#daniel leister

Hack/Slash: Kill Your Idols [one-shot] (April 3, 2024)

a one-shot issue collecting Hack/Slash stories from the 30th anniversary of Image Comics anthology mini-series (Image! 30th Anniversary Anthology #5 - Hack/Slash: Kill Your Idols, Part 1 [September 7, 2022])

Grimm Tales of Terror Vol. 4 #2 (variant cover) (2018)

Hack/Slash: Kill Your Idols by Tim Seeley, Stefano Caselli, Daniel Leister and K. Michael Russell. Cover by Seeley. Out in March.

Artwork by Tim Seeley, Daniel Leister, Mark Englert, and Chris Crank through Image Comics from “Hack/Slash: My First Maniac” #1. 
(Mild censorship applied to Mortimer Strick’s buttons.)

For October 30 and Halloween of 2018, I did a thorough analysis of “Hack/Slash,” the horror comic epic (in the classical sense of the term) primarily by Tim Seeley. The analysis (viewable here as Part One and Part Two) was deliberately incomplete, as not only did it only intensely cover the first half of the original 2004-2013 run, but doing so involved providing intentionally inaccurate information as to the way in which the world of “Hack/Slash” functions so as to entice incoming readers without giving too many spoilers.

Here, I will be examining one way in which the world of “Hack/Slash” actually seems to function, by way of looking at the creatures that inhabit it so far as can be thoroughly explained.

There are many different kinds of beings in the world of “Hack/Slash,” all of which initially were collapsed under the overall collective name of “slashers.” While the Psychofiles in the earlier volumes (Volumes 1-5, collected in Omnibuses 1 and 2) did label them all as “slashers,” there were enough outliers, especially those who are given their own, unrelated categorization like “Faustian,” that the term itself seemed too generalized. In fact, many of the most famous villains of the slasher genre do not technically qualify under the actual, more precise definition proposed roughly halfway into the epic’s initial run.

As a note, “Hack/Slash” is a mature comic series. As such, there is the possibility of the occasional swear, as well as graphic imagery.

Furthermore, there will be no censorship for spoilers on this article either, so it assumes the reader is comfortable with the epic as a whole.

Some of the information gleaned here is from inference based on the information presented across the epic, while other pieces are from direct questions asked to Tim Seeley himself either online or through in-person conversation at New York Comic-Con 2018.

Slashers

For convenience, it seems best to list at least part of the first half of the analysis I did on Halloween for this.

What are slashers? Well, imagine your basic slasher movie villain. Revenge driven, extremely durable and at times supernatural. Commonly able to survive and escape if you don’t keep them in your sights. In many cases having additional supernatural abilities, most commonly superhuman strength and at least some level of physical regeneration to come back from death again and again. These villains focus on hurting those who are often guilty of some vice, mostly in terms of sexual activity.

Some of these villains, including many in “Hack/Slash” itself, focus on a specific day or a specific set of circumstances, in particular a holiday or otherwise a single day a year, before returning to their graves. These types of slashers are definitely the most predictable, and so are only very rarely dealt with, but do come up, in particular ones for Groundhog Day, Memorial Day, and Christmas each having some time devoted to fighting them in the story, and some others being mentioned as having been fought off-panel.

[…]

As defined, the slashers in “Hack/Slash” are also known as revenants, an older variation on the zombie archetype from European folklore as early as the Middle Ages, if not earlier. These undead are reanimated corpses that are believed to have revived to haunt the living. In the case of the slashers, as far as Cassie Hack knows from the beginning, they are reanimated by their sheer unstoppable hatred and insanity, their need for revenge, and are drawn to the things that they miss from life, mostly the aforementioned sexual vices. Furthermore, they often (but not always) retain intelligence on some level, enough to remember their past lives in spite of their new (or perhaps not-so-new) murderous obsessions, with their homicidal tendencies geared toward those memories, or even just basic impressions on the moments prior to or directly involved with their deaths in particular.

Additionally, several slashers tend to develop a skill set associated with the method of their death, making for a range of different types of villains. These powers range from someone who can kill others in their dreams, to secreting acids when sexually aroused, to the ability to detach one’s own limbs and move them independently, to transmission through the Internet like an electronic ghost. Each of these powers connects primarily to the manner of death, but also sometimes connect to the users’ personalities, in particular with respect to the acid user and the Internet transmission. The powers eventually tend to evolve over time and with subsequent appearances, developing new means of utilizing skill sets like the acidic secretions or a merger of dream-based powers with general psychic illusions, but on the whole, the power sets stay within set parameters in terms of what kinds of things they can accomplish.

While they do have a variety of powers, there are also some weaknesses that often do not come up in slasher movies. For instance, the most common slashers can be taken down with gunfire if in sufficient amounts, and can also suffer greatly from other forms of damage including blunt trauma or being cut up. In essence, while some slashers may have incredibly high healing abilities, they still can only take so much damage. One especially powerful weakness is fire. Whether or not it is truly the case, fire and explosions seem to do more damage than most other things. Those killed by fire have a tendency to have far more difficulties coming back from the dead again. The weakness is potent enough that Cassie tells others that “fire is your friend” when it comes to slashers. How exactly it works is unclear, but there are a high quantity of stories (which Cassie researched in the process of learning more about slashers) that include fire being used to keep things dead, especially zombies or vampires, so perhaps the same rules of “purifying the unholy” follows, as far as she can initially understand.

Now, all of that is all well and good. But why does fire work so well? Why do only some vengeful beings come back as slashers, while others do not? Not every serial killer Cassie Hack and Vlad face returns as undead, after all, and some of the slashers, like Blackfin the shark, are not even human in the first place.

The answer lies in where they come from, and by whom they were initially created. In fact, the elements stated before are an oversimplification at best.

The two elements at play are best said together at first, then explained separately. Rather than try to tell in general terms, it seems best to go to a certain quote from “Hack/Slash: The Series” #24.

“During his travels, Akakios discovered a small African tribe whom regularly used a plant with many unusual properties. When burned, it created a black flame. When its nectar was injected into a corpse, the body would regain a semblance of life. The plant was used respectfully, and in moderation. Inevitably, the plant’s effects on the brain wore off, leaving only a starving, unliving beast that fed upon living flesh. Akakios destroyed the tribe, taking the secret of the plant, which he called black ambrosia, with him back to Greece. […] Akakios synthesized a chemical from the flower, which he and his followers ingested. Akakios’ alchemy would allow the most devote among the believers to return to life after death, as true paladins of their beliefs. They would live again, stronger than ever before, some with bizarre powers and abilities like the Roman gods of myth, to destroy the Children of Dionysus and save the world. […] [Modern] paladins are those who have the nectar of the black ambrosia running through their veins even after many generations. Those you call slashers.”

First, let’s talk about black ambrosia, and its applications. The flower itself is rarely ever seen, but its nectar is rather prominent. The use of fire seems to burn away the black ambrosia nectar in the slashers’ blood, thereby making reanimation far more difficult (if most of it is removed) or outright impossible without other magical means (if all of it is removed). In the case of fire from lighting up black ambrosia flowers’ oil, the effect is even more potent, first negating the supernatural powers of a slasher, then killing them without the ability for the alchemy to bring them back. Furthermore, every subsequent death seems to result in both heightened powers (if they have specialized abilities) and lessened morals (to the point of attacking those formerly out of their own personal morality either without much care or with deliberate malice, such as in the cases of Bobby Brunswick and Acid Angel). In all, it seems as though a part of the slasher is left behind with each return, replaced with the power that flows through them.

The fluid is not limited to humans, as it has been shown to reanimate and make hostile at least one shark (Blackin) and one car (which will go unnamed intentionally, but appears in “Hack/Slash: Trailers 2”), indicating that ingesting the fluid can also cause one to turn given enough time.

Black ambrosia sees use in two distinct forms: through the bloodline of those who previously been given it, or through direct experimentation to create similar effects artificially.

The ones born into a bloodline with the black ambrosia can be considered “pureblood” slashers. They are the most common of slasher types, seeing as they can crop up at random and are bound to the anti-“sin” mentality originally thought up by Akakios himself, be it intentionally going after such people or unintentionally targeting them. The substance has to be activated, most commonly by the subject’s death, but it can, in theory, be neutralized by certain modern science to at least be rid of the homicidal insanity (or at least the exacerbation of it by the black ambrosia itself), but leave them biologically at the apparent age of their initial death until they are killed by external means. In this case, some of the more famous examples include Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th franchise (with his resurrection as a zombie) and, possibly, Michael Myers/The Shape of the Halloween franchise (with his ambiguously supernatural abilities even in continuities that lack the Curse of Thorn). The members of this group that are “Hack/Slash” villains are extremely high, including, but by no means limited to, Doctor Edmund Gross, Angela Cicero/Acid Angel, Ashley Guthrie, both Fathers Wrath, Ian Mattheson/D1aboliq, Matthew Ravenswood/Grinface, Delilah Hack/Lunch Lady, and many, many more.

On the other hand, certain organizations have taken to creating slashers artificially, either intentionally or not, by utilizing black ambrosia-related substances.

On the unintentional side, we have “hate juice” distilled from captive slashers by the pharmaceutical company Ceutotech, Inc., which engaged in “experimental cosmetics” as one of its bases. The goal was to replicate slashers’ ability to heal in order to make better anti-aging creams and presumably other applications to that effect. Of course, the fact that the name was “hate juice,” along with Emily Cristy’s to use it herself, indicates that Ceutotech was aware of its dangerous nature. After ingesting the fluid orally (by drinking it), she began to take on some elements of a slasher, primarily in the form of some limited healing. Cristy, unfortunately, also took on some of the negative side effects as a result, including the “back of your head ‘panic attack’” voice (to quote Cassie from ‘My First Maniac’) and highly violent actions, but managed to keep herself more or less under control aside from some slips until her first death in the explosion of her building. Despite probably not being a hereditary slasher herself, she reanimated, and was far more lucid than many others, even to the point of paying back Cassie and Vlad’s kindness by saving their life once. Her ability to reanimate appeared to be far less potent than most, as being impaled killed her once again, and subsequent reanimations were quickly dealt with.

On the more intentional side, we have the work of Doctor Ezekiel Chase at the Englund Prison in Indigo River (examined in ‘Resurrection’ during its first arc). He seemed to be completely aware of the nature of slashers, to the point of having sought out Vlad to help her, and various “resurrection fluid” formulas (which are directly identified as connected to black ambrosia by Cassie and Vlad both) are able to reanimate subjects in varying levels of cognition, ranging from Vlad having all of his faculties back to Dominique Peacetree being little more than a zombie, as was the case with the “controlled fun-dead” of the prison and the fatally poisoned counselors. While this type does engage in some ritualized behavior in the case of the less aware, as Cassie herself says, “their brains are mostly soup at this point.”

Outside of black ambrosia itself, we have its originator, the mystical alchemist Akakios. Without indulging too heavily in who he actually is, his power over existing slashers, especially those of the pureblood variety, cannot be denied. To explain, it seems best to indulge not only in the events of his life (and apparent unlife) but also what came after his final death. During ‘Final,’ he seemed to have an unparalleled control over slashers as a whole, able to control even the most volatile of his “paladins” such as the first Father Wrath and Grinface with little more than a look and a speech, could control entire hordes of slashers in the averted apocalyptic timeline, and could even “feel their deaths, new and final” when Nef magic annihilated his army at the end of ‘Final.’

As Cassie says in “Hack/Slash vs. Chaos!” #1, “Vlad and I put an end to the slasher bloodline. They don’t come back anymore.” In arcs ranging from ‘Crossroads’ to ‘Final’ (especially those two), the black flame seemed able to resurrect many slashers without any direct input, something that ceased entirely after Akakios was finally executed with extreme prejudice, indicating that the slasher repeated reanimations relied upon his continued life as a mystical tether. This idea is further proven by the fact that Dick Weiner of the final issue of “Hack/Slash: Resurrection” was reanimated in the 1980s, but unlived long into the 2010s until his death by woodchipper being his last demise, as well as the reanimation fluid of Dr. Chase only allowing for one extra life.

Putting together these clues, Akakios seems to, as the “father” of the slashers as a whole, link the slashers’ reanimations to himself through his mystical alchemy to enhance his control over them and render himself indispensible (not to mention heighten his apparent messiah complex as the “murder messiah”). The problem with this is that Akakios renders the entire group vulnerable once he is killed off, but what can you do?

Witches

Some characters can use magic, but only a rare few are so integrated with magic that they can easily learn it. Only directly identified as “witches” in ‘Murder Messiah,’ this kind of magic user is distinct from other ones due to the fact that she (the examples given are both female) is intrinsically tied to magic through her bloodline, rather than being just any random person who can use a spell book.

In the world of “Hack/Slash,” the two primary examples are Laura Lochs and her black sheep sister, Liberty “Libby” Lochs. Magic comes exceptionally easily to these, and likely other, witches, regardless of its form. However, the type of magic used differs depending on the witch’s preferences (in terms of the style of how they use it) and what they come across (in terms of the magical systems themselves) more than anything else. Both of the Lochs sisters were able to learn myriad types of magic about as easily as basic study of a book, rather than needing any real training in many cases.

For Laura, it came in the form of the spell book with which she originally learned magic in her first story, ‘Girls Gone Dead,’ which seemed to consist of verbal magic and blood rituals, but very little, if anything, in the way of direct offensive use of her power. On finding Papa Sugar, she learned the use of certain voodoo magics (in the style of Child’s Play, on account of it being during the ‘Vs. Chucky’ story) such as the creation of certain potions and use of specific incantations, with little apparent effort needed to learn any of the intricate elements. She also appears to have known necromancy, which she taught to her sister Libby. Her own style focused on controlling others and the environment through murder, including creation of voodoo zombies, controlling a slasher’s actions through verbal commands said backwards, and leading her sister to control Julian Gallo the Mosaic Man by linking him intrinsically to the powers of death.

Libby, on the other hand, stuck to a different style. Aside from controlling the Mosaic Man in the name of revenge against Cassie’s hand in Laura’s death, she used necromancy’s control of souls to attempt to help people by manipulation of luck. After abandoning necromancy itself, she took to a more “modern” sorcery, to the point of openly calling herself a witch, focusing in on the use of verbal commands to control those who can hear them, to the general effect of far more offensive use of magic in the name of helping others instead of her sister’s malevolent, more low-key use of spells in general. She also seems to have a very good grasp on Neffish black magick (to be discussed lower down), such that she is capable of using the Neffish guitar for time travel relatively easily (physical illness notwithstanding).

According to Libby, every witch gets a “broom” (hers being a motorcycle) and a “familiar” (hers being flesh-eating bacteria), leaving the possibility that the reason why Laura did not develop either of these things is that she never took the time to do so or did not live long enough to accomplish it, unlike Libby’s several months on her own learning new magic.

Just because witches can have easy access to magic does not mean that they are completely aware of all of the intricacies of the magic that they use, as can be seen from attempts to use necromancy for benevolent purposes without understanding its basic manipulation of souls.

“She ruins everything she touches. She wanted to do ‘good’ with a necromancy book. She tried to make lucky items for the dregs, the luckless losers like her. But necromancy isn't meant to bless items. To do so drags a spirit out of the afterlife and binds it to the object. A slave spirit that doesn't want to be there.”

On account of their mystical nature, some of these beings (in particular Laura) can subvert their own death by latching on to another witch’s consciousness to teach how to use some magic, becoming a kind of ghost in the process, albeit one with very limited connection to the physical world.

Mystic Empowerment

Certain entities were empowered by magical sources, whether through spells they cast or those cast upon them or others connected to them. As these entities are not intrinsically magical in the same way as witches, they seem appropriate to discuss separately.

Insofar as famous examples in fiction go, we have Charles Lee Ray and his transformation into Chucky through voodoo magic of the Heart of Damballa in the Child’s Play franchise (though he might, possibly, be a witch), and the cursed, corporeal ghost of Victor Crowley in the Hatchet films, both of which coincidentally appear in the “Hack/Slash” series themselves.

While slashers can be additionally mystically empowered, such as the case with the Mosaic Man in ‘Sons of Man’ and ‘Foes and Fortunes,’ that power is distinct from that of external spells, and so cannot truly be considered the same type of foe. However, empowering certain beings with additional magic may leave them as servants of said forces instead of their own will, as is the case with the aforementioned slasher.

“When we raised Julian, we bonded him to the powers of death and black magic so that he would be at our beck and call. Julian serves death. He'll free any spirits imprisoned on this plane.”

In general, mystic empowerment is a subset to the doings of witches more than it is a distinct power on its own.

Nef

The creatures of Nef (adjective form “Neffish”) are, by and large, some kind of amalgamation between aliens and demons. They are called demons, and treated as such, but in fact are not in any form of Hell that can be accessed by humans after death. Instead, Nef seems to be some kind of alternate dimension.

The only real method of reproduction for the beings of Nef is impregnating virgin females from the main dimension, regardless of species. The resultant Nef being emerges from the host’s body through their torso akin to an Alien franchise chestburster, killing the mother very violently. Understandably, finding a willing mother is pretty much impossible, hence the use of avatars (see Avatars below).

What type of Nef being emerges depends upon the individual being impregnated. In the case of a dog, the emergent Nef demon will be a “lowbeast,” a kind of hellhound type creature that is what appears to be the lowest form of Nef life, and of which the character Pooch is a member. Others exist, such as the apparent greatest warrior Kuma, a tusked humanoid misidentified as “Bigfoot,” but barring one appearance of hers and some others like minor villain Kumok, there isn’t a lot of emphasis on them as a whole.

One thing that is known is that, again much like the Xenomorphs of the Alien franchise, Nef creatures appear to have some form of DNA reflex, an ability to take on certain aspects of the host creature while still being definitely of Nef. This difference accounts for not only the bizarre look of lowbeasts being vaguely similar to a dog or a horse, but also certain abilities of more advanced Nef beings. Mid-level Nef creatures like Kumok have the ability to utilize weapons such as Nef wands to control “black magick,” but instead of being sorcerers on their own, these wands seem accessible to and easily usable by anyone, including Cassie Hack or Vlad, meaning that there isn’t an intrinsic ability more than there is general sapience.

The most prominent example of this reflex giving powers has to be the Stillborn, a creature that was born from the body of the psychic Martha "Muffy" Jaworski possessed by the dream-based killer Ashley Guthrie, the latter of whom had a psychic connection to Cassie Hack that had only been exacerbated by increased powers through the former. As a result, he had an exceptionally strong psychic connection to Cassie, able to have her see through his eyes during his serial killings even aside from his fame-based cannibalistic empowerment, paralysis-inducing “starstruck” abilities, and eventual electrical manipulation, both of which fit in with the “worship through a rock star” attitude of Nef itself.

Avatar

In some cases, individuals play host to an otherworldly, superhuman power. The means of acquiring these powers differ, but the overall effect is that of a need to keep the connection to that power to retain magical (or presumably other) abilities.

On the one hand, we have the classic Faustian bargain, offering something up in exchange for power from demonic entities, ones that entirely relinquish their hold on said abilities until they decide to take them back through one manner or another. Our most prominent example of this kind of power would have to be Jeffrey Brevvard, a.k.a. Six Sixx of the short-lived band Acid Washed. Given access to the Neflords (see Nef above) by their latest recruiter and former avatar (heavily implied but never outright stated to be a certain music King who is presumed to have died in August of 1977), he sacrifices young women to the Neflords in exchange for various powers that his Psychofiles profile identifies as “black magick,” a skill set that includes raising his soulless bandmates from their crates, transforming into a demonic entity with wings, the ability to be seen as very famous and popular in spite of his lackluster music through probability alteration, and access to his black magick Neffish guitar. The latter is not as much a part of his type of creature as it is a consequence of said power, which can be used by others if they can get their hands on it to do things including opening a portal to different dimensions such as Nef and the Dream World or between different areas on Earth, time travel, projection of blasts of energy, hypnosis of virgins, and potentially much more. In all, the power relies upon a steady flow of virgin sacrifices, to which point Six Sixx develops a body count of at least fourteen before the end of his run.

Another example of this kind of power is famous from slasher films, and even comes up under a different name in the ‘Mind Killer’ arc after a brief appearance at the ends of ‘Shout at the Devil’: the Dream Demons that empowered Freddy Krueger of the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Although the Dream Demons are only identified as “Dread Drinkers” by Six Sixx on account of him not knowing their names, their appearance and fear-inducing abilities make their true identities readily apparent to those with the right knowledge, placing Krueger (who had been previously identified by Chucky and also was mentioned without directly stating his name in ‘My First Maniac’) in the role of an avatar to their power, rather than a slasher in and of himself. The fact that he could be depowered through skillful use of time travel in Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors adds further credence to him not being a slasher.

The other major type of power is that of a divine influence, as is the case with Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle, a character in public domain who was involved in events during the ‘Super Sidekick Sleepover Slaughter’ arc and her own one-shot arc ‘Mystery Woman.’ In her case, the powers granted are fantastical to the point of her being seen as a goddess, able to perform ridiculously powerful, often quite over-the-top punishments on those she deems to be worthy of said behavior, including villains associated with her capture and those who would attack her jungle. However, while the powers themselves are quite memorable, their source is less reliable. Fantomah’s power relies upon the continued existence of her jungle, and with her capture for decades in the “Godbox,” she was unable to prevent the quite realistic destruction of said jungle by modern society’s deforestation. As such, while her powers are quite strong shortly after emerging from her captivity, they quickly weaken to nothing more than illusions, and eventually are removed from her altogether in favor of a more suitable host, leaving her to mortality once more.

Monsters

Perhaps the best term to use for the creatures outright called “monsters” in ‘Son of Samhain’ would be “orcs,” in the classic J.R.R. Tolkein scheme. Judging from how the overall tone of ‘Son of Samhain’ is more of a pulpy action story than a horror story, determining their characteristics is a bit more difficult, in no small part due to them only being brought up for a single arc.

What can be determined is that they are an ancient species that dwells deep beneath the Earth in tunnels, and that they have their own hierarchy. They have a variety of subspecies, including the following: insectoid tinier creatures that can possess and enhance bodies of others by crawling into their orifices, forcing their minds into a dream state; humanoid figures in varying degrees of muscle mass that look like prototypical orcs, with green skin and primitive weapons like clubs; and flying beasts described as “gods” of their kind that are, nonetheless, not powerful enough to withstand sufficient human-based explosives. Their numbers are in the thousands at least, but they are weak enough to be taken down with a single swing of Cassie’s bat, to the point that she seems willing to take on an entire wave of their army more or less by herself.

Vampire

Of course, vampires are known throughout fiction as bloodsucking undead, as one of the archetypical creatures of the genre up there with spirits and werebeasts. Given that, an analysis of their nature seems in order, considering some rules may differ depending on the series. In particular, the ones seen are from the ‘Return to Haverhill’ arc of “Hack/Slash: Resurrection.”

Of the typical vampiric traits, several are shown, especially for Chetly, Earl of Chanders. In particular, they have some form of hypnosis through eye contact, cannot cross into a location without being invited, and have superhuman strength and speed. In at least the case of Chet, vampires can be kept from touching particular people by specifying who exactly is allowed to fall under the “invitation,” with others being treated as essentially a restraining order. All vampires under the head of a group will turn back to normal once said vampire is killed. Vulnerabilities include holy water, silver, and staking (with a stake being any long, sharp piece of wood). Furthermore, multiple types of vampire, from the one first shown in ‘Return to Haverhill’ to the recurring crossovers with Vampirella, are afraid of cats.

As said by a head vampire, “The blood contains many magics.” On the one hand, this could mean sharing of abilities across vampiric strains, such as enhancing one vampire’s control over an area of expertise only held by the other. On the other hand, this also allows for transference of command of a group from an ancient vampire to a younger one through a dark ritual that involves “the purest of sacrifices,” which may include, or in fact be, the heart of the older vampire. The fact that the explanation changes slightly between issues of the series makes determining what exactly occurred unclear.

Hybrids

Across the entire series, there are some hybrids between humanity and other creatures, through a variety of means. Some are born as hybridized creatures, others are granted said hybridization through mystical means, and others still artificially hybridize themselves.

“Each generation brings us closer. We move away from humans and toward monsters with every hatching. It won’t be long before Attan-Soolu’s DNA consumes the human’s, giving it the strength to life on its own.”

First, there is the process of using an artificial selection process of breeding (coupled with directly applying nonhuman DNA) to create hybrid creatures. On a lower key level, this technique was seen with the eponymous creatures from the ‘Sons of Man’ arc. The Society of the Black Lamp used inhumane breeding programs to create specialized human breeds, essentially subspecies, including the following: the “Hades,” with innate night vision; the “Poseidon,” able to hold their breath and swim unnaturally well; the “Artemis,” near-animalistic supersoldiers; and the “Venus,” little more than companions and sexual slavery (with the exception of one).

More overt was the process used in the alliance between the degenerated remnants of the Black Lamps and the monsters under Morinto, which merged the DNA of Akakios (still called “Samhain” for whatever reason) and that of the monstrous god Attan-Soolu to create monster-humans. There are some more disturbing examples present, such as an apparently full-grown man with Akakios’ orange hair and a shell on his torso, but the most successful was one of those that they deemed to be the greatest failure known to live, the eight-year-old October “Ocky” Bourne, who had little if any connection to the monsters themselves.

“Her boon was power. The power to take. The power to kill. She made him better. She made him more than a man. Of course, tha’ power came with certain dietary requirements. Tha’ ne’er bothered Sawney. Eventually he decided it’d be selfish to keep all tha’ power to himself, so Sawney took a wife. When he saw his golden daughters, he knew tha’ he had to keep the blood strong. And so the Beanes passed into myth and legend. But the blood did remain strong…”

In the case of the Beane Clan, descended from the infamous Alexander “Sawney” Beane and his 48-member cannibal clan originated in 16th Century Scotland, the influence is more mystical in nature. After Sawney showed no fear in the face of a demoness that had attempted to kill him, she granted him the boon of superhuman strength and durability, powered by his own cannibalism. For his descendants, he decided to “keep it in the family,” resulting in an incestuous clan spanning all the way to the 21stcentury in Chicago. The women who were born of his line were very physically attractive at first, but were liable to transform into a far more hideous, green skinned form once sufficiently agitated. For whatever reason, private military contractors from Moreci Securities seem fit to call those ones vampires, perhaps due to their habit of injecting some kind of poison into victims to make their faces puff up with blood. On the other hand, males of the line were constantly in the monstrous form, with the green skin also working along with a complete inability to grow hair and an overall deformed appearance. The actual dilution of the bloodline as a way of weakening the power is unclear, seeing as Vlad, a member of the clan who had a father outside of it, was able to defeat one of their stronger members.

The downside seems to come with those who refrain from cannibalism. As the power is inherently tied to that food source, those who do not eat human meat, such as Vlad, seem to have a variety of physical ailments, ranging from respiratory problems (such as those that are half of why Vlad wears his signature gas mask) to a progressive bone disease that leaves Vlad bedridden for a several arcs of the latter half of the comic’s original run. While Dr. Vincent Morrow (of Witch Doctor) seemed to create a serum to cure his bone condition from the blood of Vlad’s grandfather, Bronson Beane, it is unclear if this treatment is permanent. However, considering there has been absolutely no mention of his various ailments since, and considering Dr. Morrow’s treatments are pretty comprehensive, it seems fair to say that the negative effects were counteracted until otherwise proven.

“You know as well as I do that this job, hunting like we do, has a way of aging us in some ways, and keeping us young in others.”

Hack/Slash: Hot Shorts by Tim Seeley, Jim Terry and Daniel Leister. Cover by Seeley and Matt Herms. Variant cover by Suzi ‘Suspiria’ Vilchez. Out in October.