See, I understand what the purpose of this prequel is. Before now, Cassie Hack’s origin has only been told in bits and pieces here and there. We know about her mom, we know she became a slasher hunter, and we know somewhere down the road she eventually met Vlad and they paired up to fight evil.
But it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if we went back to the normal flow of the series with the normal characters. While I definitely want to know about Cassie Hack and her story, I miss the other characters. It’s tough to sit and read an issue without Vlad harping poetic about his latest kill, or the Hack/Slash team helping the duo along for the ride with pokes at the slasher genre.
Now “My First Maniac” issue two focuses on much more stern and complex storylines. Cassie trying to fit in. We’ve seen that before. We know she’s social awkward, why do we need to read it again? I know: the new readers from Image need to catch up. But what about the hardcore fans? The ones who were there from the beginning. Nevertheless, “My First Maniac” issue two is centered around Cassie after leaving her foster family, and searching for Farmer Fig, a slasher undead farmer who gets his jollies off of killing teens in the cornfields. Taking the same route as the previous series, Cassie has to infiltrate a certain social group to find the slasher. So she has to go back to high school. After beating on some gay bashers with a few other people, she meets a young woman and her boyfriend who befriend her and invite her in to the group, but not all is what it seams.
First of all there’s the intimation that the head girl of the group who invited Cassie along has plans for her. Secondly, there’s the twisted and horrible story of Farmer Fig who was so protective of his sexy daughter he resorted to murdering horny guys trying to get to her and propped them as scarecrows. One interesting aspect of the story is the climax in which two of the gay bashers from the beginning of the issue discover Farmer Fig’s barn and happen upon a bunch of video games, one of which ends up quite bloody. Say what? So… are gay bashers being killed off? Is there another slasher at work making Cassie think it’s just Farmer Fig? Or is Farmer Fig’s murdered daughter the actual slasher behind this whole ordeal? Is there something the comic didn’t show us when we saw Farmer Fig and his daughter hung from the rafters? Nonetheless, this is a solid second issue and one that’s not as compelling as I’d originally hoped, but works as a bit of interesting slasher fare that will give readers the perfect idea of who and what Cassie Hack is about and what she can do when confronted with a slasher. Now can we bring Vlad back? I miss that bastard.