Hack Slash

Sexy Packaging at its finest.

Cassie: "A slasher. It's a type of undead, I guess... sort've like a vampire or a zombie. They're so full of anger that they don't wanna die. They hate love, youth, sex.... things they miss, from life. All I know for sure is that they're mean and hard to kill."
Kyle: "How do you know all this?"
Cassie: "Because, I'm Cassie Hack. I'm mean, I'm hard to kill, and I hunt slashers."

Cassie Hack was an ordinary outcast high school nerdgirl until her mother, Delilah, was discovered to be a serial killer (dubbed "The Lunch Lady") who had been murdering the students who had been bullying her daughter. Even worse, after she killed herself she came back from the grave as a "slasher": an undead serial murderer powered by hate and rage and existing only to carry on killing. To make things even worse, Cassie ended up having to personally re-kill her by shooting her several times in the face.

Now Cassie wanders the USA, channeling her guilt and pain into hunting down and destroying the other slashers who stalk the nation. And wearing a fine assortment of highly revealing gothwear.

Her only friend is Vlad, a hideously deformed but kindly giant whose odd upbringing by a reclusive butcher left him with No Social Skills but excellent meat cleaver moves. Together they kill zombie mass murderers, and the odd deserving living person. Aiding the two is the so-called Hack/Slash, Inc., founded by would-be slasher victims Doctor Lisa Elsten and Chris Krank, which provides info, and whatever resources they can spare.

Hack/Slash is a comic series originally published by Devil's Due, and written by Tim Seeley. A series of one-shots and miniseries illustrated by various artists, published between 2004 and 2007, were followed by an ongoing series, illustrated at first by Emily Stone. In early 2010 it was announced that due to Devil's Due's financial difficulties the series would be transferring to Image Comics. During the rest of the year both publishers issued Hack/Slash material: the Devil's Due series continuing until issue #34 while Image produced a "Year One"-style mini-series titled My First Maniac and a few one-shots. The ongoing series restarted from #1 at Image in 2011.

Not to be confused with Hack and Slash, although the plots can get that way, or with Hack and Slash.

Has both a live-action film and a motion comic ("illustrated film") in Development Hell, with Brea Grant slated as the voice of Cassie in the latter. The wiki can be found here, and the unofficial official site can be found here.

Tropes used in Hack Slash include:
  • A Day in the Limelight: Over the Rainbow for Margaret.
    • Six Sixx hogs the spotlight for most of Mind Killer, Part II.
  • A God Am I: Ourobouros.
  • Abusive Parents: If a flashback to Cassie's childhood in The Final Revenge of Evil Ernie is any indication, Delilah wasn't above physical discipline... with a burning hot iron.
  • Action Girl
  • Activist Fundamentalist Antics: Laura Lochs, especially in the Vs. Chucky story where she claims to want to "save" Cassie by murdering her friends in ways that reflect sins according to Laura's belief system, even though they don't actually apply to the people she intends to kill.
  • Alliteration: The Lochs family (Louis, Lacey, Liberty and Laura).
  • All There in the Manual: Rudolph, who gets offhandedly mentioned in Entry Wound, first appeared in Slashing Through the Snow, a short story included in the first trade paperback and omnibus.
  • Almost-Dead Guy: Jason in Land of Lost Toys.
  • Exclusively Evil
  • And This Is For: Done by Vlad while bludgeoning Jimmy to death in Comic Book Carnage.
  • Applied Phlebotinum: The black flowers that show up occasionally.
  • Angst: Cassie has issues.
  • Anti-Hero: Cassie and Samhain.
  • Art Shift: Issues six and twenty-eight are set in Haverhill, a town inspired by Archie Comics. The art shifts into an Archie-like style to represent this.
    • However, at the end of twenty-eight, the art shifts back into a more realistic style to represent Haverhill coming down with Cerebus Syndrome.
      • Also a possible reference to the radical art shift in some recent Archie stories.
  • Asian and Nerdy: Chris.
  • Attack of the Killer Whatever: Notably, a pet-eating snow blower.
  • Attempted Rape: A drugged Cassie is saved by Chucky the Killer Doll, of all people.
  • Author Appeal: According to the extras in the first trade paperback collection, Cassie was based on a Suicide Girl model Tim Seeley met at the con. He was too shy to ask her out.
  • Ax Crazy
  • Back-to-Back Badasses: A popular pose for Cassie and Vlad on covers.
  • Badass Adorable: Cassie, sometimes more than others. Example.
  • Badass Longcoat: Vlad wears a trench coat.
  • Badass Normal: Cassie.
  • Bad Future: Shown in Murder Messiah; Cassie, Lisa and Kris are dead, and Vlad is held captive by the returned Akakios, who unleashed a virus that turned innumerable people into slashers, which conquered a significant chunk of America.
  • Bandage Babe: Laura Lochs in vs. Chucky has them all over, so we don't see her horribly burned body.
  • Batman Cold Open: Euthanized.
  • Batter Up: Cassie's main weapon is a bat with "KISS IT" carved into it.
  • Beach Episode: Girls Gone Dead
  • Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Jack the Ripper is implicated as being a slasher.
  • The Big Guy: Vlad.
  • Big No: Let loose by Mary Shelley Lovecraft, after realizing she's been reborn into "a comedic superhero universe" (the Lovebunny one, to be specific) in Entry Wound.
  • Bi the Way: Cassie
  • Black and Gray Morality
  • Black Eyes of Evil: Rudolph in Entry Wound. When he first appears in Euthanized, X-O also has them.
  • Black Sheep: Liberty Lochs.
  • Blondes Are Evil: Laura Lochs, Acid Angel, Ms. America, Sarah Bunn from My First Maniac, the briefly mentioned New Year's Eva... Tim Seeley does not appear to like blonde women very much.
  • Blood Bath: Emily Christy resorts to something akin to this in order to retain a human appearance in Tub Club, manipulating students into weird bloodletting pool orgies as a part of being in the titular secret society. Cassie is also depicted as partaking in one on a cover [dead link] from the same Story Arc.
  • Blue Eyes: Cassie.
  • Body Horror
  • Break the Cutie: In flashbacks we learn that Cassie was bullied in school because she was poor and "ugly". Aww.
    • Not to mention the part where her mother is an undead serial killer who has had to be put down by her on two separate occasions so far. That tends to be a bit traumatic.
  • Broken Bird
  • Broken Heel
  • Came Back Wrong
  • Cannibal Clan: Vlad and his biological family are apparently descended from Sawney Beane.
  • Captain Ersatz: A few slashers are loose parodies of film characters, such as Pinhead, Sammi Curr from Trick or Treat and the brothers from Basket Case.
  • Car Fu: While effective against zombie animals in Euthanized, the resurrected Mosaic Man proves immune in Foes and Fortunes.
  • Caught with Your Pants Down: In issue twenty-six, Vlad, looking for Cassie, ends up walking in on her... in a very compromising position.
  • Celibate Hero: Cassie admits in the first issue that one of the reasons she became a monster hunter is because she's afraid of romance.
  • Celebrity Star: Comic Book Carnage features Steve Niles, Robert Kirkman, Messy Stench and Skottie Young (who reappears in vs. Chucky and Trailers) as characters and victims, plus various real-life Suicide Girls appear in the first annual (and are also killed).
  • Cerebus Syndrome
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Doctor White, Mary Shelley Lovecraft, Alan Knight, Cat Curio...
  • Clipped-Wing Angel: The demonic form Six Sixx briefly assumes in Shout at the Devil.
  • Clothing Damage: Sons of Man.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Particularly epic example in Shout at the Devil, when Cassie trips while shopping:

Cassie: "Goddamn cocksucking motherfucking Christ in a tree!"

Cassie: "... Fuck me running..."

"Cassie Hack is the lone survivor of an attack by a slasher called the Lunch Lady... a slasher that happened to be her mother! Now, she travels the world with her monstrous partner and friend Vlad, hunting down and destroying slashers wherever they find them!"

Nurse: "You! This is a high security area of the hospital! How'd you get in here?!"
Cassie: "I showed the guy at the door a li'l leg... oh, and I paid him 150 bucks."

[sigh] Though your tale is more complex than some, you still exist in a simple world of revenge, titillation and death. Allow me to try again, in language more befitting your author. Hi, I'm Mary. I'm Frankenstein, Cthulhu and Godzilla all rolled into one. I'm going to fuck up your world, bitch, and then fictional characters are gonna hop out of books and take over.

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