Hack/Slash: Body Bags #2 // Review
It’s 6:02 pm at a nice, little place in Terminus, Georgia. It’s the residence of Mack Delgado--better-known to some as “Clownface.” He’s just had an attack. Someone was evidently trying to kill him. Wasn’t able to complete the job, And now he’s going to have to deal with that failure in Hack/Slash: Body Bags #2. Writer Tim Seeley continues his story with the art team of Stefano Caselli and Steve Kurth. Though the issue has its moments, the potential seems buried in a lot of crude silliness that keeps it from attaining the sharply clever and stylish piece of art it seems so very capable of being.
Clownface is upset enough to bash the guy’s head in, but he’s got a better idea. It’s really only a matter of time before he takes the guy’s mask off. Things are going to get a bit uncertain from there. Elsewhere it’s a minute later at The School for the Contractual Arts. 6:03 pm is honestly kind of a weird time at which to begin a 24-hour immersive educational lockdown, but The School for the Contractual Arts isn’t exactly a perfectly normal school. Students are being introduced to the program through a hologram that’s also taking the time to teach them the history of bounty hunting...
Seeley has a really interesting world that he’s been working with. The total bent and homicidal world is an amplification of our own United States where life is cheap and murder...just kinda happens. The deeper satirical implications of this have been pretty solidly avoided by Seeley in favor of a lightweight action series that fuses traditional superhero tropes with something considerably darker. It does this without really adding anything to the world of dark, homicidal action. A 24 hour lockdown at a school for bounty hunters holds so much potential. Seely keeps it all surface level “fun.”
Casselli and Kurth find the pulse of Seeley’s script and find visuals with dance more or less perfectly with the overall energy of the story. The action slices and pounds its way across the page with some degree of style and impact. The story might not have the kind of impact that it could, but Casselli and kurth do a good job of keeping it moving in a way that feels a lot more entertaining than it has any right to be given how weak Seeley’s script is.
There’s still time for Seeley and company to tie the story into something much more meaningful and clever, but this IS the second isue of the series and things could end up getting really dull really quickly if Seeley isn’t able to find a more meaningful depth to what it is that he’s doing. It’s not going to be easy given all of the momentum that’s come before it, but there’s every chance that Seeley and company could manage something magnificent if they really work towards it. There ARE a lot of moving parts and there’s every chance that things could.
