When The Final Girl Kicks The Killer’s Ass – Reviewing Hack/Slash

A serial killer stalks his prey through the dark forest. A teenage schoolgirl is waiting for his knife. He corners her, bloodthirsty grin under his hockey mask.

The girl rolls her eyes, kicks him in the balls and proceeds to beat the crap out of him.

This is Cassandra Hack and she’s the heroine of our story.

Hack/Slash is based on a truly excellent premise. Cassie, a goth girl with the training of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her best friend, the monstrous looking but actually sweet Vlad, wander the world searching for ‘slashers,’ unrestful spirits that have come back from the grave to murder, slaughter and kill their way through the masses. Along the way, they occasionally take down the regular serial killer (Jason from Friday The 13th 1 – IV instead of Jason from Friday the 13th V to JASON IN SPAAAACE) and meet a quirky supporting cast.

So, you wanna get tacos?

I had some concerns about this series, so I picked up the first omnibus as sort of a taste test. My concerns definitely spring from the cover art I had seen – the cover art is lovely, very well drawn, but it’s almost always of Cassie in some kind of super revealing, rather stereotypical sexy goth chick get-up. To me it didn’t look like anything but another ‘here’s a sexy girl doing splits!’ comic.

The premise really takes the first omnibus volume far. The volume collects a few story arcs including an Evil Ernie crossover that I expected I would hate (I’m not a huge fan of Image’s extended horror/supernatural mythos) but actually turned out to really enjoy. The best stories are by far a Nightmare on Elm Street-style arc about a slasher that kills via dreams and a murder mystery at a comic book convention which has quite a few creator cameos. Even the stories that I didn’t feel were as strong (such as the Spring Break ‘Girls Gone Wild!’ story or the Chucky crossover) weren’t bad.

The thing that makes these stories all pretty decent are, by far, the characters. The writing of these characters really surprised me. Supporting characters are personable and well fleshed out, with distinct personalities. The supporting cast falls into the plot in a natural fashion, most of them are people Cassie and Vlad have helped survive slashers. Cassie and Vlad, the characters I thought would be generic (“Look at me, I have boobs AND a knife!” “I R LOVABLE MONSTER GUY AND I LUV KITTANS”) are nuanced and have their own strengths and weaknesses. Cassie screws up as much as she succeeds and she’s fallible to the weaknesses of both being a teenager and being a teenager with a fairly traumatic past (without getting too much into spoilers, some one very close to Cassie CAME BACK WRONG and it began her life hunting slashers).

Yes, THAT Chucky.

The art is generally good, though there’s a story line or too where the artists are very generic – not necessarily bad, just very, very comic book generic. Too much of of the art focuses on Cassie kicking various ass and wearing a variety of hot goth gear. Cassie is drawn like plastic eye-candy – exploitative  bombshell poses, any excuse to put her in just a towel or a bathing suit, combat damage to her already often scanty clothing, etc. A lot of comic books are going to have a given value of sex appeal for what is perceived the male demographic wants (and that’s a long rant for another day), and I really wish Hack/Slash would  make more of an attempt to be subtle about it. Personally, I don’t mind sexy at all, but I do mind gratuitous.  On the other hand, this isn’t, for once in a comic book, a huge drawback, since so much of the theme of Hack/Slash is that it’s a different way to look at teen slasher movies. Its over-the-top sexuality plays into that.

I’m definitely going to pick up the next Hack/Slash omnibus (which, by the way, is an excellent way to collect and sell comics, I would love more omnibuses (omnibi?) and less anorexic-ly thin trade paperbacks). I’ve got high hopes for what’s a pretty long running series so far, clocking in at 4 omnibuses or 10 volumes (between 2 publishers, Devil’s Due and then Image Comics). As long as they keep producing such good characters in such an interesting setting, I’ll keep reading.