19 Years Ago, Marvel Had a Perfect Crossover That Combined Decades of Lore With a Major Series

Marvel is best known for their undefeatable superheroes, but only the main universe’s heroes win every time. There are countless alternate worlds where Earth’s heroes fail, fall, or become the very threats they swore to protect people against. One of the most famous of those worlds is Marvel Zombies. Here, Marvel’s mightiest heroes found themselves infected with an irresistible hunger that drove them to consume every living thing they came across. The original series sparked a whole train of sequels, detailing everything from the zombies’ adventures to consume parallel universes to alternate takes on their deadly plague. However, our subject here today is the original story with a distinct twist.

Videos by ComicBook.com

On March 7, 2007, Marvel’s superpowered zombies crossed paths with the legendary Evil Dead franchise. Ash J. Williams was no stranger to fighting the dead, but his comic book counterpart got much more than he bargained for when he started a universe-hopping adventure. He fought the dead all across time, space, and the multiverse, but finally met his match when he was dropped smack dab into the plot of the original Marvel Zombies comic. The five-issue series Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness detailed his epic battle to save what he could on a doomed world, and the first issue was released nineteen years ago.

Ash Versus the Army of the Dead

After Ash died at the end of the first volume of The Army of Darkness, but upon reaching the Pearly Gates, found the zombified Sentry who started the entire infection in the first place. Ash tried to shoot the undead hero, but was backhanded into the Marvel Universe, where the Necronomicon prophesied that this world would end and an army of the undead would rise. After accidentally helping Thunderball take down Daredevil, Ash tried to warn the Earth’s heroes, but they laughed him off as a loon. That was their biggest mistake, as the zombified Sentry arrived in the middle of Manhattan and tore people apart, closing the time loop of the infection and starting the end of the world.

Ash decided he wasn’t going to take any flak from the “costumed freaks” and set off to find the Necronomicon, saving Dazzler and recruiting Scarlet Witch along the way. You just know that Ash can’t save the day without a hot lady at his side. They tried to get help from Doctor Strange, but while the good Sorcerer Supreme was out, they did learn that the Necronomicon was in the heart of Latveria, squarely in Doctor Doom’s hands. The trio somehow managed to get to Doom’s castle, which served as humanity’s last stronghold.

Doom obviously did not trust or like Ash, but after some conniving and stealing one of Doom’s spare armors, Ash found the Necronomicon. He threatened it to undo its curse, but the book revealed that it hadn’t started this infection, so it couldn’t stop it. Ash almost lost hope, especially when he lost Dazzler and Scarlet Witch to the zombies, but had a last-minute idea to save who he could. He convinced the book that the zombies would eat it too, unless it helped them escape. The Neconomicon summoned a Deadite army to hold back the zombies while Ash and the human survivors escaped to a new universe. The Necronomicon, for its trouble, was turned into the Hulk’s toilet paper.

A Zombie and Deadite Battle Was Worth all the Gory Glory

Marvel Zombies is one of the longest-running and most popular alternate universes in Marvel, and its history has been ever-expanding. It started as a plot point in Ultimate Fantastic Four (2004), but took off when it got its own series. It spawned countless sequels, but the true origin of the zombie plague was left unknown until Marvel Zombies Return, where Uatu the Watcher kept the infection from spreading outside two universes by trapping them in a time loop of infecting one another. Ash was apparently an essential part of that, as Sentry wound up in Heaven instead of the original zombified Earth, and it was through him that Sentry started infecting the world.

Just like Marvel Zombies, the Evil Dead franchise has a very dedicated fan base and is all about battling the dead, though Ash always comes out on top in the end. Funnily enough, this crossover is essential to Dynamite’s Evil Dead comics, as Ash died in the final issue of their first volume, making this a rare crossover with implicit mythos importance, as this shows how Ash came back to life and started his multiversal adventure. Ash, even though he’s the Chosen One, is a normal guy, at the end of the day. He never stood a chance against the superpowered chaos in Marvel, but he more than made his mark, helping usher countless lives to safety and being tied to the zombie origin in the first place.

This crossover kick-started a whole lot of fun, horror-filled comics that Ash is known for. Which Evil Dead comic crossover is your favorite? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!