Hack/Slash #6 – Review

By: Tim Seeley (writer), Daniel Leister (artist), Mark Englert (colorist), Crank! (letterer) & James Lowder (edits)

The Story: Hack/Slash gets back to some of its early roots with a story involving musicians & the hellish dimension of Nef.

What’s Good: This issue really had all the calling cards of a classically good Hack/Slash.  If you go back to the beginning of the series, there was involvement of the demonic realm of Nef with the slasher killers inhabiting the Hack/Slash universe and it’s fun to see the series going back to that.  That’s especially true because Seeley is doing it in such a way that is very new reader friendly.  So, if you’ve been lingering on the fence, this isn’t a bad jumping on point.

But, what sets Hack/Slash apart from the rest of the horror comics genre is its sense of humor.  This is a really funny comic and credit for that really should be shared by both Seeley and Leister.  The folks who get killed in this album are so annoying that you’re kinda happy when they get it.  One is some kinda shallow pop starlet with some made-up name and a massive following after one album and the other victims are stand-ins for the stars of the Jersey Shore.  I mean, who doesn’t enjoy seeing the slashers get those kinds of people.  Were this a horror movie, the audience would cheer when they die.  However, it isn’t all laughs because the killer really is scary so we’ve got something to laugh at and something to be frightful of at the same time.

There’s also two GREAT scenes with Pooch (the demonic Nef-beast turned good).  I’d like to say that we can never get enough Pooch, but that’s probably not true.  Part of Pooch’s charm is that he flashes through the comic for a few panels, cracks us up with his juxtaposition of earnest attitude and demonic appearance and then is gone.  Pooch always leaves us wanting more.

Weekly Comic Book Review’s Top Picks

Alex’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: New Avengers #14 – A really close call between this and Journey into Mystery, but given how exemplary this week’s issue of New Avengers was, as compared to Journey into Mystery’s consistent excellence, it’s hard not to recognize New Avenger’s outstanding effort that went above the series norm.  Fantastic character work that made me into a much bigger fan of Mockingbird.

Most Anticipated:Daredevil #1 – Daredevil is one of those characters who will always mean a lot to me.  While being a kid in the late 80s-early 90s pretty much guaranteed that I was an X-fan, Daredevil was my favourite hero, ever since finding a box of Frank Miller Daredevil back issues in a discount store in NYC.  His were the stories that really hit me hard as a kid as they always felt “adult,” epic, and emotional in ways I’d never experienced in comics before.

But it’s been hard times for Matt Murdock.  Shadowland was a catastrophe, Andy Diggle’s run before that never quite managed to hit its full potential, and Daredevil: Reborn was salt in the wound.  It all lend me to believe that after career defining work by Brian Bendis and a run of Ed Brubaker doing what he does best, perhaps the downcast noir well has run dry.

So I look forward to Mark Waid’s dashing and more upbeat direction.  And hey, at the very least, the art is going to be ridiculously, eye-meltingly good.

Other Picks: Avengers #15, Batman: Gates of Gotham #3, Invincible Iron Man #506

Dean’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest #2 – The excellence of the American Vampire franchise is almost getting to be routine, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be celebrated.  This was a #2 issue and it still managed to toss enough cool Indiana Jones and James Bond themes to make this story more than routine.  It really would have been possible for Snyder to sit back and just advance the story of vampire-hunter secret agents infiltrating Nazi-held Europe before America’s involved in WWII.  But….he didn’t take the easy way out and that made the story better than adequate.  And, I LOVE Sean Murphy’s art.  He has this incredible combination of cartooning and realism that opens up all sorts of possibilities that most artists can’t touch.  Runner-up: Loose Ends #1

Most Anticipated: Elephantmen #33 – There are a lot of interesting looking Big 2 superhero books coming out this week….and….while I’m looking forward to some, none is making my mouth water, so let’s shine a light on a title that has been consistently strong for a very long time: Elephantmen.  This long-running story of a dystopian future where animal-human hybrids who were created as weapons of war and are now trying to assimilate into a society that hates and fears them is always compelling and has always featured excellent art.  You can’t go wrong picking up Elephantmen.

Other Picks: The Walking Dead #87, Hulk #37, Sergio Aragones Funnies #1, Hack/Slash #6, Avengelyn #1, Marineman #6, Daredevil #1