ARMY OF DARKNESS charts the last phase of the Ash character, where he moves from helpless victim to empowered demihero to real hero-- though, because of rights issues, the film could not utilize the "Evil Dead" franchise-name.
The encounter with the demon at the end of DEAD 2 propels Ash back in time to the Middle Ages, which is also menaced by the "Deadites" of the first two films. Somewhat refreshingly, Ash remains a jerk for the first half of the film: he's concerned only with getting back to his time and could care less about the problems of the locals.
I said that Ash becomes a "real hero" by the end of ARMY, but I must qualify this. The climax does have him take arms against a sea of Deadites, return to his own time and take out another monster during the coda. However, Raimi's original conclusion was going to reduce Ash to a blundering fool again, by having him fall into a protracted sleep so that he woke up in a post-apocalyptic future. Perhaps that's why I've never liked a lot of Raimi's stuff; no appreciation for consistency of tone. Sometimes this works well for him, when he chances upon a good "what the hell" moment-- but at other times, he seems to resort to "tone-changing" for no reason but creative indecision.
I've not yet viewed the EVIL DEAD remake, but this of course doesn't belong to the original mythos as such.
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