By Dustin Cabeal
Well, it’s unlikely that I’ll continue reviewing this series. It’s already settled into its rhythm, and while that’s great for people that are enjoying it, I’m still finding it to be average. Sometimes painfully average.
There are several things that perplexed and annoyed me about this issue. The first was the abundance of dialogue and narration. Cassie and the blonde on the cover flirt most of the issue, and it is dry, uninteresting and mostly painful to read. At no point do you root for them to get together or even sense their attraction. It’s just “hey we’re both pretty hot, are we in love now?” Seriously, Cassie acts like a protective lover by the end of the issue, and it defies logic. Because of all this flirting though, they talk a lot, and it’s stiff, too awkward to feel real and ultimately feels a bit like a waste of time.
I have one more gripe with the story or the lack of logic the story displays before I get into a spoiler. I’m giving you an early heads up so you can skip the next paragraph. Upon Cassie’s arrive she’s thrown into this camp environment with no explanations. They’re talking about weapons and how a baseball bat never runs out of ammo when a “slasher” jumps out, and Cassie nails him in the head. Turns out, part of this camp, which is a camp for killing slashers, is to have actors jump out and for you to practice against. Seems like a huge fucking detail to overlook when you’re inviting the world’s number one slasher killer. She kills a man… they tell you he lives, but he’ll never be the same again. He’ll get that thing all the NFL players are dying from. There is one killer joke at his expense, but the reality is that he’d be dead and the comic just softballs past it… pun intended.
Okay spoiler, I’m going to talk about the predictable and stupid ending. Vlad is dead. Apparently, the fucker making zombies dug him up and is attempting to reanimate him. More than likely this is all bullshit because there are a dozen reasons why this wouldn’t be true. What’s annoying though, is how every character in the comic seems to have a wiki on Cassie. “Ah yes, it seems young Vlad died at the end of volume 7, in order to save the world… he took that weird flesh dog with him because that thing was just annoying and gross to look at.” I don’t buy that it’s Vlad, if it is, then you’ve just undone the one thing this story had going for it, which was “No Vlad.” Great character, but he stopped making sense with the story long ago. Especially when Seeley nerfed him, and he kept getting his ass kicked.
The art is interesting this time around. It’s fairly inconsistent overall, but what really started to bother me was the noses. The front and profile of the noses in particular. At times it was just the J. Scott Campbell squiggle, but then other times it was this weird figure-eight linework. The worst was when it straight up looked like a big nose or a rich person from a kids CG movie. It was distracting. The rest of the art managed, but flipping back through it, so many scenes look completely different from each other. If it wasn’t for the coloring it wouldn’t be hidden as much.
Sadly, the story has become very campy. Pun intended. It was a cool idea having Cassie go to a camp, but then it turned into a zombie love story thing and so the threat of something at the camp is non-existent. Resurrection is a great title for this series because instead of being a fresh start for the series, it’s just digging up all the convoluted stories from the past that turned me away from the series.
Score: 2/5
Hack/Slash Resurrection #2
Image Comics