The sad, tragic origin of Cassie Hack's bodyguard, Vlad, is at last explored in this tale of a monster who's been abandoned by everyone he ever loved.
The Good
I continue to feel that Hack/Slash has a mythos with a lot of potential and this provides some long-in-coming explanations for one of the mega-series' most important characters. The title's been smart about never taking itself too seriously and, while I do wish this comic could've dug a little deeper, Vlad's plight is immediately sympathetic and that sympathy endures throughout, even when he does some horrific things.
The Bad
For a story with a character called the Meatman, there isn't a lot of meat in this one-shot. While I don't think anybody's asking for some deep psychological profile of Vlad, it still feels like this origin story is basically just a procession of the guy getting abandoned through one murder after another. The notion of him being some kind of ogre lurking in the basement is ripe with thematic potential, but it's moved over so quickly that this really doesn't pack as much oomph as Cassie's own slasher movie history.
The Verdict - 3.5/5
I read a lot of the Hack/Slash minis at Devil's Due, but this is my first return to the series in a while. I wonder if the story might've been better served as a chapter in a long story instead of as a one-shot, because the hanging threads with the blood syndicate and Cassie's appearance prevent this from being self-contained enough to be totally accessible to new readers. The production work's stellar, though.
