Now that “Hack/Slash” is done, I’m kind of regretful and happy I didn’t finish its run with Image. This is what happens when I leave this series? Tim Seeley kills off Vlad? And pitifully, I might add? Granted, it’s nice to see that Cassie has fully embraced her homosexuality and is now in a happy relationship with her wife, but damn, did you have to kill off Vlad? In either case, you’re nobody in the horror world if you don’t cross paths with Ashley Williams at least once, and lo and behold, he’s back, baby.
Cassie is trying her best to live her life now that she’s not killing slashers anymore. She has a daughter, is in a good relationship, and is trying her best to live a mundane existence. But all of that changes when the babysitter they left with their daughters turns out to be a flesh eating deadite. Just their luck Ash was tracking down the bastard, and he fills Cassie in on the new plot by the Necronomicon. It seems someone is selling off the pages of the book to various customers that want to use its spells for certain motives, and it’s turning them in to deadites. Unwilling to let Ash do the dirty work of tracking down the book alone, Cassie leaves behind her old life and joins Ash on a long journey of fighting deadites, and re-claiming the pages.
As is always the case, Ash is pretty much a hedonistic smartass who finds Cassie gorgeous, but knows how to deal with the deadites at every turn. Either the deadites aren’t as smart as we’ve been told, or Ash is just smarter than anyone realizes. The six part mission to find the pages also confronts past storylines of Ash’s while also tackling Cassie’s inability to cope with the death of Vlad. Together they fight off naked dopplegangers in prison, miniature clones, and even end in ancient Greece, forced to do battle with yet another army of darkness. Thankfully Ash is still Ash, lending levity to the demonic beings that he and Cassie Hack have to do battle with.
Ash makes up some of the funniest moments of the mini-series, including his unwillingness to fight naked male deadites, and his horror at meeting Pooch, which prompts him to nearly murder him. I also like how Seeley and co. bring explanations to what Cassie has done since the series ended, and centering on how tough it is to live a normal life, especially when she’s spent all of her youth taking down monsters, demons, and vicious slashers. It’s good to see Seeley also explore how close Cassie and her wife Margaret have become, and how it’s harder to be normal, than run around the country bringing down undead killers. While the crossover definitely is fun and gory, the finale really lends a tragic insight in to our unwillingness to let go of our loved ones, and the desperate measures we’ll resort to to get them back.
Even if it means making a soul pact with soul eating monsters from hell. “Army of Darkness vs. Hack Slash” is a nice book end to the “Hack/Slash” series, and another excellent footnote in the adventures of interdimensional time traveling demons ass kicker Ashley J. Williams. Hail to the King.