Comic Review: Freddy Vs. Jason Vs Ash.
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By mikenew -
Jun 02, 2011 02:06 PM EST
I know I've mention many times over and over again how I am a big fan of Friday the 13th films. Surprisingly, I haven't read any of the books or graphic novels on the Friday the 13th series. I have heard good things about "The Crystal Lake memories. I know about "Hate-Kill-Repeat," "Church of the Divine Psychopath" and many books based of Uber Jason. I need to go to the local library to see if they carry these books. If not, I will be buying them. I am looking forward to reading Friday the 13th volume 1 and volume 2 along with Pamelas tales. Both of these are on my next to do list. The only actual graphic novel that I have read based off the Friday the 13th series is Freddy Vs. Jason Vs Ash and Nightmare Warriors. I will admit this was a good piece of literature to read to pass the time. Both of these graphic novels combined are approximately 288 pages(total of twelve comic books). This will be a two part article on the review of Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Ash and on Nightmare Warriors.
Originally, Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Ash was suppose to become a film. It never happened due to conflicting interests on the rights of each character. I will admit, if the movie script was based off this comic than it wouldn't have good reviews at the box office. I am glad I got that off my chest. Freddy vs Jason Vs. Ash is a six issue comic book series that came out in November 2007. The last issue was released in March of 2008. This is a DC graphic novel that was published by Wildstorm/Dynamite Entertainment. The writers, James Khuroic and Jeff Katz, did an amazing job by being true to each character. They didn't change anything to the characters. They were the same characters that we know and love from their films. I loved how Jason Craig brought every detail out on his artwork from every scene to every character in the comic. I could definitely become a big fan of his work. The covers were created by J. Scott Campbell and Eric Powell. They did a great job by catching the reader's attention on the design of the covers. The cover of a comic book is always an attention getter of mine when I am comic book shopping. We can't forget about Thomas Mason who was the Colorist and Jared K. Fletcher who did the Letters, both who did an excellent job as well. If they do make a trilogy of the series, I hope all of them will be back to participate in it.
Freddy Vs. Jason Vs Ash takes place five years after the Freddy Vs Jason movie and ten years after Evil Dead Army of Darkness (December 2008). The story acts as a sequel for Jason Vs. Freddy and for all three films of the Evil Dead. The story starts out with Will (the Ritter Boy) and Lori returning to Crystal Lake to get closure on the terrifying experience they had with Jason and Freddy. They decide to split up to look around to make sure that both Jason and Freddy dead. Crystal lake is known as Forest Green in the comic. After searching, Lori comes back to the car looking for Will. She doesn't find Will, but she notices blood on the ground. She goes inside The Voorhees' house and finds Will's dead boy with his insides spill to the ground. She turns around and sees Jason. Lori puts up a good fight, but she eventually gets killed by Jason. Jason disposes both bodies. Shortly, Jason goes into some type of trance or dream state and Freddy controls his mind. Freddy and Pamela Voorhees is talking to Jason. Both of them convince Jason to get the Necronomicon book. Freddy needs this book to come back to the real world. In return, Jason will become a normal boy again. Jason decides to do it. We show that a new character is introduced in the story. It is Evil Dead's Ash. He is being relocated to the new S-Mart in Forest Green so he can train a group of teenage employees. The first day on the job, Ash sees a murder out in the parking lot of S-Mart. Ash thanks it's from the deadites, but a witness said it was the work of Jason. Cops try to arrest Ash but his manager is his alibi. Ash gets off the hook from the cops. While Ash is in the store, a female employee, Carrie (which becomes Ash's lover) tells him the story of Jason Voorhees. While she is doing that, two male teenagers play a prank on Ash. One of them puts on a hockey mask and charges Ash with a hockey stick with ketchup on it. Ash thinks it's a deadite and kicks the teen on his ass. He realizes it's a prank but is pissed because he is on edge. Bree, a shopper at S-Mart has Ash help her get supplies for a camping trip that she is going on with some friends. Bree tells Ash that they are going to the Voorhees' house. Bree suckers Ash into buying the supplies with his employee discount. He helps Bree out to her car, thinking he is getting some tail. This was another prank Ash falls into because she has guys in the car who make old man jokes to Ash, which continues to piss him off. Ash goes to the Voorhees' house so he can retrieve the Necronomicon book. He gets the book. Jason appears at the house killing the same teens that were in the car at S-Mart except Bree. Ash and Jason get into a fight. Ash and Bree almost meet their fate at the hands of Jason, but Carrie saves the day. Ash and the S-mart employees make a pack to take on Jason. Jason shows up at S-Mart and kills everyone in the store and takes the book. Jason gives Freddy the book and he is able to come into the real world with full power and make Jason more intelligent. Freddy starts coming into Ash and the S-mart Employees' dreams. Ash and the employees go to the Voorhees' house to take Freddy on but Freddy already has all the Necronomicon power giving him complete control of reality. Jason eventually turns on Freddy after Freddy doesn't hold his bargain than unleashes all of Jason's dead victims on him. Freddy turns the Voorhees' house into The Nightmare on Elm street house. Ash is in a battle with Freddy and Jason as Carrie reads the passage from the Necronomicon. The book opens up a portal dragging Jason and Freddy into it while Carrie and Ash is holding on for dear life. At the end, Ash and Carrie have a happy ending. We see Jason and the Necronomicon book isolated underneath A frozen Camp Crystal Lake. The Necronomicon book is open and we see pictures of Jason, Ash, and Freddy. We see Jason open up his eyes indicating he is alive and well.
I loved the opening scene from the comic when they gave us a quick recap on what happened with the Freddy Vs. Jason movie. I thought it was a great idea bringing back Lori and Will for the sequel. I didn't agree with the writers killing them off so soon in the series. They were the same people who survived the first movie with Freddy and Jason. They went through many obstacles with them from Freddy's dream sequences to the burning house scene to the Camp Crystal lake fight on the boat dock. Jason kills them off like they are nothing in this comic. What is up with that? I wish the writer would of used Will and Lori to help Ash take on Jason and Freddy then kill them off in the third comic book of the series. I do understand why the writer did this because Lori and Will aren't the main characters, but I didn't agree with it. I agreed with the writer on having the story take place in the winter season. We haven't seen Jason do any of his kills in snow before so this was a treat. I didn't agree with the fact that they did it in the month of December. In December, I like to think about my plans for the holiday. So when I was reading the comic and watching all the deaths that took place in the holiday season, it was a turn off. I know the writer did this because the first of six comics came out in the month of December, but it was a dumb idea. It would of been better to have it take place in January or February.
I thought the Jason kills on here were pretty sweet. I felt they were good old fashion Friday the 13th deaths. I did like the idea the writer had when Jason approached a group of female teens who had Freddy's face instead of their own faces. When Jason seen that he just took them all out with his machete by slicing and dicing them to death. It gave the reader a sense of hatred that Jason still had towards Freddy even though he was helping him. I did like the death scene when Jason smashed both of the girls heads together and the death scene in the voorhees house when he rip the girl in half with his bare hands. We can't forget when he smashed that man's face to death. The writers definitely showed Jason's strength towards his victims. I didn't like the death scene that Jason had with the group of Christmas carolers. The writer could of either left that out of the comic or substituted it with some random death scene. If you are like me, this would of depressed you with the holiday right around the corner. The scene when Jason enters the S-Mart killing everyone in there was a good idea because it did remind me of the scene of the rave party in Freddy Vs Jason. However, the death scene when the elderly man got smashed to death with a shopping cart was totally uncalled for. I thought it was a creative idea to do but the writer should of had one of those punk, teenage employees in place of the elderly man because they would of deserved that type of death. The death scene Freddy had with his victim through the dream sequence was well played. The victim, an S-mart employee, had a dream he was playing a game of dodge ball with Freddy being the coach. The S-mart employee gets smashed to death with dodge balls by other teens in his dream. Freddy, I think, only killed one person in this comic book series. I didn't like that because I felt like they were trying to copy the Jason vs. Freddy movie all over again.
I do give kudos to the writers on how well they played Freddy dream sequences in this comic. Most of the dream sequences were from Jason and Ash. I did like how Jason tried once again to kill Freddy in his dream by putting a machete into his back. What I didn't like was that they had to have a sex scene with Freddy and Pamela getting it on like two horny teenagers. They had the audacity to have Pamela Voorhees say "that's no way to treat your new daddy." I didn't like the writer's references throughout the comic of Freddy being refereed as "Jason's daddy". I thought it was unnecessary I thought they should of had the Pamela Voorhees character out of the series. We know that Jason doesn't like Freddy but he helps him anyways. So having Jason's mom in the series on Freddy side is telling you that he doesn't like his mom either. I thought it was a slap in the face to the Friday films? I did think it was stupid the bargain Freddy and Jason had. If Jason gets the Necronomicon book than he can become a normal little boy again. Why would he want to become a normal boy when he can continue to be feared by the Crystal Lake/Fores green community? The dream sequence that Jason had at the beginning when he saw himself as a boy being picked on was fantastic. It was like a reminder to him of why he needs to continue to do what he loves to do and that is to get the taste of camp counselor's blood. The dream sequence of little Jason had with Freddy was funny too. We see little Jason in a classroom with a blackboard in the background with picture of the Necronomicon book. Freddy is yelling at little Jason telling him how easy the task was to get the book and explaining it to him like a math problem. He goes into little Jason's thoughts and pulls out Ash's employee id. I found this humorous, but this was copied from the Freddy Vs. Jason movie when Freddy sticks his claws into Jason's head to read his thoughts. It did work this time in the comic. I did like how Freddy brought Jason's victims back from the dead, attack him and try to take him to hell, but Jason easily overpowered and destroyed them. I did like how Freddy uses his powers to multiply himself to fight Jason, but Jason was able to destroy the duplicates without a problem. Once again, demonstrating why he is my favorite horror villain. I did enjoy the idea of making Jason more intelligent in this series. By making him more intelligent he had a better fight with Freddy in this comic compared to the movie.
The dream sequences with Ash in the tool shed was cool, but it felt like I was watching the Evil Dead movies all over again with the exception of Freddy. We see a claw come out of Ash's fingers and he is forced to cut it off. The blood on the ground turns into miniature Freddie's. The miniature Freddie's turns into a whole Freddy than all of these claw hands attack Ash while he is trying to kill them. I wasn't impressed with it. I did like how Freddy uses his powers in the real world while trying to take the Necronomicon from Ash. Freddy has the ability to bring trees to life to attack Ash. I thought that was a pretty cool idea. I did enjoy the scene with the little girls who sing the Freddy song attack Ash. We see more in detail that they aren't real girls but demon children. I know why no one messes with these girls in the Nightmare movies. However, Ash destroys them like they are nothing. I thoroughly enjoyed how Ash was able to overcome Freddy's supernatural powers with his awesome arsenal of weapons especially the chainsaw and the shotgun. The dark cloud of Freddy's face looking down on Carrie and Ash was very cool. I did enjoy the demonic look Freddy had towards the end of the comic to demonstrate all the power he obtain from the Necronomicon in the real world, but I felt this was just another copy of Jason vs Freddy movie when he had that look when he jumped out of the lake.
The writers stayed true to Freddy's comedic lines and Ash's trademark lines. We have Ash use lines in the comic describing how ugly Jason and Freddy both were which had me laughing out loud a few times. The line he says to Jason when he knocks his mask off "I think the ugly stick got beat with your face" or when they are at the S-mart store, "Yo Wayne Deadski, Hockey Fan, you know they say a slap shot travels over hundred miles an hour but I find a buckshot goes a hell of a lot faster than that". He says to Freddy in his dream "you saved me from tracking down your flame broiled ass" and "I have never been good at party games except pretty chicks and dark closets." I did enjoy some of the comedy, but it started to get out of hand. I felt like I was watching the three stooges fighting each other. When Freddy says to Jason in the final battle scene I am glad to see you because he talks to much. I couldn't of said it better myself. Ash uses the trademark, "hail to the King" and "give me some sugar baby," but it wasn't Ash saying it; it was Carrie. That never gets old. When Ash got rejected from Bree he uses the "you and me again quart of oil and a six pack" while tapping his car was amusing because I can relate to that one.
I like the comedic line Freddy says to Jason because he makes a reference on the Freddy Vs Jason Movie. "Thanks for everything kiddo kind of makes up for you ripping my arms off and beating me with them before" and "Have fun hacking up campers and virgins kill a few for me." Both lines were funny. You can't forget when little Jason is sitting on Freddy's lap telling him a story, "it's a real holiday killer." However, like Ash's lines, it started to get ridiculous. When you hear lines like "hello mcfag anybody there" or "over sized retarted, cancerous noggin" and "swing and a miss didn't that meat-sweater wearing dyke of a mother teach you how to play ball." It starts to get pretty damn irritating. Freddy also uses his funny, sexual lines when he is about to kill a woman trapped at the Nightmare house. For example, when he has Carrie cornered, "my sweet, sweet, cherry pie"....... I like how you saved your cherry for me Caroline, which wasn't funny at all. I felt that the writers were beating Freddy's comedy down into the ground and it was making the comic worse.
The fights in the comic was what sold me in the series. We see Ash and Jason go at it a few times, we see Ash and Freddy go at it, Freddy and Jason, Ash, Jason, and Freddy in the final showdown. The fight scenes at the Voorhees' house and at the S-mart between Ash and Jason kept me interested and entertained. Ash got his ass handed to him when Jason puts his head through a wall at the Voorhees' house and puts him through a window at S-mart, knocking him out cold. Ash still got a couple of good licks in with his shotgun. The fight scene that Ash had with Freddy in the dream world almost put me to sleep because it was just like a recap of Evil Dead one and two. The writers didn't disappoint me on the final battle between Ash, Freddy, and Jason. In the final battle we get a taste of why Ash is the king of kicking creature's asses. He does a good job of handing Freddy's ass to him when Freddy has all of these supernatural abilities. He holds his own against Jason as well in the final battle after Jason whip his ass twice. He shoots the hockey mask off of Jason, he puts a hole through Jason's body, and he cuts Jason's hand off with his chainsaw(Once again copied off the Jason vs Freddy movie). I loved the fight scene with Freddy going up against Jason. This was the best fight that they had with the many epic battles over the years. They were able to do it on a comic and not a movie which makes it better. Since Jason has more intelligence, he gives Freddy a good ass whipping. Freddy tries everything in his power to stop Jason but can't. Freddy summons the dead to attack Jason, but Jason outsmarts them. While he is beating up Freddy, Freddy multiplies himself with several Freddie's surrounding him. He was able to whip all of them. I do like how Jason puts his machete in his arm and uses it for a weapon, which was kind of cool because I felt like he was one with the machete type of thing. He still couldn't hit Freddy with it which was another copy of Freddy Vs. Jason. I was rooting for Jason the whole way, but I did like the way the comic series ended.
I feel that the writers did a good job with sticking to the true characters. The writers never tried to change their image or back story at all which I respect them for as a big horror fan. I did enjoy how the writers took a common interest, Necronomicon book, to bring the characters together in a fashion to make the readers understand how the crossover happened. The plot of the story was great, the way they brought Freddy into the real world was much better than how the film did it. I don't know how Jason reappeared out of no where in the beginning of the comic but it worked for the comic. The artwork, the writing, the dialogue, and the characters in the comics were well written. I know that the writers and illustrators took the time to bring a good story to the table for fans of the Friday, Nightmare, and Evil Dead series. However, I do feel that this wasn't a horror comic book what so ever. I feel that this was just an encore of Freddy Vs Jason in a comic with a third wheel. I feel that they repeated things many times from the movie over and over again in the comic which at times made me lose interest in the six book series. I feel that they should of made Freddy darker in this comic instead of having him constantly do stand up comedy. a few one liners he said did make me laugh, but most of it had me shaking my head saying "why man, why?" This should of been called Jerry Seinfeld Vs. Jason Vs. Ash. Freddy wasn't scary at all in this comic. After awhile, I felt like that the writer needed to kill off Freddy and focus on Jason and Ash. There was no point in the comic that indicated why Freddy was needed as a third character. He didn't do nothing for me. The writers should of made the series based on Jason Vs. Ash because they were the only characters that kept me on my feet(Carrie was a good character as well). If this was Jason vs. Ash than it would make sense to bring Freddy back as a character in the sequel, Nightmare Warriors. I am being generous on my score because I am a big fan of all three of these Characters. I give the six series comic 5/10. Please feel free to tell me how you would score this on a ten point scale.
On my next article I will do the review on "Nightmare Warriors."