Comic Review: Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Ash Nightmare Warriors
By mikenew -
Jun 06, 2011 03:06 PM EST
Happy Monday to everyone. I hope you are keeping cool like me during this hot weather we are having. Today, I wanted to finish up on part two of my article on the Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Ash comic book series. In this article, we are going to review the "Nightmare Warriors" graphic novel. Like I stated before, this comic series is based off the Freddy Vs. Jason movie. This is the sequel to the first comic series that came out back in November 2007. This is a DC comic published by Wildstorm /Dynamite Entertainment. Both Jeff Katz and James Kuhoric came back as the writers attached to this series. Jason Craig returned and does some more excellent artwork for the comic, Once again. For the sequel, we have Wes Abbott instead of Jared K. Fletcher doing the Letters and we have Gabe Eltaeb instead of Thomas Mason as the colorist. Both Wes and Gabe brought some excellent talent to this comic. The first issue was released in August of 2009 and the last issue was released in December of 2009.
Here is a brief plot on the story. The story takes place six months ago after the first comic series. On the sequel, Gordon Russell, the Director of a group of government agents, search for the Necronomicon book in Camp Crystal lake. They are using the book for their own personal project, "Project Black Book." As Russell leaves for the day, agents go underwater in Crystal lake. They find Jason's body down there. Jason wakes up and kills all of them. Freddy disguises himself as Jason's mother and motivates Jason to leave Camp Crystal Lake to search for Ash. Ash is living in Michigan with his girlfriend, Caroline (from the first series). Ash officially claimed himself as retired from fighting creatures. Ash gets a visit from Doctor Maggie Burroughs. She wants Ash to Join a group her and Doctor Neil Gordon is apart of. They are a group of survivors who have fought evil with supernatural powers. Ash gets upset and sends Dr. Burroughs away. Ash has to run an errand and leaves Caroline alone. In another scene, Stephanie Kimble and Alice Johnson has visions of both Jason and Freddy. While this is going on, Caroline gets killed by Jason. Russell has a plan to create an army of evil compliments of the Necronomicon book. Ash discovers Caroline's body as the police are arriving. He leaves. While Ash runs away, someone in a hummer is spying on him. Russell is able to pull Freddy out of the Necronomicon with the use of modern technology. However, Freddy is in human form. He isn't burnt and he has no powers. Ash goes on a train heading to Maryland after deciding to join Dr. Burroughs group. Jason follows him by hiding in a vehicle's boxcar. When Ash arrives in Maryland he arrives at Dr. Burroughs and Dr. Neil's house where he meets the group. The group is; Stephanie, her father, Steven, and son Jacob. Tina Shepard and Rennie Wickham are living there. Maggie talks about Neil's plans with Ash. Jason shows up and kills Steven. As Ash gets ready to battle Jason, the man in the hummer drives through the wall hitting Jason. The man is reveled as Tommy Jarvis. Government agents arrive at Maggie's house and takes Jason down with bullets and missiles. Ash and the group go to a motel. Maggie wants to visit her father, Gordon Russell, to use the Necronomicon to kill Jason and Freddy. Tommy decides to go rogue. Jason is captured in a holding cell with Deadites at the Capitol. Freddy visits him in his mind who proposes they kill everyone in the world. Jason accepts when he hears that he will be meeting his old enemies. Jason, with his new body, is the general of the Deadites. The group arrive at the Capitol except Stephanie and Jacob. They are locked up except Maggie, Neil, and Rennie, who Russell takes to visit Freddy. Freddy gets transformed back into his old body and says him and Necronomicon are bonded as one. Russell attacks Freddy with his own glove but Maggie kills Russell. We find out Maggie is Freddy's Daughter, Kathryn Krueger and the group thing was part of an evil plan. She attacks Neil and Rennie. Tina feels Rennie's death through her psychic abilities and uses this to break out of the cell. Tina, Ash, and Alice escape. Jason and his army march through Washington.
Ash, Tina, and Alice fight and destroy a Freddy-controlled robot to get the Necronomicon. Tommy finds Jason on Washington's streets as they are annihilating the Capitol. While Tommy is fighting Jason, he is attacked by winged Deadites and they take him back to Freddy. Jacob and Stephanie fall asleep at the hotel and Freddy takes advantage of this. Jacob calls out for his mother while he is being attacked by Freddy. Alice hears the voice and uses her special powers to transport herself, Ash, and Tina into Jacob's nightmare. Freddy escapes with Jacob. They wake up from the dream. Tommy and Jacob are both held hostage at the White House. Freddy disguised as the President starts talking about a new policy called "no kid left alive" as he address the whole United States about it. He tells them that he is doing this globally. Ash and the survivors break into a pawn shop to get weapons.
Ash, Tina, Alice, and Stephanie make their way to the White House as it's raining blood. Stephanie goes alone after Ash and Alice's bickering. The group are able to sneak by after the military show up to fight the deadites. Stephanie falls asleep and she is in the dream world. She is at a church and meets Freddy which is disguised as a priest. Freddy tells her she has to be a killer since she is part of the Voorhees family. She puts on a hockey mask and goes after Jason. At the White House, Maggie and Jason get into a fight but Tina shows up. She uses her supernatural abilites and lands a tank in the room that kills Maggie. Ash rescues Neil, Jacob, and Tommy. Alice confronts Freddy face-to-face. She has a terminal illness that causes her powers to be very weak. Freddy kills her and she passes her powers to Jacob. As she dies, souls that Freddy killed over the years are released and help kill the army of deadites. As they have the upper hand, Freddy wounds Jacob which causes the souls to disappear. Ash fights Freddy and Tommy fights Jason. Stephanie appears and hits Jason with the machete. Tommy is able to capitalize and cut Jason's head off with glass. Freddy absorbs Jason's soul to increase his own power. As Neil is having a tough time reading the Necronomicon passage, he is joined by the spirit of Nancy. This helps Neil open up the passage. Freddy fights the vortex but the Necronomicon tells Freddy he doesn't deserve the powers and takes them away. Freddy is human again which he pleads for his life, but Ash shoots him with the shotgun and Freddy falls into the vortex. Nancy leaves to join the other spirits. We see Jason's hand trying to find his head. His mom's voice tells him he can never die. Ash says goodbye the next morning to all the survivors. Tommy is the captain of the Nightmare Warriors. We get a flashback on Springwood 1964. A disoriented Agent Wesley Carter, who fell into the Necronomicon vortex finds himself in the Springwood Police Department. This was the day Freddy got arrested. He signs Freddy's paperwork when he finds the file on his desk. By doing this, he alters history.
Before I did my review, I had to go back and read this six book series. This is my second time I have read the series. On my first read, I thought the original Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Ash was better than this. However, I had a change of heart after reading this a second time. I enjoyed this graphic novel much better than the first one. I felt that the writer did a better job with Freddy on the sequel. Freddy still had his comedic lines in this series such as calling Jason "shit for brains" and the "no kid left alive" thing. This time, the comedy wasn't beat down to the ground. In this comic, I felt Freddy was more superior, powerful, and manipulating than annoying. I felt he was more darker in here. He didn't do as many dream sequences in the series and he didn't kill any victims in here, but that makes up for the other aspects he did in the comic. Freddy was much more powerful in this series. At first, I didn't like how he was brought back into the real world in human form by Gordon Russell. Later on, the readers realize that this was a disguise he was using until he had the right time to show his real image. I enjoyed the many different disguises that Freddy had in this series. He was disguised as President George Bush, a human version of himself, a priest, and Stephanie. I liked how the writer demonstrated Freddy's powers through the death of Jacob's mom and by stabbing Jacob since both of them had "special powers". I thought it was so cool on the mind games Freddy played on his victims and even on Jason. He was very manipulating in the series especially when he convinces Stephanie to murder just like Jason. He continues this manipulation through Jason by turning into his mom to bring him out of Camp Crystal Lake. I did like the few dream sequences he did in here such as the one he did with Jacob by seducing him disguised as Stephanie, the visit he paid to Jacob in the movie theater, and him pretending to be a priest at the church. I did like the scene when he pulled Stephanie's skin off and reveled himself, but I thought it was awkward because the nightmare warriors had to put it back on. I felt that they needed to skip that part because later on the writer involved Stephanie in a twist to the series. I felt that the skin scene and the twist of the series didn't work together. They should of used the skin scene with a different character. I thought it was cool how Freddy became that cloud in the sky to destroy military helicopters, but I didn't like how him and the deadites was easily able to defeat the military. I am a huge patriot of The good ol USA so I think the writer should of made the military more powerful in the series. In my book, Freddy was much needed in this series compared to the last series. The writer did so much stuff with him. I felt that the writer took the time to establish the Freddy character more in this series. I saw a lot of good things about Freddy in here, but I do feel that most of Freddy's material were copied from past nightmare movies and received nothing new or fresh.
I did like the two twist that they had in the series. I like the twist on How Dr. Maggie Burroughs was Kathryn Kueger and how Stephanie became a copy cat just like Jason Voorhees. Maggie united all the survivors from the Jason and Freddy films just to bring them together for a common purpose. However, she did it for her own benefit. In the series, we think Maggie/Kathryn is a genuine doctor who wants to really help the survivors make their fears disappear forever from the two villains, but all she really wanted to do was trap them and have her father, Freddy kill them. She is a stone cold killer and she proves that by killing Dr. Neil, Renee, and Gordon Russell. I am glad they killed off Gordon Russell because I felt he lived long enough in the series. All we needed to know was why he needed the Necronomicon and he was Maggie's father. I felt there were too many characters to keep track of and it made things confusing. I enjoyed the fight scene that she did with human Jason. The fight scene was short and she got her life ended but, she won that fight against Jason. I did like how the writer introduced her into the story at the White House. I felt it was the right time to do it but having her own daddy grope her and tongue her is down right sick. For the twist of Stephanie, I liked it because it was short and to the point. I do like how Freddy manipulated her just like he does with Jason. He tells her she is a Voorhees and she needs to act like one. I did like how she was a distraction during the outcome of the Jason and Tommy Jarvis fight, but I didn't like her wearing the hockey mask. By having her where the hockey mask I felt like the writer was trying to create another Jason in the series and it would of been a waste of time. Only one person dons the hockey mask and that's Jason. I feel that the writers could do a spin off of the Stephanie character and use her for future Fright the 13th comic books.
I did like the Ash character more in this series than the first one. I didn't like how they killed Caroline off in this comic. I felt they pulled a Will and Lori. Caroline should of survived this series. The writer continued to keep Ash's mannerism but to a limit. I did enjoy some of his new lines in the comic like calling Dr. Maggie, "Dr. Elvira" and "wicked bitch of Baltimore." I I enjoyed when he said to Tommy Jarvis, "you don't know jack S**t jeeves" and "Don't play after school special shit with me" talking to Freddy as he shoots him with his trusty shotgun. I felt Ash was much more tougher and a more experience fighter when he fought Freddy in the series. He put up a good fight in the dream world with Freddy. He definitely did some damage to Freddy's face by throwing CDS. He also demonstrated more of his toughness when he destroyed the Freddy Robot. I thought it was a stupid idea to bring a Freddy robot into that fight scene. I think the writer should of had Ash fight a really tough deadite or have Leatherface or Hellraiser make a special cameo to do that fight scene with Ash. My favorite fight scene was Ash vs Freddy's final battle on the Capitol. I was really looking forward to it.
The concept with the Nightmare Warriors was really cool, but I do think the writers went way overboard with all these special powers that they had. If they had all these powers than the story wouldn't of gotten this far out of hand. Tina should of been the one who had powers. The writer had Alice, Jacob, and Tina have special powers. I felt it was really corny giving Alice these special powers, but she couldn't use them at full capacity due to a terminal illness. When she gets killed her powers transfer to her son Jacob. Really? Really? They also had the power to transfer themselves in the Dream world without falling asleep? I understand that the writer might of been bringing something new and fresh with the Nightmare Warriors group, but it wasn't working for me. Now I understand why they didn't want anything new and fresh with the first series. Nightmare Warriors did have powers to summon the souls of Freddy's victims to stop the Deadites invasion which I thought was pretty cool but I felt it did started to get beat to death when they had the ghost of Nancy and the ghost of Freddy's mom that tried to stop Freddy. It was kind of amusing on how the characters were letting their egos get to the best of them such as the scene when Tommy Jarvis and Ash was arguing on who could kill Jason than Tommy walks out and goes rogue than it comes back on him. I didn't like how the writer portrayed Tommy Jarvis' character. I felt that Tommy was a whiny kid out to get revenge on a bully that took his favorite childhood toy away from him. I thought the writer did this because he was working with so many characters that he didn't have the time to establish the Tommy character. I started to think it was a bad idea with bringing all these new characters in the sequel because I started to leave astray. The final battle scene Tommy had with Jason made me respect the Tommy character especially after decapitating Jason and holding it up like a trophy. It was the conclusion of a long rival. As a whole, the Nightmare warriors were really powerful. As individuals, they could of got picked off one by one by Jason like random teenagers.
I did like some of the new things that they did with Jason's character. For example, when Jason came back to life he looked the same way as he did on the previous comic. He had no arm and he had his mask off. If you watch the previous Friday Films they never do that. One minute Jason is a normal little kid, but the next film he is a full grown adult with a hockey mask. How did he do that? I liked how they made no changes and kept him the same. What I didn't like was when he put his hockey mask back on and he looked like the phantom of the opera with fangs. The writer either should of had a new hockey mask on his face or maybe went with sack Jason. I would of preferred him without the hockey mask because he looks pretty scary without it. The kills were still awesome in the comic. I like how Jason jumps out of the lake and kills all of the agents like nobodies. I do like the underwater deaths he does. It was very cool how Jason was able to get his first kills of the comic at his hometown of Camp Crystal Lake. He kills highly trained agents like nothing. I do like the kill scenes he does on the train. We do see a scene where Jason becomes an anti hero for a split second. Three guys are getting ready to go after a single woman but Jason shows up and kills all of them. It only takes one slice of the machete for the dead woman to join the three dead guys. My favorite kill of the series is when Jason crashes into Dr. Maggie's house and smashes Steven's head in. Once again, I love how they show the strength of Jason just by doing the little things. I did enjoy the scene when agents shoot bullets and missiles on Jason. It was almost like watching a clip of the beginning of Jason goes to hell. It was a good idea to have Jason become a general of the deadites and have them march throughout Washington killing people. I did think it was annoying though having the deadites talk. If they were to talk, they should of said something intelligent other than wanting to eat people. I did like the kill scene when Jason and the Deadites entered the state of emergency meeting killing all of the congressman, but I felt it was a copied scene from the cornfield scene and the S-Mart scene in the previous series. As I read more and more through the comic, I did feel that human Jason was more weak than traditional Jason. Do you want to know what was good about human Jason? Nothing, absolutely nothing. He somewhat looked like the Jason from the 2009 reboot, but I didn't like how he was portrayed as being weak. He gets his ass kicked by two women in this series. He gets unmasked as human Jason compliments of Tommy Jarvis. He looks just like the same people he have been killing his entire career, a young, weak, teenager. I wish they wouldn't of unmasked him in this series. what I hated the most about this series was they had Jason talk. I wanted to choke the writer out after this. It was bad enough having people transport to the dream world without being asleep, but this was worse. Jason says the "word" mommy because Tommy Jarvis pretends to do Pamela Voorhees voice. This was my biggest disappointment of the comic series was how weak they made Jason as a human. Like I stated before, the writer should of just stayed in his comfort zone.
In the first comic series, I stated that Freddy wasn't needed in the storyline. I feel the same about Jason in this one. In this series, I feel that Freddy and Ash were the only people that made this series good. Adding some of the survivors of the Nightmare and Friday films spiced it up a bit, but they kept the story entertaining. I feel that they should of just killed Jason off early in the series instead of making him suffer in human form. This series didn't feel like a Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Ash type of fight. Jason and Freddy never fought each other in this series. We would see a few scenes now and than when Jason would just randomly attack Freddy for no reason such as when Jason was in a holding cell he just stabbed Freddy in the head while Freddy was talking to him. There was no point to it. I guess the writer wanted us to remember that they still hate each other, but they will put their differences aside for evil. I feel on this series the writer should of had Jason and Freddy be buddy buddy to each other, but had Freddy use his super powers to get the deadites to turn on Jason and kill him. This would of been the legendary way to go instead of turning Jason into a puddle of horses**t.
I will say this comic series did have a lot of repetitive scenes that happened over and over again based off the Freddy Vs. Jason film and the first comic series, but I did like how the writers took a different approach on this series. Some of it was terrible, while other aspects was good. I did enjoy the plot of the book. I liked the fact they had the government involved with the Necronomicon and how they were working with Freddy . I did like the idea of Freddy taking over the White House and using his evil to take over the world. Even though this book had a lot of things that I didn't agree on, there was no dull part in the series. It kept my interest the whole time. I did like the flash backs, the battle scenes, the introduction to Nightmare Warriors, and the beginning part of the book. I didn't like the way they killed off Freddy. I do think the "souls of Freddy" thing would of been the best way to end the series. I did enjoy the ending involving agent Wesley Carter and how he was able to alter history. Most importantly, The artwork yet again was fantastic. I give this series a 6/10.
This concludes the second part of my comic review. Please feel free to share your feedback.