History ComicBook / HackSlash

** While watching [[spoiler:Jack Hack]] pass away in ''Cassie and Vlad meet the Re-Animator'', Vlad notes that this is where the dying would say some FamousLastWords, but that this is not one of the shows he watches where that happens.

* AcidRefluxNightmare: Eating badly causes Cassie to have RecurringDreams about [[ThoseTwoBadGuys Milk and Cheese]], but she almost prefers those over her nightly recollection of shooting her mother. At one point, Vlad, drunk, also hallucinates the duo, [[SubvertedTrope but it’s actually due to other forces]].

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: Milk & Cheese. They’re the result of an AcidRefluxNightmare. Repeatedly.

* {{Hermaphrodite}}: Newer [[SexSlave Venus models]] in ''Sons of Man'' have been engineered to be this, to cater to a variety of tastes. It mostly serves to creep out Cassie, though.

-->'''Venus Twelve:''' [[{{Cult}} The Society]] has long sponsored human breeding experiments. Their earliest attempts were in pursuit of more intelligent and "morally" prone individuals to "purify" their ranks for the coming apocalypse. To them, the experiments were no more inhumane than breeding for a better lap dog or a meatier cow. Over a thousand years of controlled mating, they created several [[HumanSubspecies specialized human breeds]]. They called these creatures the "Sons of Man." The ''Poseidon'' was [[SuperNotDrowningSkills able to hold its breath and swim unnaturally well]]. The ''Hades'' could [[InnateNightVision see in the dark]]. But their most successful creations were the ''Artemis'', bred as [[SuperSoldier hunters and killers]], and the ''Venus'', bred as companions and {{sex slave}}s. [...] There are breeding and nurturing sites throughout the world, but [[ArcVillain Rodin]] founded [[IslandBase this location]] to develop his own [[MadScientist special projects]]. Here he guided the eugenics program to new heights, forging a stronger, more lethal breed of Artemis, and "special order" Venus models, [[{{Hermaphrodite}} customized to the buyer's desires]].

** ZettaiRyouiki

* MrsRobinson: Mrs. Miller, a near-victim of the Candlemas Murderer in ''Entry Wound'', is in the middle of receiving oral sex from a teenaged boy while [[YourCheatingHeart cheating on]] [[SpeedSex her husband]] when Cassie saves her.

** Issues #6 and #28 are set in Haverhill, a town inspired by Franchise/ArchieComics. The art shifts into an Archie-like style to represent this. However, at the end of #28, the art shifts back into a more realistic style to represent Haverhill coming down with CerebusSyndrome. (Oddly enough, this wound up anticipating the more realistic art style in the [[ComicBook/ArchieComics2015 2015 reboot]] of Archie.)

* IntoxicationEnsues: In ''Double Date'', the slasher arranges for the punch at a school dance to be dosed with ecstasy to make the teenagers (especially) horny, so he will have some 'sinners' to murder. Given the story was a parody of Franchise/ArchieComics, the reactions are hilarious.

** The town of Haverhill, a parody of Riverdale from Franchise/ArchieComics, takes its name from Haverhill, Massachusetts, the childhood home of Bob Montana, one of the creators of Archie.

* TwoTimerDate: In ''Double Date'', Father Wrath II takes advantage of some Franchise/ArchieComics style hijinks involving a two-timer date to can access to a school date in search of victims.

2014 saw the beginning of a new volume, ''Hack/Slash: Son of Samhain'', by Michael Morecci and Steve Seeley, which follows Cassie's attempts to build a new life as a "normal" person. These are subsequently derailed by an old monster-hunter named Delroy, who enlists her to go after a new cult of monsters. The series was cancelled after the first, status-quo-establishing, arc. In 2017, a further revival series began under the title of ''Hack/Slash: Resurrection'', written by Tini Howard, which begins with Cassie in her mid-twenties and is ambiguous as to whether ''Son of Samhain'' is still in continuity, though it does reference her BountyHunter job there offhand. With that series' conclusion, 2018 and 2019 saw a CrisisCrossover in the form of ''Hack/Slash vs. Chaos!'', again penned by Seeley, and followed by ''Film/TheCrow: Hack/Slash''.

* {{Deconstruction}}: Arguably one of Buffy. Both start with the premise "Final Girl of a horror film goes hunting the villains from other horror films," but unlike Buffy, who balances this with a normal life, Cassie is shown to be a deeply scarred person.

* BiTheWay: Cassie and Margaret.

* ClosetKey:
** Georgia/Margaret acts as this for Cassie in ''Shout at the Devil'', though the latter eventually is revealed as BiTheWay.
** The converse is also true in ''Closer'', with Cassie and Margaret's FirstKiss letting Margaret realize she likes it.

* CerebusSyndrome: Kicks in roughly when the ongoing series begins. While previous arcs were nasty, there was little actual direct harm to the protagonists. The first issue of the first ongoing has her being tortured, which carries on to other issues, examining her many psychological issues in depth. [[TropesAreNotBad This just goes to better show how nasty her life really is.]]

* CountryMatters: Uttered by a particularly nasty bully in one of Cassie's childhood flashbacks in ''Gross Anatomy''.

* StephenUlyssesPerhero: [[AllThereInTheManual According to the Psychofiles]], the Tin Woodsman's real name is Kent Wood.

2014 saw the beginning of a new volume, ''Hack/Slash: Son of Samhain'', by Michael Morecci and Steve Seeley, which follows Cassie's attempts to build a new life as a "normal" person. These are subsequently derailed by an old monster-hunter named Delroy, who enlists her to go after a new cult of monsters. The series was cancelled after the first, status-quo-establishing, arc. In 2017, a further revival series began under the title of ''Hack/Slash: Resurrection'', written by Tini Howard, which begins with Cassie in her mid-twenties and is ambiguous as to whether ''Son of Samhain'' is still in continuity, though it does reference her BountyHunter job there offhand.

* WeakButSkilled: Cassie has all of the strength of a seventeen-to-twenties teenager/young woman, and nothing else beyond her guns or other armaments. She makes up for it with skill in facing down Slashers, along with appropriate backup.

* WholePlotReference: "Psyche: No Vacancy" from ''Trailers Part 2'' is essentially what would have happened if the infamous ShowerScene in ''Film/{{Psycho}}'' had Marion Crane replaced with Cassie, with Vlad as support.

[[quoteright:304:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1518700-hack_slash_omnibus__1_6153.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:304:SexyPackaging at its finest.]]

Not to be confused with HackAndSlash (although the stories definitely have that feel to them) or with [[{{Reboot}} Hack and Slash]].

* InTheBlood: Early issues suggest that becoming a slasher can happen to anyone who is AxeCrazy enough while alive, but it later turns out that slasherness is hereditary in anybody descended from the original members of the Black Lamps, thanks to the weird effects of the Black Ambrosia drug they abused. (Although since that was 2500 years in the past,
the genetic taint has spread quite widely.)

* {{Mundanger}}: The first ever villain we see Cassie and Vlad take down was the coach of a cheerleading camp who had been murdering campers. He appeared completely normal... aside from him wearing a catcher's mask while killing, for some reason. The second Father Wrath also turned out to be a completely human [[JackTheRipoff copycat]].

* FiveBadBand: The Black Lamp Society Paladins in the ''Final'' story arc.

* In ''Resurrection'' #12, the town under a "censorship" spell that bans all sorts of "bad taste" activities is named "Wertham", after Fredric Wertham, notorious post-WWII anti-comic campaigner.

** Cassie spends a few panels completely topless in ''Resurrection'', but the most noticeable thing to the reader is the huge wound on her chest due to Dr. Chase starting to do an autopsy on her when she was only feigning unconsciousness.

* FirstGirlWins: [[spoiler:Cassie and Georgia end up as the OfficialCouple.]]

* PublicDomainCharacter: Nightmare and Sleepy, a pair of [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] superheroes, appear in flashback, and a few other [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] heroes are obliquely mentioned in the same story.
* PumpkinPerson: Samhain, a potentially-redeemable [[SlasherMovie slasher]] with a Halloween theme who wears a pumpkin-like mask.

** Cassie sarcastically notes in ''Sons of Man'' that the Black Lamp Society were trying to sacrifice her to [[Film/{{Ghostbusters}} Zuul]].

* FreudianExcuse: A rare heroic example. She eventually admits by ''Closer'' that [[NominalHero it was just an excuse]], though.