Hack Slash / Vampirella #1

Writer: Shawn Aldridge
Artist: Rapha Lobosco
Colors: Chris O’Halloran
Published by: Dynamite Comics

As far as crossovers go with established properties within comic books, it seems like this Hack/Slash and Vampirella team-up seems to be a match made in heaven. One is a comic about a duo of “slasher” hunters in Cassie Hack and Vlad; the other is a comic about a maybe space vampire (we’ll go with that origin for now, since they allude to it in this issue).

What we get in this crossover is exactly what you would expect. The first page depicts a pretty gruesome murder committed by an unknown woman that sees a man missing his heart. With this one page teaser out of the way, we move to the Las Vegas strip where we find our heroes from Hack/Slash about to paint the town red while on vacation. However, as they come across their hotel - an aptly named Dead End Inn - they are passed by a couple of coroners who are discussing, quite freely I might add, about the first page murder. This peeks Cassie’s curiosity, but Vlad reminds her they are on vacation.

Like any good comic book though, this does not stop Cassie from investigating -  after Vlad goes to bed. After a few less than stellar attempts at interviewing patrons of the casino, Cassie finds enough clues to bring her to the scene of the crime. And that is where the crossover begins as Cassie discovers Vampirella doing her own snooping. From there, the story picks up.

I am not familiar with Aldridge as a writer, but I have to say, if this issue is any indication, I might have to look up more of his work. He kept the pace up throughout the whole story not pausing long enough to give the reader any room to breathe, and I liked that about the comic. These types of crossovers sometimes oversell the first meeting of the titled heroes, but Aldridge gets Cassie, Vlad and Vampirella’s meeting out of the way quickly with a quick battle between the three that Vampirella handily wins - vampire from outer space and everything. I also really enjoyed the snappy dialogue throughout.

On art, Lobosco is also another unknown to me, but again, I was really impressed. Something I’ve noticed a lot of artists do these days to cut down on time needed to complete a comic is to completely and utterly forget about backgrounds which Lobosco does not. Yes, there are a few panels that don’t have any, but for the most part, this comic feels alive and it’s not just because of the characters.