Crossover of the Week

2006

DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS TITLE

Ash Williams travels to France, searching for the Necronomicon. Ash reached out to several people in the paranormal community for leads on the book, including some Ghostbusters in New York and an elderly Frenchman called the Sâr Dubnotal. Inside the cabin where he believes the Necronomicon to be, he drives off a creature called Baal, ending its alliance with the vampire Countess Irina. Irina’s giant servant says the book Ash seeks is the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, while the book Irina holds is the First Necronomicon, written by the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred. When Irina asks if he is “the one destined to fight the forces of darkness,” Ash responds, “The same…although I did hear something about a girl named Buffy who hangs out with the band Slayer, I think.”

Short story by Matthew Dennion in Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 11: Force Majeure, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2014; reprinted in French in Les Compagnons de l’Ombre (Tome 16), Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Rivière Blanche, 2015. Ash Williams and the Necronomicon Ex Mortis are from the Evil Dead film series. Although this story supposedly takes place in 1993, shortly after the third Evil Dead movie, Army of Darkness, this cannot be correct. In the CU, the films take place from 1982–1983, and Ash spent over twenty years in a mental institution after the events of the comic book miniseries Army of Darkness: Shop ‘til You Drop Dead, only to escape in 2005, as seen in Army of Darkness vs. Re-Animator. Furthermore, 1983 would be well before Buffy Summers (from the movie and TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer) discovered she was the latest in a long line of Slayers. Therefore, I have placed this story in 2006, a year after Ash escaped from Arkham Asylum in Massachusetts. The Ghostbusters in New York are from the movie Ghostbusters and its sequel, as well as the cartoon The Real Ghostbusters. The animated series Extreme Ghostbusters is set in the 1990s, and features a younger group of investigators who have taken up the mantle of the retired original Ghostbusters. Ash probably contacted the latter-day team. The Sâr Dubnotal is an occult investigator who appeared in a French pulp series. Baal is from Renée Dunan’s novel of the same name, which has been translated by Brian Stableford for Black Coat Press. Countess Irina Karlstein is from the film Female Vampire. In the movie, which was made and takes place in the 1970s, Countess Irina is mute. How she gained the ability to speak is unknown. The Necronomicon penned by Abdul Alhazred is from H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, of course.