The characters of Hack/Slash
Main Characters
The main protagonist of the series. Cassie had quite a hard life: her father went missing, her peers bullied her at school, and eventually her mother went insane and started brutally slaughtering her bullies in an effort to protect her. When Cassie found out, she called the authorities, leading to her mother's suicide. She was then sent to a foster family, only for her mother to rise as a slasher and start killing her new classmates again, eventually ending with Cassie forced to kill her a second time. At this point, the poor girl decided to fight back, and started wandering in the USA, killing all the slashers she could find.
- Action Girl: Definitely. She is someone who regularly fight undead superpowered serial killers, after all.
- Action Girlfriend: For Margaret for a time.
- Action Mom: For Sanny during Army of Darkness vs. Hack/Slash, and essentially for Ocky during Son of Samhain.
- Agony of the Feet: Loses two toes to torture inflicted by Doctor Gross in the first issue of her first ongoing.
- Amazon Chaser: From "Resurrection" onward, she seems to have a thing for Action Girls.
- Anti-Hero: She is a good person, but her ways of dealing with her villains are... gruesome, to say the least. Though to be fair, she fight undead sociopathic serial killers, so it's not like if they didn't have it coming.
- Back from the Dead: After being accidentally shot by a cop, she is resurrected by Evil Ernie.
- Badass Adorable: A small, cute teenage girl who regularly dispatches undead serial killers of her own. This is especially apparent at 17 in My First Maniac.
- Badass and Child Duo: Becomes this with Ocky in the latter half of Son of Samhain, though Ocky is pretty badass himself.
- Badass Normal: For most of the series, she has no power beside her wits, fighting skills and guts. She still manages to regularly slaughter slashers.
- Black Bra and Panties: She alternates between this and Goofy Print Underwear with occasional pink or white thrown in for variety.
- Blood Knight: She's mentioned several times that she can barely conceive a life beyond hunting and killing monsters, but completely aware of how messed up this is. She even sees the idea of a normal life as nothing more than play-acting and make-believe.
- Book Dumb: She never actually finished school, though to be fair we're never told how she did in it anyway.
- Broken Ace: She’s an expert in fighting Slashers... and has a whole host of personal problems to go with that role.
- Broken Bird: Even before the horrible stuff happening to her over the course of her adventures, there is the whole thing about her being bullied as a kid and her mother retaliating by cooking her schoolmates. The girl has one messed up backstory.
- But Now I Must Go: Cassie is restless when not fighting monsters and can't stay long in one place, she even declines Alan Knight's offer to adopt her and Vlad even though she partly wanted to take him up.
- Cannot Spit It Out: The main problem with regards to her hang-ups with dating Margaret involve this, since she externalizes her fear of hurting others into her just not being into girls. In her head, she seems to really want to say how much she loves Margaret, but her dangerous job make her reluctant to do so.
- Celibate Hero: Played with; she willingly avoids relationships for most of the series because she knows she can't have a normal life, but it's pretty clear she wishes it was possible. She ends up in relationships with Samhain and Margaret, but neither of these end well. After losing her virginity, she loses the "celibate" part, having no issues with casual sex whatsoever, but still maintains that she never wants to have kids on account of both her lifestyle and the In the Blood mechanics of her heritage.
- Collared by Fashion: Has worn spiked collars in the past.
- The Combat Pragmatist: Has no problem relying on dirty tricks to eliminate Slashers. For example, when dealing with holiday slashers, she and Vlad usually just find their resting place, and blow it up while they're still hibernating.
- Deadpan Snarker: She can be quite snarky about the things she ends up facing.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Final Girl Hunter of Monsters. Driven by a Guilt Complex and her status as a Shell-Shocked Veteran, Cassie's life is shown to be anything but glamorous or awesome. She is a Homeless Hero in Perpetual Poverty due to her Walking the Earth lifestyle, has difficulty relating to others, and is severely developmentally stunted to the point that one could easily say she never really grew up past seventeen. Due to her lifestyle, the It's Not You, It's My Enemies nature of her work and I Work Alone outlook, she quickly grows into a Sociopathic Hero in the most literal version of the term on top of being a Nominal Hero who is in the fight to hunt monsters, not necessarily to save people.
- Deliberately Distressed Damsel: An often employed tactic when luring out slashers. Almost backfired when used against Dr. Gross.
- Disappeared Dad: He already was missing before the whole incident with her mother.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After the events of the last issue, Cassie hangs up her spurs to raise Sandra Krank with Margaret. Unfortunately, this doesn't last.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Part of her goth design.
- The Eeyore: Poor girl just can't catch a break. If she’s ever having a good time, expect things to go very badly very soon.
- 11th-Hour Superpower: The final two volumes of her main series have her with a Healing Factor that works unconsciously as long as she doesn’t fight it. Unfortunately, this comes with increased aggression and, ultimately, a transformation into a living Slasher. Just before she turns evil for good, Cat has Pooch cure her of Samhain/Akakios' blood, rendering her Brought Down to Badass once more.
- Empowered Badass Normal: Briefly became the new Fantomah. Also, she recently gained a healing factor. See below. This is also temporary.
- Final Girl: Started out as one to her mother, who she killed after finding out she was killing her classmates. Then decided to fight back.
- Freudian Excuse Denial: Interestingly, she thinks this of herself by the time of Closer, in regards to the reason she became a Serial-Killer Killer in the first place.Cassie: All for the wrong reasons. I was pissed at my mom. Pissed at myself. I turned myself into a weapon. A bullet aimed at my mom, which would eventually come around and get me, too. But I watched my mom die again. Finally met my dad, and watched him die. too. There's nothing else for me to do this for. No one but me. I don't even know who I am. All that's left is the weapon.
- Girl with Psycho Weapon: Examples include chainsaws, power drills, and machetes.
- Girlish Pigtails: Subverted Trope. While wearing her hair up in twin tails is a common look, and she does seem to be a little nicer when that happens, even slightly, she’s still very much The Lad-ette.
- Girls with Guns: In the main series, she often carries some kind of gun, be it a shotgun or a handgun. She seems to have abandoned the practice by Son of Samhain and Resurrection in favor of close combat.
- Good Feels Good: Admits this is why she keeps using her experiences for good by the time of Son of Samhain, and seems to carry that through to Resurrection.
- Good Is Not Nice: She is a good guy, yes, more or less. But she is also quite foul-mouthed, antisocial, and has serious issues. She also denies being any kind of hero, but rather a hunter.
- Goofy Print Underwear: Whenever she's not wearing Black Bra and Panties, there's often a fun cartoon print on her underwear.
- Goth: My First Maniac shows her friend Sarah dragged her along on a shopping spree, and Cassie apparently just liked the stuff she picked out enough to retain the style from then on. According to the second part of her crossover with Nailbiter, this is also due to their job and Perpetual Poverty meaning she mostly uses money on clothes to just sew up what she has, meaning she probably kept the clothes she got with Sarah and they just happened to be varied enough. Averted in Son of Samhain.
- Grew a Spine: In her backstory, she was a constantly bullied teenager raised by an emotionally abusive and overly attached mother who then became a serial killer. Most flashbacks to her teenhood have her cowering away from bullies and whimpering at her mother's pestering. Sometime after first calling the cops on her mom, leading to her death, then personally re-killing her, she evidently developed the hard fearless edge she now has.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Usually she uses a variety of guns, keeping her bat handy for emergencies, and letting Vlad get up close and personal. This stops after Vlad dies, with her using close combat pretty much exclusively afterwards.
- Hates Being Touched: Though she gradually gets over it, she starts out this way, including beating up some people who hit on her early on.
- Healing Factor: From the end of Monster Baiting through Final, Cassie has gotten a good dose of Samhain's healing factor. It is taken away at the end of the latter to prevent the side effects from turning her evil permanently.
- Heartbroken Badass: A variant in that she does this to herself once, when she breaks up with Margaret due to having difficulty understanding her own feelings. She is heartbroken, but doesn't know how to deal with it at all. Fully becomes this when Samhain turns into Akakios shortly after they first made love.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: Some of her more covering costumes tend to heavily feature black leather.
- The Hero: By virtue of being the main protagonist. She's working on the heroic part.
- Heroic Seductress: Takes some levels in this by Army of Darkness vs. Hack/Slash, enough to seduce a guard to get his uniform after pretending she is going to have sex, and to seduce and sleep with Ash over the course of months to put him into a position to get her to the Necronomicon. That said, all of these do make her feel guilty about cheating on Margaret, even if it is purely physical on her part.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: From Little Children through Mind Killer, courtesy of Ashley Guthrie's manipulation of Muffy Joworski.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Cassie has always feared becoming a slasher, just like her mother. Samhain explicitly considers her just another kind of slasher who just happens to target other slashers.
- His Own Worst Enemy: She accumulates a number of enemies over the course of her years-long career, but never really gets a long standing Arch-Enemy... because her real enemy is her own personal issues, from being a Shell-Shocked Veteran and a literal Sociopathic Hero to her problems with intimacy (both platonic and romantic). Her own love life, coupled with her immaturity, leads to a multitude of conflicts, and she ends up racking up enough psychological problems to leave her close to being The Mentally Disturbed on her own. Notably, she’s completely aware of her nature, and it causes her to push people away... which just ends up causing her even more problems down the line and leaves her life in constant flux in terms of the people she can trust and rely upon to help her, let alone like her.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: Downplayed Trope. She does have issues with horniness at times, especially when it comes to Margaret or Samhain, but it's never to the point of overt lust that takes control over everything. Instead, it tends to result in Love Makes You Dumb, though in The Coldest Dish her near Poor Communication Kills is caused by her wanting to avoid her horny nature after a long time hunting for her Disappeared Dad. She even admits to herself that it's one of the few things that makes her feel "normal."Cassie: Horny is human. Horny is normal.
- Hunter of Monsters: Gradually evolves from just a slasher basher to an overall monster hunter, from a Vampire Hunter type to werewolves and ghosts and more.
- Icy Blue Eyes: Except when they're soft and in need of comfort, in which case they transition to Innocent Blue Eyes.
- It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Cassie has a very hard time having people get close to her because of her status as the Serial-Killer Killer. It leads to her shutting down the first incarnation of Hack/Slash Inc. and breaking up with Margaret, though the latter she has trouble admitting to her face.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: antisocial, foul-mouthed, and more than willing to rely on violence to reach her goal, but she is genuinely trying to protect innocents and cares a lot about people close to her.
- The Knights Who Say "Squee!": In the lead up to her part in the Super Sleepover Sidekick Slaughter, Cassie is especially nervous when talking to Alan Knight, of the paranormal radio show "Late Knight AM", on the phone about a case for her as a Serial-Killer Killer, given she usually listens to his show at night while driving.Cassie: (to Vlad) Yes, I am nervous. Yes, I am sweating. He’s the goddamn Late Knight!
- The Lad-ette: A teenage girl who swears, enjoys violence, and generally isn't a model of femininity. After she loses her virginity during Monster Baiting at age 20, whereafter she has far less reservations about sex, to the point of using her sexuality and sex in general more in Honey Trap measures (such as in Army of Darkness vs. Hack/Slash) or otherwise having casual sex with people.
- Like Brother and Sister: Her relationship with her initial Only Friend, Vlad, is this, though, initially unbeknownst to her, he wishes there were more.
- Loincloth: One of her outfits is this on the covers.
- Love Makes You Dumb: Her romantic attachments leave her in really bad situations, such as accidentally turning herself in to the cops in Mind Killer due to being so happy about her possible life with Margaret to ignoring the increasingly obvious signs that trusting Samhain is not a good idea, resulting in the return of Akakios and all of the resultant deaths.
- Mini Dress Of Power: Loves these and wears them very often.
- Ms. Fanservice: Good luck finding a pic of her where she isn't depicted in a sexy pose and/or wearing skimpy clothing. She’s regularly called attractive In-Universe, too.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Hack.
- Nominal Hero: Of a sort until Closer. She did save people, but only really cared about killing Slashers, not even doing all that much to save most victims and even putting some up as The Bait. She even admits to Margaret that her reasons were selfish in her 10-Minute Retirement during that arc.
- Not Afraid to Die: It’s shown on multiple occasions, from her attempts at a Heroic Sacrifice in Slice Hard and Murder/Suicide to her Interrupted Suicide in Final that Cassie is completely unafraid to die, knowing there could be much worse, and treating death itself as more of an annoyance than anything as it applies to her. She even flat out tells it to Six Sixx in Mind Killer.Cassie: You can just kill me. I'm not afraid of death.
- "Not So Different" Remark: She isn’t all that different from the very Slashers she hunts in a way, since she’s a hereditary potential Slasher herself, which worries her to no end.Cassie: Every time I look in the mirror I see my mother. And I think about all the rage and hate I have... for being a freak, for never being understood... and I think about dying someday... Do I have enough in me to come back... like her? So I destroy every Slasher I can find... I hate them... because I’m afraid I’m just like them.
- Not So Similar: At the same time as she isn't so different from Slashers, she still distinguishes herself from people who murder because they want to rather than to stop further killing, as she notes of Dale Wildman and Courtney. She spells it out to the latter.Cassie: Sure. You’re a victim. I’m a victim. But I use my experience to help people, not kill them.
- Panty Shot: Near constantly, to the point that if an issue goes by and she hasn't flashed her underwear, something serious must have happened.
- Parental Substitute: For Ocky in Son of Samhain, down to complaining about him talking back, telling him to watch his mouth, worrying over his wounds, and the like. Morinto even calls her Ocky's mother figure.
- Pop-Cultured Badass: As she started as a teenager, she has a wide range of pop culture tastes, including horror movies, various forms of music, and more. As such, she provides a large quantity of Shout Outs, if Chris doesn’t get there first.
- Pragmatic Hero: Even as she turns away from being a Nominal Hero in Closer, she still has absolutely no problem with brutal murder.
- Red Baron: The Serial-Killer Killer. First heard on "The Late Knight", it apparently became her known alias by the time of Army of Darkness vs. Hack/Slash.
- Refusal of the Second Call: Tries her damnedest to avoid getting back into being a Hunter of Monsters in Resurrection, with her traumas and three years of Slasher slaying (age 17-20) leaving her with a desire to just stop and be a Retired Badass. Unfortunately, The Call Knows Where You Live.
- Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: Is quite lax when mentioning things like dying and killing her old cheerleading coach.
- Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: The "basic skill" is being able to interact normally with most people on a long-term basis, though not to the point of No Social Skills. The "awesome training" is her self-trained status as a Serial-Killer Killer.
- Seen It All: It quickly becomes apparent that while certain things can surprise her with their suddenness, none of the fantastical elements of her world phase her much beyond general annoyance at having to deal with some of them.
- Self-Serving Memory: Can have a bad case of this in the worst of times. As her key example, in one of her darkest moments in Army of Darkness vs. Hack/Slash, she blames Akakios for seducing her, forgetting the fact that she came on to him when he was Samhain.
- Serial-Killer Killer: She is a girl who was motivated by a traumatic event in her past life into tracking down and killing Slashers. The only part she doesn't fill is being a member of a group dedicated to this. The entire concept behind her character. A midnight radio show even nicknamed her "the SKK", and it’s actually her Red Baron by Army of Darkness vs. Hack/Slash to the point that Ash knows her by it.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Has some traits of this. Spending years of her life hunting Slashers has left her with horrid nightmares and kept her from being able to be happy with Margaret.Cassie: I've seen too much. When I close my eyes I’m back to my days hunting down Slashers. And that's never going to go away. I know that now.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: She has a foul mouth, to say the least.
- Sociopathic Hero: In the most literal sense of the term. By her own admission, she is and considers herself "really fucked up", what with having a quite messed up backstory and spending her time travelling around the USA looking for undead serial killers to gruesomely dispatch. She however does care about saving people and not hurting innocents, so she is not quite as bad as other examples of this trope. She actually uses her ability to inflict violence on others without suffering mental consequence as part of a pep talk in the Son of Samhain series.Doctor Gross: Let's see... an impulsive attraction to violence, a lack of concern for own well-being. A failure to conform to social norms. Not to mention that flat voice and the display of low affect. I'd say you're a prime candidate for a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder.
Cassie: I won't lie. There's one thing about us that's different from most people. We can kill, even for the right reasons, and be okay with it. That's... not normal. - Staking the Loved One: Cassie is forced to kill her mother... and to help kill her again when she is resurrected.
- Stocking Filler: Loves her stockings.
- Stripperiffic: Cassie Hack is a literal Suicide Girl in-universe and without.
- Superpowered Evil Side: She's a hereditary potential slasher thanks to the Black Lamp taint, and she ends up slowly activating after being injected with Akakios's blood. She ultimately succumbs just after murdering Akakios... only for Pooch to cure her of the active blood.
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She's very tomboyish, but has her moments, such as blushing after her first Big Damn Kiss to Samhain, her susceptibility to the Stillborn's powers, and in the crossover with Army of Darkness, has developed a "Heaven's Little Helpers" collection. That last one is actually a front for her attempt to save Vlad, though. Bomb Queen calls her "hardcore on the outside, pink on the inside."
- Took a Level in Kindness: She very slowly learns to actually care about other people instead of just use them in her hunts against Slashers or treat them as nothing more than victims. It really shows well in Son of Samhain, where she is very patient and kind with Ocky despite not really liking kids for the most part, and in her quest to help fix some of her failures in Resurrection for its own sake, rather than just to kill another Slasher.
- Vigilante Man: One that happens to typically target slashers.
- Waif-Fu: Averted Trope. While she is a tiny girl and kicks a lot of ass, her tactics are not particularly in line with this type, and she can be easily overpowered by stronger people, necessitating help from those who are physically stronger.
A large, disfigured man who serves as Cassie's partner. As a child, Vlad was abandoned by his mother shortly after his birth, but quickly rescued and raised by a kindly butcher who taught him his trade and educated him with comic books. After the Butcher's death, he began leaving the deli for items, wearing a gas mask both to hide his disfigured face and to help him breath, since after being raised for years inside a deli his lungs had grown weak. This caused him to grow somewhat famous amongst the locals as "the Meatman". When he first met Cassie, she tried killing him, mistakenly believing he was the slasher she was then looking for, but eventually they realized the misunderstanding and teamed up to take care of the real slasher. Since then, Vlad has joined Cassie's hunt for slasher and assisted her.
- Back from the Dead: In Resurrection, thanks to a dose of Dr. Chase's variant on slasher serum. He's no crazier than normal, but it's implied that he might drop dead again at any point due to the serum's limitations.
- Badass Longcoat: His usual attire.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Despite his appearance, he actually is a pretty nice person. But he is every bit as strong as his size would suggest, and gladly joins Cassie in killing Slashers.
- The Big Guy: Tall, strong and the duo's muscle.
- The Comically Serious: Much of the humor comes from how he takes the ridiculousness of their world in complete stride.
- Cool Mask: His gas mask. Notably, it does have a practical use- he needs it to breath due to his lungs not being used to the outside.
- Creepy Good: He basically looks like a slasher in the vein of Jason Voorhees or Leatherface, but actually is a Gentle Giant who only gets dangerous if he is really mad.
- Depending on the Artist: He's either gray, green, or brown.
- Determinator: Is every bit as determined as Jason Voorhees.
- Dogged Nice Guy: When Cassie finally realizes in the first issue of "Final", the results are ugly, with her shouting at him about it and how it colors their entire relationship.Cassie: That's what this is about to you? It's a justification of why we don't fuck, right? Because I'm only interested in what's on the outside?! That's fucking bullshit. [...] But you know what I don't understand? Us! This! Are we partners? Are we friends? Do we get upset when one of us fucks someone else? Are you following me around, doing horrible things, just in the hope that I'll give it all up so we can settle down and have fucking babies?! What the fuck are we, Vlad?
- Expy: Basically is the pre-undead Jason Voorhees, if someone channeled his tendency to violence to a positive end.
- Gentle Giant: Vlad is absolutely gigantic, but unless he gets mad, he really is a nice guy to get along with.
- The Grotesque: Is deformed, albeit not quite as bad as everyone seems to think.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Played with; He definitely is more melee-oriented than Cassie, but she isn't limited to long range weapons herself.
- Handicapped Badass: Though he's a mountain of muscle and badassery, Vlad does suffer from pulmonary infections from time to time. It's part of the reason he wears the mask. Towards the end of the comic he nearly dies when his bone condition goes into overdrive.
- Hockey Mask and Chainsaw: When a big knife is not enough to get the job done, Vlad will switch to a chainsaw. Although his mask is a respirator rather than a hockey mask, visually it conveys the same impression.
- The Lancer: Cassie's closest partner, and serves as a Foil to her.
- Like Brother and Sister: Aside from being initially Cassie's Only Friend, this seems to be their general relationship, though he wishes there were more. He seems to have more or less gotten over it after his resurrection.
- Machete Mayhem: Wields one of these as an Expy of Jason Voorhees.
- Malaproper: His use of inappropriate, at times unintentionally lewd terminology is a Running Gag made funnier by the fact that he doesn’t seem to actually realize it.
- No Social Skills: Which is understandable, considering he was raised in a basement with little more than comic books.
- Older Sidekick: Cassie is a teenager, while he is at the very least an adult, having lived in a basement for twenty years plus an unknown amount extra afterwards by the time seventeen-year-old Cassie first meets him. Judging from the opening to Me Without You, he is roughly six years older than her, having been more or less twenty-three when he met her at seventeen.
- Properly Paranoid: It turns out he was right to distrust Samhain, in contrast to Cassie.
- Strange-Syntax Speaker: Due to the fact that he has trouble with speech normally, he adds "the" into sentences at random, such as "the sex" or "the New Mexico."
- Uneven Hybrid: Eventually revealed to be from a family of demon-human hybrids.
- White Sheep: The only one of his family who is not Ax-Crazy.
- You No Take Candle: Tends to have a somewhat limited vocabulary from his lack of social interaction.
A young veterinarian, Lisa Elsten used to work in a clinic along with Bobby Brunswick, a mentally-retarded but good-hearted part-time employee responsible for euthanizing of animals. Lisa's sympathy for Brunswick ended up causing her boyfriend Kyle to get jealous, which eventually led to Brunswick's death and revival as a slasher. This in turn led Lisa to meet with Cassie and Vlad, and she has been their ally since then.
- Cool Big Sis: Can act like this towards Cassie, like in Double Feature.
- Closest Thing We Got: Given Cassie's behaviors, and the fact that she has limited contact with any other medical specialists, Lisa, as a veterinarian, is the only real doctor she has. It proves to be enough for stitching her up, but occasionally the stress gets to Lisa.Lisa: God damn it! I’ve been doing more work on people in the last six months than animals! This. Is. Fucked. Up!
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Implied Trope. We don’t see her body or Chris's, due to them being under the covers, but they were killed by Doctor Gross, and there’s copious amounts of blood.
- Final Girl: Could be considered this for Bobby Brunswick, though he never wanted to kill her.
- Kindly Vet: She’s very nice and deals with animals.
- The Medic: As much as a veterinarian can be. She frustratedly notes in Closer that she's patched up more people than animals in the last six months.
- Mission Control: Communicates to Cassie through the internet.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: She’s not as knowledgeable about pop culture as Cassie or Chris, which shows through some of her conversations.
- All Men Are Perverts: Doesn’t really hide his enjoyment of pornography at all.
- Asian and Nerdy: A Downplayed Trope example as he's a fairly normal guy with a few minor hobbies.
- Basement-Dweller: Initially. He changes when he starts dating Lisa.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Implied Trope. We don’t see his body or Lisa's, due to them being under the covers, but they were killed by Doctor Gross, and there’s copious amounts of blood.
- Geek: Very into computers and horror.
- Mission Control: Helps Cassie across the internet.
- Non-Action Guy: Not as dangerous as the women in his life.
- Spiky Hair: A pretty triumphant example thereof, though it eventually settles to Messy Hair.
A stripper, later actress, from Georgia who lives in Los Angeles. Taking an immediate liking to Cassie and Vlad, she serves as one of their best friends, not to mention as a Love Interest to Cassie.
- Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: A sad but understandable example. She got a new girlfriend, Jessica, rather than continue to wait for Cassie to admit she is in love. However, Jessica leaves for home immediately at the end of Final, unable to handle the insanity that is Margaret's life.
- A Day in the Limelight: Over the Rainbow is her first starring role, with the emphasis on her hiding, and Cassie's hunt taking the backseat.
- Broken Pedestal: It's safe to say that her love of Acid Washed, which she had admitted in her first arc, disappeared altogether after they had her Dragged Off to Hell as a Human Sacrifice.
- Closet Key: Is this to Cassie, and vice versa.
- Fair Cop: One of her stripper routines, an apparent favorite of patrons.
- First Girl Wins: Eventually gets together with Cassie. At least until the sequel.
- Final Girl: Survived both Six Sixx and Dale Wildman.
- Forced to Watch: Has to watch as Grinface stabs her mother through the back.
- Girlish Pigtails: A common hairstyle of hers. Unlike Cassie, it's not a subversion.
- Love Interest: Introduced as a potential one to Cassie.
- Nice Guy: She’s so nice that she doesn’t even blink when she sees Vlad.
- Porn Names: Georgia Peaches isn't her real one. She eventually abandons it when she becomes an actress.
- Took a Level in Badass: In Final and afterwards. She’s not nearly as badass as Cassie, but she can hold her own to some degree if given some equipment, and is fully prepared to shoot to kill. Due to the events of Murder Messiah, she is also at least somewhat adept with the Nef guitar, which was left in her home after it was used to send Dale Wildman away.
- Will They or Won't They?: With Cassie. They get together, but not until the end of the series due to Cassie's hang-ups. Unfortunately, it only lasts through the Army of Darkness crossover.
A demonic dog spawned by the Neflords, Pooch originally acted as the pet of his progenitor's current agent, and first met Cassie and Georgia when he was left in charge of guarding them, telling them about his masters in exchange for being pet. When the two escaped Nef, Pooch made a feeble attempt to stop them, but was casually knocked aside. For God only knows what reason, the Neflords later decided to send him to Earth to hunt down and kill Cassie, a task he proved comically inept at. At the behest of Cassie, Pooch was collected by Chris and Lisa; since the two of them proved to be pretty nice, and the Neflords would be undoubtedly pissed at him for failing at his assignment, Pooch decided it was in his best interest to go native, proving his loyalty to his new friends by protecting them from a far more competent assassin eventually sent by his former masters.
- Animalistic Abomination: A Hell Hound spawned by the Neflords.
- Animals Hate Him: Animals sense Pooch's unnaturalness.
- The Comically Serious: A demon reacting to being treated like a dog with great aplomb.
- Creepy Hairless Animal: He looks like a deformed hairless dog.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: Well, it senses the same kind of horror it is.
- Heel–Face Turn: It gradually comes to like its owners more than the Lords of Nef, especially after they send Kuma to kill it.
- Hell Hound: A literal one.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: It's purely evil but enslaved to its owners. At least, at first.
- Our Demons Are Different: A sentient demon treated like a dog.
- Phlegmings: One of its qualities.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: It has a pair of these.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Goblin, a pug in the animal clinic's kennel. According to Pooch, Goblin hates him.
- Team Pet: Quite literally in fact.
- Third-Person Person: Speaks in the third person, except in his introduction. It's a demon thing.
- Too Much Information: Doesn't have much of a filter on what is or is not appropriate information to say, which becomes a Running Gag.
- Character Tics: Often is seen with her BMJ tape recorder, giving information on her latest case and identifying its number. There isn’t even a tape in it, as Cassie discovers, and she still uses the motion of holding it to her mouth to talk even when she's holding nothing.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Her debut was a seemingly one-off story she appeared to die at the end of, but then it was revealed a little while later that she actually survived, and eventually she became a main character.
- Convenient Coma: Samhain stabbing her as a child put her in one.
- Curiosity Killed the Cast: Or left them as a vegetable for over a decade.
- Genki Girl: Is every enthusiastic about just about everything.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Doesn't swear during the most traumatic situations. The sole exception is when Ava starts one of her Mad Oracle ramblings in the car and passes out.Cat: What the fuck-excuse my language-was that?
- Does Not Like Guns: Considers them horrible, and sticks to her BMJ utility knife, pink.
- Final Girl: The only known survivor of Samhain during his "mindless Black Lamp lackey" phase.
- Kid Detective: Started as a parody of the ones written for grade-schoolers like Encyclopedia Brown.
- Meaningful Name: Curiosity."Curious like a cat. You know me. Ha. People used to say to me, 'Did you choose Curio as a surname, because that's an awfully big coincidence, wouldn't you say?' And I'd say: 'Why no. Curio is a very old and respected family n—' (is shoved out the door by Cassie)
- Motor Mouth: Has no filter whatsoever either.
- Odd Friendship: Develops one of these with Cassie. While the latter is initially pissed off that Cat would contact her and say that there is a new Hack/Slash Inc. Despite her shutting down the first one after Murder Messiah, they bond over their mutual interest in some Slasher cases and B Movies. Cassie eventually learns to call on her and calmly try to get her to focus, understanding her autism.
- She Is All Grown Up: Grows up to be a teenager who, well, is an actual teenager.
- Took a Level in Badass: Survived and became much tougher. This gets to the point that she is essential in the defeat of Akakios, first through her detective work, then by personally Depowering him.
Recurring Characters
Lisa's boyfriend (ex after Euthanized), Kyle was instrumental in the first death of Bobby Brunswick. After being saved from being Bobby's final victim, Kyle, bereft of his close friends, became a mundane nuisance to Hack/Slash, Inc. on account of Lisa's relationship with Chris.
- An Arm and a Leg: Kuma rips his arm off.
- Asshole Victim: Subverted when he is saved from being killed by Bobby. When he does die, it’s an Averted Trope, as Chris and Lisa think that, despite being a racist jerkass, he didn’t deserve to be mutilated and murdered by Kuma.
- Butt-Monkey: Nothing goes his way after Lisa dumps him, but it’s hard to feel too sympathetic given how much of a jerk he is.
- Green-Eyed Monster: His envy of others causes problems, from Bobby's death to his torment of Chris.
- Heroic Sacrifice: His eventual death.
- Jerkass: Quickly shows this to be his true personality after Lisa dumps him, beating up Chris in jealousy among other things.
- Karmic Death: Seemingly Invoked Trope. Deliberately traps himself in the vet gas chamber with Kuma, and tells Chris to set it off, much like he did to Bobby.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: While he bullied and eventually killed Bobby, his friendship with Sheriff Donovan prevented anything from coming of his behavior. After being saved from Bobby's first Slasher rampage, everything goes downhill. Lisa breaks up with him, his remaining friends seemingly abandon him when they find out his part in a murder, and Sheriff Hoyne calls him out on his abusive behavior, to the point of taking him to the police station for trespassing after catching him wandering, drunk, outside (having stepped in Pooch's droppings).
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Villain might be a stretch, but he's homophobic and racist against Asians.
- Redemption Equals Death: Traps Kuma in the vet gas chamber with him, saving Chris, Lisa, and Pooch in the process at the expense of his own life.
- Taking You with Me: Makes sure to take Kuma with him as he dies by gas.
- '80s Hair: Has a very poofy hairspray doo. Her big hair causes Cassie to sarcastically call her Lita Ford in Mind Killer.
- Final Girl: Technically; though she ultimately did away with Six Sixx, he never tried to kill her. Like Georgia, she also survive Dale Wildman, though.
- Pre-Climax Climax: For Vlad in Shout at the Devil. It saves him from the Neflords.
- Really Gets Around: Has slept with a lot of rock stars.
- Spanner in the Works: With the Nef guitar and the help of Brock Hellfrees, she annihilates the Stab Happy Slasher army with The Power of Rock in Final.
- Supreme Chef: Apparently, she's a great cook, as shown by Chris's reaction to her meat loaf in Double Feature – Blood Blower.
- Temporarily a Villain: Briefly turns evil in fear for her life in the final arc, but only for a moment, and is quickly forgiven by the person she harms in the process.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: After a lifetime of looking for someone to love, she found washed up rocker Brock Hellfrees.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Gradually becomes a pretty nice member of Hack/Slash Inc., or at least one who isn’t nearly as abrasive. The fact that her actions cause a lot of pain has a lot to do with it. For example, she goes from getting into a Cat Fight with Margaret in Mind Killer to comforting her about how Cassie simple Cannot Spit It Out in Double Feature.
An old woman who acts as a school nurse for an all-girls school, specializing in occult investigation on the side.
- Cool Old Lady: Surprisingly knowledgeable about modern culture.
- Final Girl: The only survivor of Emily Christy’s attack in Tub Club.
- Intergenerational Friendship: With Hack/Slash Inc.
- Little Old Lady Investigates: Her cases have some indications of being this. Given her focus on investigation, she ends up with Cat most.
- Occult Detective: What she does on her spare time.
A slasher who was used by the Society of the Black Lamp to attempt to kill Cassie, but is developing human feelings and has become a creepy ally to her.
- Amnesiac Lover: Becomes one to Cassie. Unfortunately, shortly after they first make love, a herd of Psychosaurs' Mind Rape essentially "kills" Samhain and resurrects Akakios.
- The Atoner: Well, when he was Brainwashed and Crazy, that is.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Pre-series, and in Sons of Man. Technically, the entire identity of Samhain is the result of this.
- Cool Mask: It looks like a Jack-o-Lantern.
- Expy: Of Angel. They even look similar.
- Friendly Zombie: An exceptionally rare heroic slasher. But only because of Laser-Guided Amnesia Heel–Face Brainwashing. Once it wears off and he "dies", this is no longer the case.
- Guest-Star Party Member: Of a sort. When Vlad's bone condition becomes more serious and he is hospitalized, Samhain takes his place as The Big Guy in Cassie's organization in Interdimensional Women's Prison Breakout and Monster Baiting.
- Healing Factor: Is able to recover from almost everything, though his healing is lessened significantly (albeit temporarily) when he loses a lot of blood. Even being Gutted Like a Fish is but a minor inconvenience.
- In a Single Bound: Downplayed Trope, but he can jump over high fences with minimal difficulty, as shown in Sons of Man, While Cassie or Vlad need to cut through them.
- In the Hood: He wears one of these to cover up his mask.
- Love Redeems: He can be brought back from psychotic killing with this, as shown by Ava Park and Cassie. Unfortunately, after he is turned back into Akakios, Love Cannot Overcome his insanity.
- Major Injury Underreaction: He can keep fighting with minimal issue even after being Gutted Like a Fish because he's actually a Slasher.
- Mr. Fanservice: Very handsome when not wearing his mask.
- Mysterious Past: Is actually an ancient slasher.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Prior to his death, whenever he was unmasked, he looked a lot like a young Karl Urban. Also counts as Comicbook Fantasy Casting
- Older Than They Look: He's been active for over fifty years. Or rather, over 2500.
- Pumpkin Person: He wears a pumpkin-like mask.
- Second Love: For Cassie, after her breakup with Margaret.
- Shameless Fanservice Guy: He seems to have absolutely no problem with being completely naked around others, especially Cassie in Interdimensional Women's Prison Breakout.
- The Voiceless: While controlled by the Black Lamp Society.
- Walking Spoiler: Due to his connection to the Society of the Black Lamp and true identity as Akakios, talking about him can be very difficult.
A police captain, Maggie Reilly is the third sheriff of Eminence, Indiana since Cassie first arrived. She strikes up a friendship with Chris, but has secrets of her own.
- Dirty Cop: She’s actually a reluctant member of the Black Lamp Society.
- Heel Realization: Shooting a defenseless Libby, coupled with the message she gives prompts her to have doubts about the Black Lamp Society that eventually leads her to turn against them.
- Lonely Funeral: The other cops barely knew her, which pisses Chris off to no end.
- Mole in Charge: Acts as The Mole to keep an eye on Hack/Slash, Inc.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Develops this relationship with Chris, though she does have feelings for him.
- Redemption Equals Death: Dies protecting Ava from Bobby.
- The Sheriff: The third one known for Eminence.
- Unwitting Pawn: A heroic example. Libby's magical message travels from her to Ava.
A radio show host for "The Late Knight", a show about paranormal activity that happens in the night and the things that relate to said activity, Alan Knight is actually the retired sidekick of the second Nightmare, Sleepy. His show is a major focus for Cassie and Vlad on their long drives, and is also the way in which they find out about their status in the news as the S.K.K.
- Affirmative-Action Legacy: An African American who takes up the mantle of Sleepy from a white man.
- Badass Normal: Has no real powers at all, but is a competent fighter if necessary and with appropriate stealth.
- Break the Badass: The threat of the Pumpkin Faced Killer coming back after having killed two Nightmares freaks him out to the point of calling Cassie.
- Cool Old Guy: On the whole, he is basically this. He's harsh but only due to his experiences making him more concerned about superheroism.
- Cynical Mentor: He doesn’t think highly of Daisy's chances as a superhero after what happened with her friends, and mercilessly drills her.
- Legacy Character: The second Sleepy.
- Old Superhero: A retired one, at that.
- Retired Badass: A former Legacy Character to Sleepy who gave up the mask after the second Nightmare died. That said, he isn’t above coming back if need be.
- Sacrificial Lamb: Murdered by Acid Angel in the opening salvos of Final, his face badly burned in the process.
The Black Sheep of the Lochs family, Liberty ran away from home to pursue her "unChristian" activities. Nonetheless, she served as a villain of Cassie for a time due to her part in the events of Girls Gone Dead and Vs. Chucky, using Necromancer skills to try to bring luck to others, and drawing Julian Gallo the Mosaic Man back to town to bring back the people who killed her sister. However, she is ultimately not a bad person, just manipulated, and serves as a heroine in her own right after her first arc.
- Anti-Villain: She's actually a good person, just one manipulated by her sister's ghost.
- Arc Villain: Of Foes and Fortunes, until she realizes the dangers of her magic.
- Bad Powers, Good People: She's not a bad person, but necromancy can't really be used for good without trapping souls in the process, and she doesn't seem aware of that fact.
- The Bartender: Her job in Chicago, at a Mexican bar.
- Black Sheep: For the Lochs family, as she used recreational drugs and slept around despite her highly religious family.
- Boom, Headshot!: How she is executed by Maggie shortly after her arrival back in the present day.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Averted Trope. She is kind, albeit irreligious, but has an abortion for a Teen Pregnancy.
- He Knows Too Much: Unfortunately, the police officer she tells what she knows from the Bad Future is a member of the Society of the Black Lamp, and executes her on the spot.
- Heel–Face Turn: Realizing how bad her powers were prompts Libby to become a much nicer and more heroic person.
- Muggle Best Friend: Has one, Monica, in Sons of Man and Foes and Fortunes. It doesn’t end well.
- Near-Death Experience: A bad reaction to anesthesia during her abortion led her to nearly die, allowing her to have a Psychic Link with her sister.
- Necromancer: Gained these skills from one of Laura's books, but is oblivious to the fact that she can't use those powers for objectively good things.
- Obliviously Evil: Doesn't realize how manipulative her sister is or how bad her methods are at first until it's blatantly obvious.
- Parental Favoritism: Laura's ghost notes that Libby was their father's favorite.
- Post Modern Magic: Her use of magic in the Bad Future amounts to this. Her "broom" is a Cool Bike, and her familiar is flesh-eating bacteria.
- Sdrawkcab Speech: Her spells are stated in this manner, much like Zatanna and her sister Laura. The sentences and words are in reverse order, but the punctuation is in normal order.
- Secret Identity: Moonlights as "Santa Muerte" in her arcs in the present day.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: With Laura. She's cruder, while Laura is more "holy". She's more kind, while Laura is more abusive. Furthermore, she dresses provocatively with midriffs exposed, a low-cut shirt, and tight jeans while on the job, along with speaking rather colloquially and having a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship with a girl named Monica, while Laura dressed very conservatively, was often more formal in her talk unless angry, and saw homosexuality as a sin.
- Spanner in the Works: Ultimately, she is the one to play an enormous part in the defeat of the Black Lamps, as her spell channeled into Maggie, then Ava, serves to give all of the information possible about the Bad Future and what brought it about, enabling the heroes to counter it.
- Trapped in the Past: Inverted Trope. After her first arc, magical backlash sends her fourteen years into the future.
- Willing Channeler: Briefly for Laura in Foes and Fortunes in order to figure out how to fix her mistakes.
A "Venus" model of the Sons of Man program by the Black Lamp Society who was given higher level sapience by her creator Ava Park, Ava took on her name after the latter's death and became Samhain's lover and a good friend of Hack/Slash Inc.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: One of the nicest people in the series, and has purely blonde hair.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: The "hooker" part is just what she was made to be, but her kindness is all her.
- In-Series Nickname: "Elf" by Cassie, who considers Venus models to look like elves. She stops having this name quite as often once she takes up the name "Ava".
- Legacy Character: Of a sort. She takes on Ava Park's given name as her own after escaping Andrew Rodin's island in remembrance of her kindness and love for Samhain.
- Mad Oracle: In "Final", the backlash of Maggie's death and the spell Libby put on her causes her to say the entire message Libby left aloud, with some Fainting Seer qualities as well.
- Major Injury Underreaction: On account of how some clients enjoy hurting Venus models in their work, she, like others of her type, has less sensitivity to pain, allowing her to deal with major injuries like a stab through the arm with minimal difficulty.
- Only One Name: Technically, she doesn't even have one at all, but took one up.
- Sexbot: A "Venus" model of the Sons of Man program.
- Sex Slave: What "Venus" models are made to be.
- Super Prototype: Ava Park specifically created her to be smarter than most Venus models to have a friend and co-conspirator.
- Took a Level in Badass: In Final, she manages to personally kill Doctor Gross for his murder of Chris and Lisa.
- You Are Number 6: Initially known only as "Venus Twelve".
A retired supervillain who runs a sex club for others in the community, and a good friend of Alan Knight.
- Dating Catwoman: Had this relationship with Bob White, the first Nightmare.
- Dominatrix: Definitely fits the type. She even wakes up Cassie with a whip crack.
- Femme Fatale: A heroic version by the present day, though.
- Heel–Face Turn: Apparently has one of these in the past, or was never really evil in the first place.
- Nun Too Holy: Played up this in her supervillain identity of Sister Sacrilege, where she dressed as a nun.
- Retired Badass: She used to be a supervillainess, but has since retired and settled down.
- Sexy Mentor: Or rather, a mentor in being sexy, for Sister Nightmare.
- Whip of Dominance: She's a retired supervillainess who had a Dominatrix / Naughty Nuns theme and wielded a whip as her weapon. She still has the whip, and at one point cracks it just to wake up Cassie and Vlad.
A girl who was to get some powers from the Godbox, but ends up becoming a superhero in training on her own without them.
- Badass Normal: No superpowers per se, but still kicks a lot of ass.
- Final Girl: The only surviving victim of Samhain II.
- Happily Adopted: By Anjelica and Alan after Super Sidekick Sleepover Slaughter at Cassie's request.
- Important Haircut: Takes up Boyish Short Hair instead of Long Hair Is Feminine when she transitions to "Sister Nightmare".
- Ironic Nickname: Her being cast as "the Fearless Flamingo" was intentionally ironic. Even more ironically, she only becomes truly fearless after taking on a different name.
- Legacy Character: To both Nightmare and Sister Sacrilege.
- Took a Level in Badass: After the events of "Super Sidekick Sleepover Slaughter"; she used to be a cowardly girl in relatively poor physical condition, now she's a fit, fearless superhero in training.
- Unlucky Childhood Friend: Does not get the one she wants.
The daughter of Lisa Elsten and Chris Krank. Conceived by the time of Sons of Man, she is mostly known as a Satellite Character to her parents.
- Children Are Innocent: In her last appearance, she’s roughly nine months old, and is still very innocent.
- In-Series Nickname: Aside from "Sandra", she is known as "Sanny" by her second pair of parents.
- One-Steve Limit: Her actual name is Cassandra Krank, but she’s more commonly known as Sandra or Sanny to distinguish from Cassie.
- Orphan's Ordeal: Both of her parents are murdered by Doctor Gross, and she is kidnapped to be held hostage by Akakios.
- Put on a Bus: In Son of Samhain, one of Cassie's Hallucinations mentions that she was "taken away" some time after Army of Darkness vs. Hack/Slash, without going into detail, but the most obvious culprit would be child services.
- Satellite Character: Her existence mostly revolves around her parents. A Justified Trope, as she’s not even one year old yet.
Major Villains
Cassie's mother, Delilah (or "Dee") was once a normal (but feisty) woman who met and fell in love with her future husband, Doctor Jack Hack, when it was discovered she had the potential to become a slasher. The two got married and tried to live a normal life with their daughter, but Jack's government connections (and gambling problem) quashed those dreams, and Jack was eventually forced to abandon his family for their own protection. This caused Delilah's mental state to deteriorate rapidly, and after noticing the bullying her daughter was forced to deal with at school, decided that mommy should make it all better in the worst possible way; by butchering the bullies (and anyone else who so much as looked at Cassie funny) and using their remains as the "secret ingredient" in the food she served in her job as a lunch lady. When Cassie discovered what her mother was doing, she alerted the authorities and confronted Delilah with them; distraught by her daughter's betrayal, Delilah committed suicide by fatally scalding herself with a pot of boiling gravy in front of her daughter. But a mother's love is a hard thing to kill, and Delilah soon returned from the dead, tracked Cassie down to her new foster home, and picked up where she left off, slaughtering Cassie's classmates, though this spree was cut short when Cassie re-killed Dee by shooting her in the face a couple dozen times.
- Abusive Parents: Only as seen in a flashback in The Final Revenge of Evil Ernie, when Cassie is experiencing Ernie's memories. The real Delilah seems to have been a normal, if Knight Templar, parent.
- Ax-Crazy: Just read the other tropes and you should figure that out pretty quick.
- Back from the Dead: In Cassie and Vlad meet the Re-Animator. She’s dead again by the end.
- Death by Origin Story: Played with. She did come back twice, but it didn't last. Interestingly enough, it's her coming back the first time that motivates Cassie into going after the Slashers.
- Driven to Suicide: When cornered by police, she drowned herself in a big pot of boiling gravy.
- Evil Chef: Her whole hat as a Slasher.
- Evil Matriarch: To Cassie. Albeit, she doesn't try to control her daughter, just protect her in a horrifying way.
- Knight Templar Parent: Her attempt to "protect" her daughter from bullying consisted in brutally murdering any kid she felt was doing wrong to Cassie and serve them as food at her job.
- Mama Bear: A very dark one. She loves Cassie, alive or dead, though.
- My Beloved Smother: Possibly one of the creepiest cases of this trope.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Hack.
- Nightmare Fuel: In-universe to Cassie; even after killing her, the memory of her mother still haunts her, and she has a confrontation with her in every single of her nightmares.
- Serial Killer: Killed a bunch of kids who teased Cassie Hack, and that's before she came back from the dead.
- Token Motivational Nemesis: She was the first slasher met by Cassie, and the one who motivated her into going on a slasher hunt. As a result, she died right at the beginning of Cassie's origin story. Though she still keeps haunting Cassie, both in her nightmare and by actually coming back again.
Originally a midly retarded but sweet and naive man, was hired by veterinarian Lisa Elsten to euthanize the animals in her pet clinic. Lisa and him ended up getting close to each others, resulting in her boyfriend Kyle to become jealous, and he started bullying the poor man with the help of co-worker Todd. Eventually one of the pranks went too far when they trapt Brunkswick in the clinic's gas chamber, resulting in his death. Scared that this whole thing would sent them to jail, the two men buried his body (with the complicity of the sheriff, who was an old school friend) in the wood, in the same area he would bury the animals he euthanized. A year later, Brunswick rose as a slasher with the ability to control hordes of undead animals.
- Alliterative Name: Bobby Brunswick
- Anti-Villain: Stands apart from most Slashers in the series in that he wasn't a psychopath in life, just a mildly retarded guy who happened to suffer a rather tragic death.Cassie's Slasher Journal: Poor Bobby. Usually I don’t have much sympathy for slashers, but this was a pretty sad case. It just always amazes me how cruel people can be too[sic] each other. Bobby was an innocent caught up in the cruelty and insecurities of others. On the other hand, I was cleaning dead cat guts out of my clothes for weeks, so I can’t be too sympathetic.
- Back from the Dead: Well duh. He comes back again in Come Together, this time lacking his Anti-Villain traits due to no longer having a soft spot for anyone and just wanting to kill.
- Badass Longcoat: Wore one as a slasher.
- Bald of Evil: Doesn't have much hair. Averted when he was alive.
- Boom, Headshot!: It takes multiple ones to put him down the first time.
- Deadly Prank: His origin is he died due to a jealous boyfriend accidentally gassing him.
- Fire Keeps It Dead: At the conclusion of "Crossroads," Ava sets him on fire with Black Lamp oil, which first re-kills his zombie animal horde, then kills him as well. He doesn’t come back again until Vs. Chaos, which has the use of Wrong Context Magic.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Upon his resurrection.
- Shovel Strike: How he kills when he decides to take matters into his own hands.
- Hulk Speak: Isn't very good at talking.
- Malevolent Masked Men: His little surgical mask.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Due to being mentally challenged in real life.
- Raising the Steaks: He can bring animals back from the dead, though it's implied he may be able to do so with humans.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: In his initial appearance, his motivation was to take revenge on those responsible for the prank where he was killed.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: In life, Bobby was a mentally challenged young man who euthanized animals a clinic — he's one of the few slashers who wasn't a remotely bad guy before he died.
A devoutly religious girl who snapped when she caught her long time boyfriend with a slut, our heroes first encountered Laura when she intended to turn a Florida Spring Break into a bloodbath with the help of Father Wrath, a slasher she had enthralled with Black Magic. Despite later dying after some body-hopping mayhem caused a certain killer doll's amulet, her hate-filled spirit remains in limbo, obsessed with taking revenge on Cassie and Vlad, something she'll have to be creative about, considering her now fairly limited ability to interact with the world of the living.
- Alliterative Name: Laura Loch.
- Bald of Evil: In Vs. Chucky. A Justified Trope, since it was clearly burned off.
- Catholic School Girls Rule: Zigzagged. As a Catholic School Girl in the world of Hack/Slash, she is very physically attractive... however, she's actually a murderous religiously-motivated lunatic who despises sex and sexuality.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Has shades of this in Vs. Chucky, where she attempts to get her (mindless) zombie minions to sing along and tries to "save" Cassie by murdering her friends in ways that reflect sins according to her belief system, even though they don't actually apply to the people she intends to kill.
- Designated Girl Fight: Has one of these but averted since Cassie has never shied away from throwdowns with men.
- Devoured by the Horde: Ultimately is Eaten Alive, back broken from a long fall caused by Chucky, by her own zombies.
- Disproportionate Retribution: She was driven insane and attempted to massacre Spring Break due to her boyfriend cheating on her during the festivities.
- Evil Feels Good: When she actually witnesses Father Wrath kill someone at her instruction, she is somewhat freaked, and starts questioning herself ("You don't think I'm crazy, do you?"); though she gets over it, outright stating shooting someone was surprisingly easy later.
- Evil Versus Evil: In Vs. Chucky. Chucky is arguably worse but Laura threatens Cassie's loved ones.
- The Fatalist: Sees everything she does as part of God's plan. Cassie pointing out that this means God led her into the fire in Vs. Chucky proves to be a Berserk Button.
- Grand Theft Me: Done to Vlad in Vs. Chucky, and briefly to her sister in Foes and Fortunes.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: She was eaten alive by her own ravenous zombie minions.
- Hot Witch: A rather cute teenage girl who practices the Dark Arts.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Unlike most villains, she has been a regular human being for most of her appearances, but she rivals the Slashers when it comes to being a psychopath.
- Hypocrite: A Christian fundamentalist who uses Black Magic and Hollywood Voodoo in the name of God.
- Malevolent Masked Men: She wears what's left of Father Wrath's mask in Vs. Chucky.
- The Man Behind the Man: In Foes and Fortunes, she manipulates her sister from beyond the grave in a plot to kill Cassie and Vlad.
- Man on Fire: At the end of Girls Gone Dead, via candles and various alcohols.
- Motive Rant: Tends to very frequently deliver long speeches about how she is trying to accomplish the work of God.
- Night of the Living Mooks: In Vs. Chucky, though as noted above, they turn on her.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Became something akin to one due to her usage of black magic in Foes and Fortunes.
- Sdrawkcab Speech: Her spell book's spells are stated in this manner, much like Zatanna and her sister Liberty. Unlike Liberty, her magic is stated using a very stylized text that seems almost Hebrew.
- Skewed Priorities: In Girls Gone Dead, she is horrified when she leads a teenaged boy to his death via Honey Trap. Not because she had Father Wrath murder a teenaged boy right in front of her and splashed blood all over her face, but because she is horrified by the idea of being seductive at all, being against her strict religious mentality.
- Strawman Political: Of religious fundamentalists, obviously.
- Valley Girl: She does talk the part, though it's downplayed in her first appearance.
A fanatic, racist and homophobe; no-one was sure if Father Wrath really was a real priest. However, despite his extreme Christian Fundamentalist personality, he was secretly a cross-dresser and was attracted to men. Originally, he was grooming a young man named Samuel Lawrence to become his protege and successor. However, when he made sexual advances on Samuel, Samuel smacked him across the head with a wooden crucifix. Father Wrath died from his wounds, and remained dead until reanimated by Laura Lochs.
- Armored Closet Gay: He was sexually attracted to men, but externalized it with his homophobia.
- Ax-Crazy: Above other Slashers, he is extremely violent, to the point that even the Black Lamps called him crazy when trying to control him.
- Badass Preacher: Possibly. It's unclear if he was an actual preacher at all.
- Bald of Evil: Postmortem, he wears a wig to cover for his baldness.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Sliced in half by Vlad in his first death.
- Improbable Weapon User: His weapon is a very large cross. It was also used to kill him by Samuel.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: In life, Rafferty was a racist and homophobic fire-and-brimstone preacher, and in death, he shares the same hatred for women and sex as a lot of other slashers.
- Sinister Minister: Maybe. He’s definitely sinister, but nobody knows if he was ever an actual priest.
- Villainous Incest: Showed sexual attraction to his protege, Samuel Lawrence, who was also his nephew. This led directly to his initial death when he made advances on him, as Sam wasn't having it.
Lloyd Sundermann was always a strange child. He preferred to be alone, where he could read his comic books, most notably, his favorite Wunderkind. But, little did anyone know, Lloyd was not alone. Lloyd was born with his twin brother inside him, a fact that even Lloyd’s mother was unaware of. Jimmy, Lloyd’s brother, began speaking to Lloyd while he was still in Lloyd’s body. Hyper-intelligent, but underdeveloped, Jimmy stayed within Lloyd until they were 11 years old, Lloyd’s mother gave birth to their sister. Enraged at the attention given to this new child, Jimmy convinced Lloyd to kill the baby. At first, horrified by his action, Lloyd cut himself open and eventually tried to remove Jimmy. The two reconciled, and realized they needed each other. The two felt a special kinship over their mutual love for Wunderkind, a comic book they could relate to, since it featured a young boy who could become a grown man. They hoped to one day be as loved and admired as their childhood hero.
- Back from the Dead: They come back once during Hack/Slash/Eva: Monster's Ball as members of the dead Slashers reanimated on behalf of Mary Shelly Lovecraft, though with very little emphasis on them.
- Berserk Button: Changing Wunderkind into a darker hero.
- Bizarre Human Biology: Even before reanimating in Hack/Slash/Eva: Monster's Ball, Lloyd and Jimmy had a condition of parasitic twins known as "fetus in fetus". For Rule of Scary, Jimmy can emerge from and re-enter Lloyd at will.
- Brain Bleach: Jimmy invokes this reaction in Cassie, according to her Slasher Journal note, which trails off into non sequiturs as she tries to unthink of him.Cassie: Holy living fuck! I was pretty put off by the concept of children before, but now that I’ve seen, whatever the hell that was, I’m going to become a nun or something. Oh man, with my luck, I’d get knocked up... and then I’d be a pregnant nun! Aah! Okay, time to tell Vlad to stop off at a arcade or a roadside attraction... hell... even a 7-11 will do... Must. Take. Mind. Off. Angry. Fetus. Hmm... I wonder if it’s too late in the year for Cadbury eggs...?
- Fat Bastard: Lloyd, not helped by having Jimmy inside him.
- Fetus Terrible: Jimmy, a highly intelligent but physically underdeveloped psychopath.
- Loony Fan: Both of them, for Wunderkind.
- One-Shot Character: Although they technically come back in Hack/Slash/Eva: Monster's Ball, their part in it is so minor that they are essentially this.
- Sibling Team: A villainous version; they're twin brothers who work together to murder people they dislike.
The son of a rich and fortunate family, Ashley was a sociopathic and peculiar child, overly possessive of his belongings, to the point he would react brutally to anyone else trying to play with his toys. When he ended up beating his own baby brother to death as a result, his parents ended up killing him by suffocating him in his sleep. He eventually rose as a slasher capable of killing people in their sleep, and haunted his parents' dreams until his father commited suicide and his mother had to be institutionalized. He then proceeded to go on a killing spree.
- Creepy Child: He's both a child, a monster, and a serial killer.
- Death by Childbirth: When he's in the body of Mrs. Joworsky, he gets trapped in the dimension of the Neflords. They impregnate him and he's ripped apart when he gives birth to the Stillbirth.
- Demonic Possession: Relied on this to come back after Cassie first defeated him.
- Disproportionate Retribution: After discovering his baby brother was playing with his favorite truck, he beat him to death.
- Chronic Pet Killer: He strangled his cat's litter of kittens due to being annoyed at how much time it was spending with them. He even gleefully mentions it, declaring he's going to strangle Cassie like a kitten during their first fight.
- Enfant Terrible: Even before becoming a slasher, he had murderous tendencies despite being an underaged child. His own mother says he was born of the Devil.Cassie's Notes from The Slasher Journal: Once my art teacher talked me into babysitting for his daughter. After about 45 minutes, I was convinced this kid was Satan incarnate. Ashley Guthrie made that kid look like fucking Dolly from Family Circus. People debate the "nature vs. nurture" thing all the time. I've always wanted to believe a person was a reflection of the world they grew up in... but, Ashley seems to have been bad from the moment the sperm hit the egg.
- Expy: Serves as the Hackverse version of Freddy Krueger with some elements of Chucky and the Puppetmaster.
- Gonk: Even as a living child, Ashley was quite ugly to look at. The variant cover showing Ashley playing with action figures of Cassie and Vlad is still pretty plain looking, and that's frankly the most handsome depiction he's gotten.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Doesn't swear. Will murder, but doesn't swear.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: How Cassie first defeated him: she willingly had herself put to sleep so she could confront him in her dream, then kept him busy long enough to have her mother show up like she does at the end of all her nightmares and deal with Ashley.
- It's All About Me: His entire MO. His reason for... everything, really.
- Killer Rabbit: While stuck in a teddy bear, and arguably the elderly Mrs. Joworsky's body.
- Power Floats: In Land of Lost Toys, he floats a few inches above the ground in contrast to his victims/targets being confined to normal gravity. It likely related to his power as a Nightmare Weaver.
- Killer Teddy Bear: His second form, which he has from the end of "Land of Lost Toys" to "Slice Hard". "Vs. Chaos!" shows he keeps it in Hell, too.
- Living Toys: One of the many ways he'd use to kill people in their dreams.
- Psychic Link: Develops one with Cassie after their first Battle in the Center of the Mind. It seems to mostly go one-way, with Ashley able to sense where she is.
- Sealed Evil in a Teddy Bear: Literally at one point has his soul bound to one.
- The Sociopath: Despite being a child.
- Villain Team-Up: With Six Sixx in Mind Killer. In the end, Six Sixx sells him out as anyone could have predicted.
- Vorpal Pillow: How his mother originally killed him for his murder of his brother: suffocating him in his sleep with his own teddy bear.
Born in Chicago, Julian Gallo grew up with an abusive father who beat him constantly, screwing up his face and causing him to grow up very bitter and resentful. As soon as he could, Julian began working as a low-rent hit man for the local mob. Considering his murders works of art, he decided his own face should match his art's beauty, remaking his face into a mosaic of his victims' flesh. Eventually however, Jules ran afoul of his own gang and was killed. He wound up coming back from the dead as a slasher, killed his old boss, and made a weapon from his bones. Julian then set out to slaughter any and all remaining members of the mob family. Julian bears the distinction of being the first Slasher that Cassie and Vlad fought alongside one another, and is the means by which they met.
- Bad with the Bone: Made a weapon from the bones of his old gang boss.
- Car Fu: Of a sort. He is initially dispatched by Vlad and Cassie by throwing him in front of an oncoming train. It doesn’t work in Foes and Fortunes with an actual car, though.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Makes a brief appearance during Land of Lost Toys in Vlad's summary of his backstory, long before he appeared in the flesh during Foes and Fortunes.
- Mad Artist: Sees his murders as works of art.
- Mistaken Identity: Is misconstrued as the "Meatman" Vlad in both of his appearances.
- Mix-and-Match Man: His face is a mosaic of his victims' flesh, making him look like this.
- Professional Killer: Was once a mob hitman before his death.
- Voodoo Zombie: Although he is a Slasher, his return in Sons of Man and Foes and Fortunes is actually due to Libby Lochs and her Necromancy.
A sexy (and she knows it) female slasher, Acid Angel was once Angela Cicero, mundane real estate agent by day and club-trotting party girl by night. Unfortunately, Angela's hard partying ways led to a heap of trouble when she got it on with her best friend's husband, driving said best friend to a Bath Suicide. Overcome with grief, the guilty husband murdered Angela by replacing her insulin with hydrochloric acid, leading to an excruciating death. But, you can't keep a bad girl down, and Angela eventually came back from the dead as a slasher who uses her feminine wiles to ensnare men, then kill them via her arousal-activated acidic secretions.
- Acid Attack: She secretes acid when sexually aroused, in both the corrosive and LSD senses.
- Alien Blood: Has acid for it.
- All There in the Manual: Her origin is revealed in supplementary material.
- Attractive Zombie: Looks completely human and alive despite being a Slasher, and is an accomplished example of The Vamp. Even Cassie, who treats her like just another Slasher, admits she looks good, though Acid Angel's Psychofile shows that she’s annoyed that being ugly isn’t a rule for Slashers.Cassie: Looks pretty good for a dead chick.
Cassie's Notes from The Slasher Journal: So, apparently Slashers don’t have to be half rotted nasty lookin' freaks. Bummer. - Back from the Dead: In Come Together she makes her first return.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: One of the few slashers who look totally human. And doesn't she use it. The only exception is when she is stabbed in the back of the head by X-O, the shears going through her eye socket and leaving her face sunken.
- Breath Weapon: As well as secreting acid, she can spit it.
- Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Summer Glau is her basis.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Along with being able to cause them, her own death involved her insulin being replaced by hydrochloric acid.
- Depower: Just before apparently beating her to death with her bare hands, Sister Nightmare neutralizes her acid with some scientific concoction she put together, rendering her helpless.
- Destination Defenestration: How she is temporarily defeated in Come Together.
- Deus Sex Machina: Her powers activate upon being sexually aroused.
- Does Not Like Men: Even though she does get turned on by them, Acid Angel almost exclusively targets men.
- Go-Go Enslavement: After being captured in Slice Hard Prelude, her street clothes were switched with her "villain outfit" off-panel... for some reason. Additionally, after capturing Cassie and Vlad in Come Together, she strips them down to their undergarments.
- Hallucinations: A special acid (...LSD?) is able to induce them in in Come Together.
- Hollywood Acid: Comes in translucent, green, and yellow.
- Killed Offscreen: In Final, after she is depowered, Daisy is seen standing over her. She’s never seen again, leaving the implication she was beaten to death.
- Leotard of Power: Also in Slice Hard, this was her costume.
- Monster Misogyny: Inverted Trope, as a female Slasher who nearly exclusively targets men.
- Mook: Acquires the ability to create them in Come Together.
- Ms. Fanservice: She is one of the few slasher to retain a completely human appearance, frequently dresses in underwears, swimsuits or skimpy outfits, has a very seductive attitude, and her whole power works on a Deus Sex Machina.
- No One Could Survive That!: A big deal is made of how her second death (stabbed in the back of the head, then blown up) is the kind of injury most Slashers don’t come back from, much less completely unharmed.
- Poisonous Person: Acid-based to be specific.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives an emasculating one to Vlad in Come Together.Acid Angel: I can’t get worked up with all this male domination. It’s all just an act anyway. An attempt to hide something we all know. When it comes to sex, women are in control. I mean, look at you and Cassie, right? You follow her around like the little pussy-whipped dog you are, and she doesn’t even have to fuck your mutant ass. Are you ready to be my bitch, big boy?
- Straw Feminist: She justifies killing men as avenging women.
- Tattooed Crook: Has a lovely angel motif as her tattoo.
- Unskilled, but Strong: She has little to no combat ability, making up for it with her lethal touch.
- The Vamp: Typically operates by seducing men so she can inflict them a horrible death via acid.
- Villains Out Shopping: In Come Together, in order to "recharge" to kill the captive Cassie and Vlad in a painful manner, she watches some trashy hotel porn:"God, I hate it when the guy talks. Shut up and just fuck, man."
A former Ms. America title holder, Emily Christie commited the mistake of posing nude for some extra money during college, photos that were found and published by 'Girlie' Magazine, which resulted in her title being revoked. Afterwards, she entered the pharmaceutical industry and eventually became head of Ceutotech, Inc's research division. In an attempt to give themselves an edge, Ceutotech started kidnapping and experimenting on slashers, in an attempt to replicate their Healing Factor and use it for cosmetics. Predictably, things went wrong, resulting in the five slasher they had captured escaping and Christie being mortally wounded by Acid Angel. In an attempt to save her life, she ended up injecting herself with a liquid chemical derived from slasher dna she had been working on. The chemical did save her life, but resulted in her transformation into a slasher, and she apparently died when the facility exploded. In truth, she managed to survive the explosion, but ended up badly burnt in the process, forcing her to steal and wear other people's skins in order to maintain a human appearance. She would later rely on a ritual ceremony to ascend into a snake-like being called the Ouroboros.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Her skin is shown as green in Hack/Slash/Eva: Monster's Ball.
- Arc Villain: Her rise and fall as a villain takes up Slice Hard, Love Stories, and Tub Club.
- Artificial Limbs: Has grey, mechanical hands in Monster's Ball that have Femme Fatalons.
- Blood Bath: Resorts to something akin to them in order to retain a human appearance in Tub Club, manipulating students into weird bloodletting pool orgies as apart of being in the titular secret society.
- Body Horror: The whole absorption thing can get gross.
- Depraved Bisexual: Runs a lesbian sorority for a time in order to master her magics.
- Face Stealer: She can steal and wear the skin of others, though it appears to work better on women.
- A God Am I: As Ouroboros, she develops this attitude.
- Healing Factor: Her main ability, though it needs blood and flesh to kick start it.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Vlad kills her by knocking her onto a stalagmite.
- Makes Us Even: She saves Cassie and Vlad from Doctor White's mercenaries, claiming she did so to even the score for keeping her safe in Slice Hard.
- Old Shame: In-universe example. Her nude photo spread, which got her Ms. America title revoked.
- Power Dyes Your Hair: As Ouroboros, she's a brunette. It seems to be due to her wearing the skin of the real, brunette Eliza.
- Professor Guinea Pig: After being fatally injured by Acid Angel in Slice Hard, she uses an experimental "slasher serum" to save herself, at the cost of her humanity, and eventually her sanity.
- Prophet Eyes: As Ms. America.
- Redemption Equals Death: Defied Trope. She tried, but the Hate Juice resurrected her as a Slasher, negating her goodwill.
- Scaled Up: Develops them as a serpent woman.
- Vampiric Draining: Can absorb all of the blood of someone who has an open cut, and can also absorb skin on physical contact.
Karl Vox worked at a plastic factory in Arizona. A quiet, unobtrusive man, Karl spent his nights cruising highways for victims to play his bizarre “death games” with. Karl was eventually caught, but fled to the factory he worked at. A co-worker stopped him by dropping a heavy metal floor grating on him. He eventually rose to enact vengeance on his former co-workers.
- Ax-Crazy: Unlike the other Slashers in Slice Hard, he's only interested in his game, including using other Slashers in it.
- Bald of Evil: It’s unclear if it's due to his death or not, but he is completely bald.
- Call-Forward: Appears in Jack Hack's flashback to how he met Delilah, in Cassie and Vlad Meet the Re-Animator.
- Deadly Game: Engaged in these even as a living person.
- Early-Bird Cameo: His face is seen in the explanation of Slashers in Euthanized.
- Expy: Victor Zsasz with a tic-tac-toe obsession. He even has the same need to mark himself.
- Scars Are Forever: Marked with crisscross patterns, which he uses in his game.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Initially, he is seen at this, until Ashley lets him out.
- Self-Harm: Cuts himself in accordance with his kills. X marks for men, O marks for women.
- Shear Menace: His weapon is a set of garden shears.
- Your Head Asplode: Vlad beats his head so hard with a fire extinguisher that both the extinguisher breaks and his head is completely gone.
Mortimer Strick was a popular rodeo clown in San Antonio, Texas. Strick also happened to be a serial rapist. When he was caught attacking a cattle hand's wife, the man and his friend’s reacted by stringing Strick between several bulls and tearing him apart. As a Slasher, Mortimer Strick had the ability to sperate and reattach body parts. Each piece retains it's own limited mobility and remains under Mortimer's control.
- Detachment Combat: His combat method of choice.
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Makes a collection if rape-related puns.
- Fire Keeps It Dead: Vlad sets his body on fire, making his head unable to continue to control it. The explosion at the facility probably took care of the rest.
- Monster Clown: Rodeo clown, and still uses the concept.Mortimer Strick: I'm going to make a balloon animal outta your esophagus!
- One-Shot Character: Only ever has a real presence in Slice Hard. While he has an Early-Bird Cameo in the image explaining Slashers in Euthanized, everything about him comes from his Psychofile and that one-shot.
- Serial Rapist: In life, and his dialogue indicates he still enjoys it.
- Who Needs Their Whole Body?: Due to the manner of his death, every part of his body is capable of being controlled even separated from him.
Sam Steiger worked as a janitor at a Sleep Disorder Clinic in California. While working overnight, Steiger, a drug abuser, took an experimental sleep drug, hoping to get high. Unfortunately for Steiger, he took 8 times the recommended dosage. Steiger was technically dead for 12 minutes, during which time he had vivid hallucinations involving a world where peace reigned as all of humanity slept. When he was revived, Steiger began a murderous streak, attempting to bring the gift of sleep to the rest of the world.
- Addled Addict: Led to his first death.
- Back from the Dead: Twice. Once in Monster's Ball, and once in vs. Chaos!, through different means.
- Drugs Are Bad: And made him into a Slasher in the first place due to his addictions.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Drug addict janitor to serial killer.
- Kill It with Fire: Dies in the explosion set off by Christy.
- Large Ham: He’s very obsessed with sleep, and very loud about it.
- Sinister Scythe: His signature weapon as the Waking Man is a scythe.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To Flatliners in his backstory.
- Zipperiffic: Has zippers over his eyes and mouth on his black mask.
Dr. Gross was a professor at a distinguished Atlanta university, who regularly used hypnosis to sexually assault his students. When several students discovered photos of what he'd done to them, they decided to turn him in. Gross prevented this by killing each of them. Gross was arrested, placed on trial and sent to jail. While improsoned he began a bizarre self-analyzation which ultimately led to him skimming himself in order to be closer to his "true self". Gross was removed from prison, and taken to a psychiatric hospital from which he escaped. He then set about murdering a number of his other students, occasionally convincing them to commit suicide or skin themselves.
He took an abandoned Atlanta construction site as his lair by the time Cassie caught up with him.
- Ambiguously Human: It's unclear in his first appearance if he is a mortal psychopath or a Slasher, though his Psychofile doesn’t list any method of death unlike other Slashers. His second appearance is a lot less unclear, with it being definitely the latter.
- An Arm and a Leg: When Vlad saves Cassie from him, he cuts off both of his arms simultaneously at the elbow. He's grown them back by the time he is resurrected by the Black Lamp Society.
- Deadly Doctor: Tortures people to death despite the doctorate.
- Disney Villain Death: His first (known) death is this, pushed out a window by Cassie.
- Flaying Alive: Did this to himself, which is a major component in making it hard to determine if he is initially undead or not. He also did this to some of his students, killing the ones that weren’t Driven to Suicide.Doctor Gross: Hide within your cage of flesh. I stripped away my own mask to free myself. And I have peeled back the lies of others until all that remained was bone.
- Ignored Epiphany: Freely admits that he did "sick" things to his students, causing them to ruin him... then notes that in retaliation he "took them apart".
- Killed Offscreen: Ava implicitly brutally murders him with her knife after defeating him with Margaret's help, but readers are spared the bloody work.
- Mind Rape: His psychological torment is about as awful as his physical torment.
- Psycho Psychologist: Likes to psychoanalyze his victims as he tortures them to death.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: He was initially shown as evil to his students through evidence of his hypnosis-allowed sexual assaults.
- Soft-Spoken Sadist: Keeps a calm, reassuring tone of voice almost all of the time, as if he is still doing normal psychotherapy. It only serves to make him creepier.
- Torture Technician: His modus operandi. Notably, he cut off two of Cassie's toes in his first appearance.Cassie's Notes from The Slasher Journal: This asshole was one sick fuck, and now I get to think of him anytime I try to wear sandals.
A struggling heavy metal guitarist who traded his soul for fame and fortune. It also required him to give regular donations of virgins to the Neflords.
- '80s Hair: Has a horrible case of these.
- Captain Ersatz: Of Sammi Curr from Trick or Treat.
- Clipped-Wing Angel: He assumes a demonic form in Shout at the Devil, but doesn't really get the chance to do anything with it.
- Deal with the Devil: How he got his powers. In his Psychofile, his Slasher type is identified as "Faustian".
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: He gets beaten to death with a hammer in the opening pages of Murder Messiah.
- Eyepatch of Power: Starts sporting one after losing his eyes.
- Eye Scream: An Eldritch Abomination ripped one of his eyes out, leading to the above.
- Hazy-Feel Turn: Experiencing Cassie's fears in Mind Killer enables Six Sixx to be able to understand that she is a genuinely good person who is able to fight against horrors. As a result, he doesn’t take her to Nef as he promised the Neflords, and he doesn’t go after her ever again. This isn’t to say he’s a good person, as he still accepts his punishment as being forced to be Elvis' replacement as Nef's talent agent, but he isn’t directly antagonistic ever again.
- Heel Realization: Seems to realize how bad things are when he realizes what his Deal with the Devil really was with. While he hates Cassie and Gertrude for having him Dragged Off to Hell, he apparently knows that he is better off accepting the punishment for disobeying the Neflords for not grabbing Cassie than doing so and dooming the world.
- Here We Go Again!: The end of Mind Killer sees him scouting out a new "talent" for the Neflords. This doesn't work out, and he is killed and his prospect is kidnapped by Dale Wildman.
- Musical Assassin: His guitar is magical and his primary weapon.
- Villain Team-Up: With Ashley Guthrie in Mind Killer.
Two big, floating tenctacly monsters that exist in a realm presumably named after them, their origin is vague, but speculation says they may have lived in the void that existed before God created the universe. While they appear to be content (for the most part) with lording over their little Hell Dimension, they are unable to create followers from nothing, and thus must rely on impregnating virgins (and it has to be virgins, for some reason) from other worlds, acquiring them through agents they imbue with powers in exchange for their services.
- Combat Tentacles: They use these in battle and have a lot of them.
- Dimension Lord: They're the rulers of their tiny hell dimension.
- Eldritch Abomination: Pretty much goes without saying. They're monstrous tentacle monsters from another reality who want virgins to reproduce with.
- Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: They can only breed with virgins of other races.
- Mars Needs Women: In order to spawn, they need to fatally impregnate virgins from alternate realities.
- Power Floats: They live in the skies above their world.
- Primal Fear: For all their might, they live in terrible fear at being alone. It's to such a point that the Neflords hate Six Sixx for his incompetence, but they go into uncontrollable weeping when they find out he's dead.
- Rainbow Speak: Each one has different colored speech bubble font, which occasionally bleeds together.
- Shock and Awe: They can create lightning blasts.
- Speak in Unison: Combined with Voice of the Legion. They sound like a guttural choir.
- Suddenly Voiced: In they're debut, there's no indication given that they can talk (at least, physically) but in subsequent appearances, they're quite chatty with "psychic non-speak".
A mysterious cult founded by Akakios and responsible for the existance of Slashers as a whole. The Society of Black Lamp believes humanity exists in two classes: one that is inherently superior both intellectually and morally, and one prone for sin and debauchery. Following that logic, they sees the Slasher as "Paladins" meant to eradicate the second class, thus preventing an Apocalypse.
- Cult: One which dates back to Ancient Greece and has spread throughout the world.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: They can raise the dead but use it to punish people who love sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
- Dark Messiah: Akakios is this to him. He considers them all weak.
- Mystery Cult: The Society of the Black Lamp began as a mystery cult founded by Akakios of Panopolis—the world's first Slasher—in ancient Greece.
- Religion of Evil: The religion has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
- Technicolor Fire: Their sacred ritual requires burning black flames.
- We Are Everywhere: They've had a long time to breed and spread their religion among their families.
A tentacled-armed woman who actually is a physical manifestation of fiction. Because of this, she can never truly be killed, only temporarily banished.
- Arc Villain: Serves as one of the main enemies of the Hack/Slash/Eva Monster's Ball crossover.
- Combat Tentacles: Her most notable feature is these.
- Fighting a Shadow: Because of her nature as a metaphysical construct, she cannot be truly killed: whenever Cassie manages to slay her, she is only banished and will be able to come back eventually.
- Forced Transformation: In her first appearance, she turns all the inhabitants of Haverhill into fishmen.
- Humanoid Abomination: A physical manifestation of fiction itself, who assumes the appearance of a woman with tentacles.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: A team of superheroes (all of whom come from other Devil's Due and Image comic books) manages to banish her, which results in her manifesting in Cassie's universe.
- No Fourth Wall: Considering she is a manifestation of fiction, she knows exactly what she is in, and freely mentions other "horror Hunter" stories such as Hellboy and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- Shapeshifting Seducer: Attempts to convince Cass to join her using this trick.
- Shout-Out: The name should make it obvious. She also makes direct references to William Shakespeare and others, and is glad that the "horror hunter" she's dealing with is Cassie instead of "that red devil boy".
- Sophisticated as Hell: As demonstrated by the following speech:"[sigh] Though your tale is more complex than some, you still exist in a simple world of revenge, titillation and death. Allow me to try again, in language more befitting your author. Hi, I'm Mary. I'm Frankenstein, Cthulhu and Godzilla all rolled into one. I'm going to fuck up your world, bitch, and then fictional characters are gonna hop out of books and take over."
- Villain of Another Story: Her showdown with superheroes makes for a backdrop to Entry Wound, but Cassie and Vlad aren’t even aware that she exists until Something's Fishy.
- Debut: Sons of Man
A biogeneticist from New Zealand, Andrew Rodin's specialty in sheep breeding led to him being inducted into the Society of the Black Lamp and becoming the head of its Sons of Man Super Breeding Program.
- Arc Villain: For Sons of Man.
- Faux Affably Evil: Acts genial around Ava Park, but it's very clearly just an affectation, and neither of them make any attempt to dispute that.
- Humans Are Bastards: A key figure in this idea, as while he is absolutely monstrous, and one of the worst villains in the entire series, all of his evil comes from he himself, rather than from any Psycho Serum or Black Magic.
- Mad Scientist: His focus on the Super Breeding Program goes to the point of sadism, using people in his experiments and bringing the Sons of Man program to new heights.
- Not in This for Your Revolution: He couldn't care less about the Society of the Black Lamp's goals. All he wants is the perks he gets from the job.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Very sexist, and even calls Venus Twelve a "cum dumpster."
- Sadist: A self-admitted one at that.
- Villainous Legacy: His Super Breeding Program comes up again in Son of Samhain, with it having been used to gather Samhain's DNA that was used to make Ocky.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Sets his Artemis hunters on Louis as soon as he doesn't need him anymore.
The daughter of Doctor Mortal who picks up the mantle of Samhain to avenge her father. She’s the closest that the series has to a standard supervillain.
- Achilles' Heel: The powers of the Godbox don’t extend their invulnerability to the eyes.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Her reason for killing good guys? "I’m the bad guy."
- Costume Copycat: Impersonates Samhain. Curiously, she has no idea who he is, only that he had killed some earlier superheroes.
- Daddy's Little Villain: To her father Dr. Mortal, who organized most of the events of the "SSSS" arc.
- Eye Scream: How Cassie kills her, since her eyes are her only weak spots. She's still missing an eye when the Black Lamp Society brings her back in "Final".
- Go for the Eye: The one vulnerable point.
- Hero Killer: Her first kills were Heroic Wannabes, but her sheer power level makes her into this.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: Cassie kills her for the second time by forcing her hands, full of fire, up to her face, burning her remaining eye.
- Legacy Character: Subverted Trope. While she wears an outfit similar to Samhain in her first appearance, she had no idea who he is, and discards it for her second appearance, in which she isn’t known for having any alias when others' are brought up.
- Nigh-Invulnerable: Is one of the physically toughest opponents Cassie faces.
- The Mole: In the group of would-be superhero teens.
- Playing with Fire: Can throw fire from her Hand Blast.
- Shock and Awe: Bio-electric manipulation, or "zappy hands", are in her power set.
- Super Power Lottery: Empowered by the Godbox, she has a ton of cool powers with very few limits. She even keeps these powers after resurrecting as a Slasher, despite the Godbox being gone.
The first Slasher that Cassie ever went out of her way to hunt down, Matthew Ravenswood was murdered in a rage by his girlfriend Sarah after they were trapped in a shed by an angry farmer, having been playing the serial killer simulator "Blud Bus" at the time as the player character "Grinface". Upon reanimation, he took up the identity of the character, and deemed all of the world his own game.
- Deadly Game: Sees all of the world to be this, and for there to be "levels" and "bosses".
- Multiple Gunshot Death: Cassie first kills him by using Ludo's handgun to shoot out his knees from behind before finishing him off with a bullet through the brain, followed by shooting him in the face three more times.
- Slasher Smile: Constantly on his face, hence the name.
- Starter Villain: The very first Slasher that Cassie ever went out of her way to hunt.
- That Man Is Dead: While other Slashers keep some semblance of their prior life, Matthew Ravenswood is just Grinface. Any piece of his old life aside from the identity of who killed him is completely gone. Cassie points this out to Sarah when she tries to reason with him.Cassie: He's not Matthew. He's Grinface. He's running a pretty high score right now. He's leveled up.
- The Most Dangerous Video Game: Treats real life like this, equating murders with point values.
A fairly typical serial killer who just happens to get in Cassie's way.
- Arc Villain: Of the modern day portions of Murder Messiah.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Believes he's Cassie's equal when he's a fairly minor threat.
- Cruel Mercy: When he brings up that Cassie beating him to death with her bare hands might end with her in a case of Create Your Own Villain, she opts not to do so, taking a different approach.
- Dragged Off to Hell: Ultimately, Cassie sends him... somewhere with the Nef guitar, rather than kill him and risk him becoming a Slasher.
- Fat Bastard: Noticable overweight, and a horrendous Serial Killer.
- Hidden Villain: His offscreen appearance in Super Sidekick Sleepover Slaughter, where he is the one who knocks out Lisa and copies the Hack/Slash, Inc. files.
- Not So Similar: Dale's father was a serial killer and Cassie's mother was a serial killer. He points this out to her but she wasn't having any of it, as she doesn’t embrace it.
- Serial Killer: With a kill count of 18.
- The Social Darwinist: Believes that serial killers are "Alpha male predators" and that slashers are at the top of the food chain. (Which is why he wants to become one.)
- Villainous Lineage: His origin; unlike Cassie, he embraced his father's serial killer legacy.
The "child" of Muffy Joworski and Ashley Guthrie, the Stillborn was birthed in Nef for the express purpose of killing Cassie Hack and securing the Neflords' source of virgins for their offspring.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Has bright pink skin that is not seen as remotely human.
- Arc Villain: The main villain of Fame Monster.
- Cannibalism Superpower: Eats parts of famous people to expand his powers. Apparently the more famous they are, the greater the power increase.
- Expy: His human disguise is that of one for Bruno Mars.
- Eyeless Face: A fairly realistic form thereof, as he has somewhat poor aim as a result and has to rely on hearing.
- Fatal Flaw: As the Neflords learn, the fatal flaw in Kendall Schipp is that he has no flaws, and so is completely devoid of scandal. Thus, he can be overridden with a scandalous event like a wardrobe malfunction.
- Glamour: As part of Nef magic, he can project a human form when desired.
- Humanoid Abomination: Looks hunanoid, but for having an oversized brain, bright pink skin, and an Eyeless Face.
- I'm Your Biggest Fan: Claims to be this to Cassie, considering he was literally born for her.
- Karmic Death: Torn to shreds by a crazed mosh pit, suffering for the very fame he enjoyed.
- Loony Fan: For Cassie and Vlad in theory, but mostly just for the Neflords.
- Muscles Are Meaningless: At a high level of power, he can toss Vlad around like it’s nothing, despite a rather slight physique.
- My Brain Is Big: Has a rather bulbous brain.
- The Paralyzer: Is capable of instilling a sense of being "starstruck" in others, from fans to the likes of Cassie Hack herself. Unfortunately, due to their Psychic Link, he's not immune either.
- Psychic Link: Due to the connections his component parts already had to Cassie Hack, he can make her see psychic visions of his murders, and she can sense where he is.
- Psycho Electro: Near the end of his life, he gains power over electricity around Madison Square Garden, and his god complex is at an all-time high.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Ultimately just wants to make his creators proud of him. This isn't seen as an even slightly good thing.
A Scots-American Chicago crime family. With some... odd genetics.
- Arc Villain: For The Good Son.
- Cannibal Clan: They subsist on human flesh whenever possible.
- Child by Rape: Sawney Beane's fling with a demoness just transformed him into a monster, she's not the mother of his daughters. His daughters came from him kidnapping a woman and when they were born, he was so proud out of how beautiful his girls are that he decided to keep it in the family.
- Cute Monster Girl: The female members are able to usually hide their demonic side and are all statuesque blonde women when they don't transform.
- Generic Ethnic Crime Gang: They're not really all that unique aside from the incest, cannibalism, and demon worship.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: They were even more upset because Vlad's father was black.
- Uneven Hybrid: They're descended from the legendary Sawney Beane, whose one-night-stand with a demoness meant that all his male descendants were superstrong and deformed, and all his female descendants hot witches with a nasty Game Face.
- Villainous Incest: They don't like diluting the bloodline.
The founder of the Black Lamps and the oldest slasher still active, he's been undead for about 2500 years, and originates from the Greek city of Panopolis. At some point in the twentieth century, treacherous Black Lamp underlings deposed him and magically destroyed his memories, renaming him "Samhain" and using him as the Society's top assassin. The resulting confusion led to him developing benevolent feelings for a while and falling in love with Cassie, until a failed attempt to turn him human led to him recovering his memories and being returned to his old self.
- Alchemy Is Magic: And was used to create Slashers.
- Amnesiac Dissonance: When he was Samhain.
- Antagonist Title: He is the eponymous "Murder Messiah" of the arc that revealed his true identity.
- Big Bad: By virtue of being both the one who created the Slashers as a whole and the final antagonist of the original series.
- Bishōnen Line: The oldest and most powerful slasher, but also one of the few who look completely alive and human.
- Brought Down to Normal: Once Cat injects the antidote to Black Ambrosia, he loses all of his powers gained from it, including his Healing Factor.
- Dark Messiah: Intends to purify the world of all those he considers inferior due to their love of life. He's even called the "Murder Messiah."
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Seems to be unable to really understand moral people, despite his Knight Templar ways. Most notably, he dismisses his time making love to Cassie when he was Samhain as a waste of effort, as he could have fucked her any time he wanted, Dramatically Missing the Point of the growing relationship.
- Eviler than Thou: Murders the whole Black Lamp leadership, partly out of revenge for mind-wiping him but also for not being violent enough.
- Evil All Along: Though he didn't know.
- Expy: Of Angelus from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.
- Facial Horror: Gets his entire head burned severely by a Nef wand, including burning all of his hair off, during "Final".
- Healing Factor: Even by slasher standards, his is crazily overpowered, able to regenerate from almost anything, including lost internal organs. That is, until he is depowered.
- Knight Templar: Seriously appears to believe that he and other slashers are morally purifying the world by killing the corrupt.
- Monster Lord: Not only is he the Monster Progenitor of the Slashers, but he can also control their reanimations and sense them. They view him as their god.
- Monster Progenitor: Is the creator of the entire Slasher race. However, due to some weird Time Travel, he's technically still not chronologically the first.
- Only One Name: A Justified Trope, as his naming convention of "one name and location of origin" is customary of the Greeks of the 5th and 6th century BCE, where he originated.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Being a bit less Axe-Crazy than most slashers makes him even more dangerous, as he can come up with plans that are longer-term and more complex than "run around stabbing people".
- Villainous Breakdown: After losing his Healing Factor and all of his Stab Happy "paladins" to Cat and Gertrude respectively, he panics, pleading that Cassie is the only one of their kind left. Given everything he had done, she is in no mood to be merciful.
- Walking Spoiler: There's a reason why there's so much spoiler code here.
Daughter of 21st century Black Lamp Society leaders including Alice Cilento, Britt Cilento took to using the remains of the society, combined with the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, to try to aid Akakios during 190 BCE, in the society’s founding years.
- Arc Villain: For Army of Darkness vs. Hack/Slash.
- Death by Irony: For all of her attempts to act as a Villainous Legacy to Akakios, she is ultimately killed by a past version of Vlad during the Ig'nant Mime Squad Happy Gathering with his Nef Magic Wand, with none of the heroes involved in her death even knowing who she is or caring enough to check.
- Evil Redhead: One who takes advantage of her looks at times to get some of her sacrificial followers.
- Evil Sorcerer: As a user of the Necronomicon with only ill intent.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: As a Slasher.
- Human Sacrifice: Takes to this with her followers, to bind their souls to skeletons for an army.
- No Body Left Behind: Seems to be the case after she is blasted apart by Vlad's Nef Magic Wand.
- Post-Final Boss: Technically, she counts as this to the main Hack/Slash storyline pre-Resurrection.
- Ur-Example: Due to Time Travel, she is technically the original Slasher.
- Villainous Legacy: Acts as this for the entirety of the Society of the Black Lamp, but especially for her mother Alice, who was killed by Samhain in Closer.
Hunters For Hire & Darla Ritz’s Academy For Girls
Darla Ritz is the enigmatic head of Hunters For Hire & Darla Ritz’s Academy For Girls, as well as an active slasher hunter in her own right.
- Final Girl: Just like Cassie, she was the sole survivor of a slasher massacre. Also like Cassie, she killed her slasher became a Hunter of Monsters.
- Mentor Archetype: To her academy.
The fierce, ambitious star student of Hunters For Hire.
- Hidden Depths: Issue 3 reveals her to be a huge anime fan.
- Stock Shōnen Rival: Basically a western, female version of the archetype.
The cool-headed “resident techie” of the academy.
- Ascended Fangirl: Thrilled to find out that a mission involves her favorite indie game, ‘’Frog Boy’’.
- Mission Control: Runs operations from back at the base.
- The Stoner: Seen toking up on-duty more than once. She fits all the other stereotypes too: lanky, mellow, etc.
An incredibly energetic hunter at the academy.
- Genki Girl: Extremely energetic and friendly at all times.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Close inspection of her room reveals things like stuffed animals hanging from nooses. She also cheerfully shows Cassie her third boyfriend’s skull, which has a lipstick mark and several knives sticking out of it.
- Occidental Otaku: Obsessed with Japanese media, wears a schoolgirl uniform at all times, and speaks like a stereotypical female otaku.
- Painting the Medium: Somehow uses emoticons like “XD” and “^W^” in everyday speech.
- Sad Clown: It's repeatedly shown her child-like behavior is a cover for some very severe issues.Samantha: Your friend is dead. Would it kill you to be sincere for five fuckin' minutes?//
- Sailor Fuku: Her standard mode of dress.
- Yandere: Boo was originally discovered after killing her boyfriend and the girl he was cheating on her with. Darla took pity on her, and the deaths were covered up as the work of a slasher.Samantha: Boo falls in love with every boy who gives her a smile, or a slap on the ass. And when I say "love", I mean ''end-of-the-world-level obsession".