Ashley Dust, Vol 1

By Rick McCollum

Ashley Dust tries to save Robert E Howard, but is thwarted by L Ron Hubbard, so she plays defense whilst Rob escapes via a portal to her secret garden. She battles Wurms of evil souls to appease Lovecraft's request to save Rob, since she needed Lovecraft. Ash closes the portal behind herself, having to push out a hell soul stuck in the closing door. She's immediately attacked by some fool, who talks of knowing her real name, and knowing about her hundreds of years, he then flying off.

The portal cracks, and she receives help from a dead alien she'd saved, he not able to go to his heaven for dying on Earth. Ash doesn't feel the evil in her sanctum anymore, and goes home, still worrying. The Wurms have gotten out, and Aleister Crowley is getting to work with his crew. Ash is a painter and is showing her newest piece of Pan.

It's 2094, and Ash chats to an arthead, before storming away, she having seen them turn into skellys. Ash goes home, and hooks into her throne, this transporting her cerebrally to her secret garden. Her spirit travels beyond the heavenly realms, like Valhalla, and Nirvana, then between the heavens and hells is her secret garden. Ash is told by Lovecraft of spirits escaping hell through her garden.

Then, Gonar comes out spouting of a killing having been done on his grave, and now Wurms traveled over his sacred grounds. He starts blaming her liking of the alien, which seems off to him, but Ash soothes of checking the matter. In reality, she shares with Simon of the dead not trusting her, when he calls her by her first name, Victoria, the 2 next getting some evidence to research. Simon keeps tabs on Ash's projects, 1 being Fey, an annoying homunculus.

Ash has a dream where she's chasing the alien through woods, and being slowed down, she waking by Simon's calling her. He tries linking in with bad results. Ash is considering getting who she calls the Virgin's, Venus' help, this lady living over 4000 years, and is a shaman. She sees Rob E Howard standing with a large jungle guard, she immediately giving him shit for messing with Gonar's resting place. Venus ends Ash's argument with Rob, and sniffs the hair she'd found, knowing where it came from, but not sharing.

Ash returns home, and ponders what to do now, and how they could blame her for the escaped souls. As she explores with Simon, he gets hit by something which puts him in his natural form, which is bad, so Ash magicks him into a paused state. Except he turns into a mech-sabretooth, using her magic to stun it, and it runs. Venus declares the dead were responsible for fixing it.

Ash calls them out as being less strong, which Venus admits, but they had a T-Rex to chase the sabretooth down. Ash is annoyed by whoever had brought the T-Rex spirit back from its resting place, but Venus deemed it her own problem to figure out. Ash is amazing pissed by Venus' suggestion, but helps Simon, instead. Before she magic coma's out after using up her power, Fey makes a suggestion about the T-Rex which Ash dismisses, due to frustratingly researching her books on how her sanctum is being breached, and rather getting her back scratched by her charge, instead.

Ash declares the dead will fear the living in a bill (100) of years, which follows an outro which seems quite true to the current nature of events: The hope to have peaceful interstellar trade, and art, literature, and science flourishing, and being respected, as opposed to reality of all success being reserved for the upper and middle classes, whilst all others struggled with menial roles and grabbing dwindling pay opportunities, and ignoring scientific progress. Oof, the end shows the cast of characters explaining Simon is Ash's bf, and clarifies of the Virgin being Venus. Despite this minor confusion, this story is revving up my interest and already makes me regret not having the 4th issue, but it's a solid story and the art is divinely intricate, like the cover, but B&W, which I'm not bothered like usual, since it holds up throughout the issue. Onward!

A better desc. of characters and settling starts it off, the new gov't centering around Cincinnati, and Ash being the witch Q, and fighting the Age of Aquarius Project. Satan is apparently behind the AOAP, and is hatching a plan by using their spy, Simon. Ash is on day 4 of her magic coma, Simon protecting her, and keeping the kingdom under control. Satan scans the sleeping Simon's long memory, seeing how he'd met Ash as a child, before she'd become Ash, the 2 falling for each other, and developing their magic far beyond her uncle.

After centuries of learning and escapades, she becomes the most powerful entity, and Simon is Sirian augmented, Sirians having popped in to view Earth's progress for decades. Meanwhile, Yuggoth is the hidden 9th planet of our solar system, Ash going to chat with Howard, and he sensing humanity's vulnerability on the eventuality of the powerful creatures on their returning to Earth. Simon senses the intruder in his mind, but goes back under, whilst Ash is told by Howard of the creatures growing and would terrifyingly recollect us 1 day. She asks where Bob had gone, she discovering the dead could create pocket universes and his was near hers somewhere.

Ash follows and interrupts his mourning his ma, as Simon keeps performing brain wipes in response to whatever is trapping him. Bob confides of the 2 Wurms escaping into Cincinnati was Crowley and Khomeni, Ash having to cut the chat short for Fey summoning her. Ash arrives and Fey explains of Construct 666 destroying her library, and Simon is in his "war form". Venus is telling all who were gathered about Ash not being fit to be trusted.

Simon's weapon system is finally hacked by the virus, and Ash is hit with a quick attack she only barely is able to shield. Simon wounds her and Fey attacks him, but not doing enough damage, Ash getting a good blow when he's busy attacking Fey. She's nearly drained, when the Virus still moves the unconscious Simon, she unable to attack, her buddies manifesting around her. Lovecraft, the Alien, and Bob all attack Simon, Ash's magic healing her, and she putting Fey on pause.

A dozen hours later, Ash awakes refreshed, and starts working on tidying the destruction. Fey is unable to heal due to the metal mixed in her flesh, so Ash planning to fix her later, and tmw would be dedicated to upgrading Simon, she focused on helping them both get the revenge they felt owed. Omgah, McCollum originally had each page of the comic full-blown color, but had to change it. Would LOVE to see those!

As the Age of Aquarius uses Einstein to game plan, Ash sits under 1 of the few cousins to Yggdrasil, which had sprouts all over the world. Meanwhile, G/ma Estes is at home reading a message saying Lisa is deceased, and now she'd get kicked out for not making enough for rent, so she rolls the bones. G/ma learns she's up against Ash, but she'd endeavor to murder her. Gonar is still struggling with the Alien's presence in his afterlife realm, angry at Ash for being responsible.

Crowley sends a wurm at Gonar, Ash getting clarity from the world tree, whilst she attempts to locate Crowley and Khomeni. She also implanted a fail safe in Simon this time to protect him ever getting close to killing her again. Missy Harker is executed by Einstein's command, then kidnapped from heaven to be dropped in Ash's garden. Gonar gets taken over by a wurm, and Venus is organizing the group to go against Ash.

Venus is psychic and hates wurms, a history following the man who discovered dna in fossils. He keeps his success to himself due to having a rap sheet, and illegal sci-fi fiction, Crichton and Asimov also listed. St. John is raided after cloning a trilobite, the Presiden coining the Age of Aquarius Project, and recreating Einstein to head it. Ash gets a view inside tAoAP's HB, dino men and peeps in water globes, as the dead prepared to fight and die again, no hope of coming back, since the creator of man is undeniably nuts.

Ash discovers the fake Einie and knows Crowley and Khomeni are house within him. Fey complains to Simon of her arm affecting her dreams, and being jealous of Ash having spent more thoughtful time on Simon. He senses the upheaval in the secret garden, and travels by throne for the 1st time, changing his form and joining the battle. Ash returns and chucks Simon out to show them how quickly she dealt with violence in her world, splattering everyone, including her invited guests.

Ash travels to the Old Ones realm, who are planning revenge against Lovecraft, and convinces them to wait, they obliging, since they had time. She snaps at Fey for calling her "mother", so goes to a bar, G/ma Estes finding her. She accuses Ash of murdering her girl, and Ash's response is unsympathetic, so g/ma opens fire. This pisses Ash off, and she's threatening to kill her as she's healing.

Simon slaps her head open when she'd stopped running, believing she was safe. When he meets up with Ash, she confesses of feeling good about not killing g/ma, Simon keeping his good deed to himself. 4th issue seems to be heading for interesting material, which I hope to read some day! This has a bit of a Sandman feel, and the story/art is beautifully done. Granted, Ashley does seem like an egotistical bish, but it's been fairly easy to ignore, since there's so much myth and crazy happenings within the tale. I'm looking forward to anything more, since I haven't quite completed this vol, technically.