering ruins of the aisle, Ash is unaware of a little boy a few departments over looking at a video game called "Dawn of The Deadites", where Evil Ash's image flickers onto the screen...

Cover Gallery[]

Main Covers[]

Variant Covers[]

Virgin Covers[]

Trivia[]

  • When Ash's fellow S-Mart worker Iggy ends up with a possessed hand like Ash, it is eventually removed and he is left with a stump on his arm and faints. When he awakes, he finds that Ash has replaced his hand with a small hedge trimmer. It's possible that this is a reference to a commercial for the Evil Dead: Hail To The King video game, where a man finds that a chainsaw for a hand is too heavy for his right arm, and replaces it with a hedge trimmer.
  • When Ash returns to the present day from the future, for a couple panels he is drawn with a normal right hand instead of his gauntlet hand.

Continuity Notes[]

  • Sheila's arrival in the 21st Century (noted in the first issue in this series as "another story for another time") would later be depicted in the 2006 one-shot Tales of Army of Darkness.
  • In issue one, Ash walks past the destroyed "Boobtube Boobies" display The Wise Man was examining in Army of Darkness: Ashes 2 Ashes #1.
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