El Jefe Takes On The Chief (Again) In Army Of Darkness/Bubba Ho-Tep #2

Last we saw Ash, he was soaring chin-first through a time portal, hot on the bandage of Bubba Ho-Tep, and crash-landed in 70’s Las Vegas! The demonic mummy seeks an ancient Egyptian book of souls and will stop at nothing to possess it! Can Ash put his differences aside with a near-peak condition Elvis long enough to teach this undead thief a lesson? Find out in the Vegas-styled winner-takes-all showdown, where the loser gets his soul sucked out!

Army of Darkness/Bubba Ho-Tep #2 finds Ash on the world’s most famous 4.2 miles, right at the beginning of the end of Vegas’ golden age. Mr. Elvis Aaron Presley is apparently not only headlining at the Sahara, he’s also mixed up in some huge Egypt exhibit featuring an Egyptian version of the Book of the Dead, the Necronomicon Ho-Tep. Young Elvis, Ash, a mummy in a time traveling jumpsuit, and a new version of the Naturom Demonto. Tracking? Good.
Scott Duvall goes back to the well by having Ash and Elvis meet again for the first time in the second chapter. See, the Elvis we saw in the last chapter didn’t fall through the same wormhole that brought Ash to the current scene, thereby neatly avoiding temporal paradox, while also setting up another Bruce Campbell vs. Bruce Campbell fist fight. This time, both will be in sparkly jumpsuits. While The King and El Jefe don’t make a lot of headway in this installment, we do learn quite a bit about the mummy.

Vincenzo Federici and Michele Monte bring a retro aesthetic to Sin City that plays well to both properties without burying either. Those campy horror and dark comedy elements are still front and center, but now there’s a backdrop of seedy glamour. Last chapter was fun to look at. This chapter’s fun to look at. If the story goes completely off the rails at times, this is still a great looking book.
It does seem like the developments of this chapter may have been just as easily been introduced in the series opener, and that we could be a few pages further into this story by now, but it’s early yet. Hard to knock pacing in just the second issue, but so far, the plots of both installments almost read identically. Ash meets Elvis, Elvis attacks Ash, mummy comes from outta nowhere and the two forget their differences to kick some undead ass.
Now that the Campbells have made nice (again), hopefully we’re getting some traction headed into chapter three.

Army of Darkness/Bubba Ho-Tep #2, Dynamite Comics/IDW Publishing, published 13 March 2019. Written by Scott Duvall, art by Vincenzo Federici, color by Michelle Monte, letters by Taylor Esposito, covers by Diego Galindo, Tom and Sian Mandrake, and Robert Hack.