The second Hack/Slash has all the fun of the first, with artwork that I found more to my liking, and the result is a very entertaining read. As with the first, it is aimed squarely at those with a fondness for the slasher movie genre, but Seeley casts his parody net a little wider this time out, also poking fun at Spring Break and the "Girls Gone Wild" videos that seem like permanent evidence of those hedonist vacations. With the premise established in Hack/Slash, Seeley has more room to maneuver in terms of setting up his bad guys and his backdrops in this one, and that pays off with a stronger story, although those who missed the first one-shot will find little exposition about the background of Cassie and Vlad. Fortunately, most of what readers need to know is explained on the inside front cover blurb, and the lightweight tone of the book keeps things breezing along to keep readers new and old engaged.
Seeley has really zeroed in on what makes the slasher formula work, a combination of high concept killers and a hefty dose of teenage hormones. Setting this one in Spring Break means more sex than usual, although Seeley and Manfredi keep things PG at best, using the ever-popular pixellation to evoke the "Girls Gone Wild" videos and by almost having the girl pull off her top, only to pull the camera away at the last second. The result conveys the "get naked and laid" vibe of Spring Break without unnecessarily turning the book into a mature readers book. It also conveys the common slasher flick message that sex = death, from the opening scene that plays out just like the opening of a slasher movie to the chaotic, action-packed finale.
While Hack/Slash is a paean to the slasher movie genre, it is also a tribute to butt-kicking feminist heroes like Sydney Bristow and Buffy Summers, and Cassie Hack sits pretty comfortably alongside those two TV icons. Her shyness around guys, and her inability to fit in with a normal social situation, is a nice achille's heel for a character who is otherwise very capable, smart and acerbic. Mind you, the most fun moments with Cassie are not when she's being vulnerable, but when she's playing to her strengths. Her showdown with half of the serial killing team is a lot of fun, and her banter with Vlad (I loved the gag when she called him on the phone) are very entertaining. Seeley has imbued Hack/Slash with a fair amount of humor, and no small amount of that comes from Cassie's personality, especially when she's reacting to things like what she sees in her hotel room search.
Of course, in a slasher story, the story is only as good as its killer, and Seeley has come up with a pretty nifty set of villains here. I don't want to give too much away, but the religious theme and jealousy that drive the characters serves as a nice counter to the Spring Break ethos, and it's interesting that there could reasonably be some sympathy for the point of view that one of the characters has, if she wasn't batshit insane. Her partner, of course, was evil in life and is even more evil in death, and makes for a great punching bag for Vlad.
My biggest complaint about the first Hack/Slash was with the artwork, but I have no such complaints this time around. Federica Manfredi, with the help of additional colorists, presents a look that reminds me very much of the work of NYX's Josh Middleton. Manfredi's work is at its best when depicting the happy expressions and hedonistic chaos of partiers in Spring Break, and certainly you've got to give it up for some very nice cheesecake, but there's some terrific action here as well. The design for the undead slasher is suitably creepy and powerful looking, and the parallel slugfests that take place during the climax of the book have a brutal and inventive touch to them that makes them very entertaining to watch.
