WMG / Hack/Slash

Cassie Hack is a Slasher.

Think about it: Cassie says that the only thing she knows for certain about Slashers is that "they're mean and hard to kill....I'm Cassie Hack. I'm mean, I'm hard to kill, and I hunt slashers." So Slashers are, in effect, serial killers who are especially mean and difficult to kill. What is Cassie but a serial killer (of serial killers) who is mean and hard to kill? Clearly, Cassie was murdered, probably by her own mother, but Cassie was so driven that she rose from the dead to seek revenge on Slashers like her mother. Because of the trauma, however, she suppressed the memory of her own death; also, she clearly wasn't disfigured by her death (perhaps she was poisoned?).

• Supported by the fact that, assuming that the Black Lamp Society is correct, there is a hereditary component to being a Slasher. It's been confirmed repeatedly that there is definitely a biological component to being one.
  • Also Samhain, who was not merely more moral than most slashers but more stereotypically attractive. Although Cassie hasn't shown anything you could really call super-healing yet.
    • No obvious super-healing, but her survivability is extraordinary.
    • She did gain a healing factor ever since the recent arcs. Since it came from Samhain's blood, this could arguably make her a Half-Slasher, if anything.

Hack/Slash was specifically written as a deconstruction of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

It's obvious that the two series share basic premise— a teenage girl, who fits the archetype of the "final girl" in horror movies, decides to become a killer of other horror movie monsters. But there are enough similarities to make one suspicious. It seems to me that Seeley wrote Hack/Slash to show why someone in that kind of story wouldn't end up nearly as well-adjusted, realistically, as Buffy and her friends are.

Other aspects of Buffy also get a darker twist in Hack/Slash. Like Angel, Samnhain is a member of the race of monsters the heroine fights who develops feelings for her and becomes her ally. Unlike Angel, it doesn't stick, and as soon as he leaves his brainwashed state he reverts to his normal Slasher form. Also, despite all the supernatural danger she gets them into, Buffy's friends always come out fine. Lisa and Chris, however, aren't so lucky. Unlike Buffy, this is the type of story where the Plucky Comic Relief isn't safe.

Bomb Queen is Cassie's Alternate Universe Evil Counterpart

They look kind of similar; Cassie could've become like BQ, a psychotically depraved hedonistic thrill killer and the champion of psychos, if she had chosen a different path, or if she just completely snaps one day. Could possibly tie into the above.

Vlad isn't entirely human

It's been revealed that some demons/extra-dimensional things use humans for breeding, so it doesn't seem a big leap to actual hybridisation. Hence his looks, strength, and Parental Abandonment. His lung problems are probably because his lungs aren't completely optimised to Earth atmosphere: since acidic urban air pollution makes them worse I suspect that one of his parent's home environment had a more alkaline nature than Earth, maybe an ammonia-heavy atmosphere.

• Jossed by Me Without You. It features his perfectly normal mother and father, and shows his maternal grandfather (an apparent descendent of Sawney Beane) has whatever disorder Vlad does, though apparently much more severe due to either age or because he didn't bother to work through it like Vlad did.
• But then confirmed by the later "The Good Son" arc in the main title. The original Sawney Beane had sex with some kind of demonic entity, and all their male descendents are deformed but super-strong.

Vlad is either an Alternate Universe Good Counterpart to Jason Voorhees, or Jason's relative.

Both are giants with deformed faces and skulls that walk around and killing stuff with knives. Both are also not the sharpest knives in the drawer. Maybe Vlad is what Jason Voorhees or someone with his genes would have grown into with marginally better parenting and not so much bullying.

• I think Seeley once said he envisioned Vlad as a good version of Jason.

Cassie will get romantically involved with Cat Curio.

Cassie has said she won't let herself get attached to anyone who can't handle the kind of life she and Vlad lead. Cat is already in the process of becoming precisely that sort of person; Curio already wants to hunt slashers and fight the Black Lamp society. They'll eventually become a Battle Couple.

• It would certainly explain this◊ incentive cover.

Vlad is alive.

We never see his body.

There will be a Hack/Slash and Punisher crossover.

Eventually, we'll get a crossover with Friday the 13th.

And it will be titled Hack/Slash: 13 Blades.

• The main villains would be both Jason and 13 Jason copycats.

Alternatively, we'll eventually get a Hack/Slash-Nightmare on Elm Street crossover.

And it will be titled Hack/Slash: Bladed Nightmare.

• The main villains will be Freddy Krueger and a cult that worships Freddy Krueger.

There will be a Hack/Slash and Duke Nukem crossover.

• Hack/Slash pays homage to 1980's slasher movies and Duke Nukem pays homage to 1980's action movies.

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