Hack/Slash #5 – Review

By: Tim Seeley (writer), Kyle Strahm (art), Mark Englert & Nate Lovett (colors), Crank! (letters) & James Lowder (edits)

The Story: Cassie & Vlad run into Fantomah, protector of the Jungle,  in this done-in-one story.

What’s Good: Ya know, sometimes it is nice to have a comic that stands on its own and isn’t part of a 4-6 issue story arc.  It almost doesn’t matter whether the story is good, bad or just kinda “blah” because it changes up the pacing of the series and keeps future stories from being so predictable. This done-in-one story features the “Return of Fantomah” who must have been a character from one of the latter Hack/Slash stories at Devil’s Due Publishing that I haven’t read yet (all on my iPad, just no time…), but no prior experience is necessary because Seeley and Strahm give us a really nice little intro to who she is with a ~5 page intro.  The cool intro is written and illustrated in a very 60’s manner that shows us how Fantomah is some supernatural protector of the rainforest.  Then we cut forward in time to the present day and see Fantomah have a quick adventure with Cassie and Vlad revolving around Cassie’s ongoing desire to rid the world of the Black Lamps.  Not everything is what is originally seems and the pacing of the twists and reveals is really nicely done.

We get an art change for this issue too.  It is probably unfair to do this, but comparing Strahm’s art to regular series artist Daniel Leister’s, you’ll see that Strahm’s art is (mostly) much coarser.  You can see a lot of Chaykin influences and he has that interesting combo of some characters looking rough and scratchy combined with his women looking soft and curvy.  It’s a nice change.  And, the aforementioned intro section of the comic is really great.