In 1995, Topps Comics released the three-issue mini-series Jason vs. Leatherface, which was written by Nancy A. Collins. Both of these epic cinematic serial killers are well-known among horror film fans and mainstream moviegoers.
Leatherface is the butcher and hunter for his cannibalistic family, whilst Jason is an undead monster who keeps coming back to life to destroy anyone who lives and loves. When these two encounters, what do you suppose will happen? Would they go to war and kill each other?
Or would one of them be able to outlast the other? You will have to wait until the end of the video to find out. Miss Collins did an outstanding job writing the two monsters and demonstrating their more compassionate side throughout the novel. Yes, none of them are remotely human in nature, but Collins attempted to demonstrate why they are the way they are in the 1990s when every successive film about Jason and Leatherface depicted them as increasingly diabolic and dangerous.
She delved into their early years and the tragedy they experienced. There are a few continuity flaws, and the comic is completely non-canon. Collins also got most of the names wrong, such as Jason’s mother being named Doris instead of Pamella. Leatherface’s family is referred to as the Slaughters rather than the Sawyers.
Having said that, Collins’ plot is compelling enough to compensate for a few small flaws. The most intriguing aspect of the comic is that it concludes in an intriguing manner, leaving the reader to choose who the true winner of the epic battle was. So, without further ado, let us dive into the comic.
Jason Goes South
Once upon a time, Crystal Lake was known for being an Eden for people who wanted to drown in summer’s idyll and nature’s beauty. People loved spending their days in the warm sun beside the beautiful lake, but then everything changed after Jason’s evil and undying hatred started to haunt the lake and everyone who visited it, everyone who lived and loved.
Jason and his haunting memories in the minds of locals had turned the place from the Eden it used to be to the Hell that it later became. The laughter of the summer campers that once echoed in Crystal Lake had been replaced by an eerie silence that was reminiscent of a tainted heritage.
As far as Crystal Lake was concerned, it had deteriorated into a large pool of polluted water because an industry owned by the industrialist R. Linhart was dumping heavy amounts of toxic waste into the lake. But at the base of this pool of poisonous water lay nature’s most grotesque and diabolic abomination, Jason himself.
Trapped and drowned, but not dead. Although he remains in darkness with no air to breathe, he knows that people up there bathing in the light still fear him and whisper his name and deeds as if he’s he who must not be named. Wrapped in chains, his machete by his side, Jason waited at the bottom of Crystal Lake to be unwittingly freed by someone.
And the day came along when Linhart and his junior decided to dredge the lake and its content because a new building complex was to be made there. Despite being warned by an older man, the Wayland, he hired a man named Midnight to carry out the dredging. The waste was then loaded in trucks and placed on a train to be transported off. And with all the junk, Jason, too, got put on a train.
His first victim was an unfortunate homeless man and his dog. After this point, there was no stopping him, and he began with his Just Jason Things by killing the crew of the train, including its driver. He smashed one man’s head with a punch, struck his machete into another’s head before tearing open the last one’s jaw. As was expected, the train derailed and got destroyed, and Jason could be seen walking out of the resultant explosion, unscathed.
Before it was downed, the train had taken Jason to an unexpected and unfamiliar place and into close vicinity with someone just like him, the serial killing prodigy of the Sawyer family, better known as Leatherface. Jason found himself in the deep woods when a scared man came running towards him and asked for his help against few crazy people.
Soon, the crazy people revealed themselves, and we meet with Hitchhiker and Leatherface. Just as Leatherface attempted to kill the man, Jason attacked Leatherface, well, because Jason killed everyone who lived, and Leatherface was trying to steal his kill and a chance at vengeance. As the two of them fought, Jason managed to subdue Leatherface and even snatch his saw.
As for the poor man running from them, he got killed when Jason sliced his face in half with his machete while fighting Leatherface. Although Jason could have easily killed both Leatherface and Hitchhiker, he did not do that. For some unknown and strange reason, he let them live. Even Jason didn’t understand why he had spared the two men.
Hitchhiker was impressed by the way Jason had killed the other man and invited Jason to visit the Sawyer House, to which Jason agreed. At the house, we are introduced to Cook Sawyer, Leatherface’s uncle, and the family cook.
When Hitchhiker insulted his little brother, Leatherface, about losing the chainsaw to Jason, the big old ugly baby got upset and went up to his room to cry. Jason was new to these emotions; he didn’t remember what family felt like; he didn’t remember any feeling except vengeance and hate for as long as he could remember.
But Jason understood everything now; he saw himself in Leatherface; he saw another person who was like him in many regards. Both Jason and Leatherface were discarded by society as children for the way they looked, for how different they were from other kids. This alienation had turned both of them into taking the mantle of brutal serial killers, into beings who were human just in name.
Also, neither of them was a big talker; they both preferred silence and action over speaking about it. Jason signaled Leatherface to come down with him to the dinner table, and the two of them had started to bond, so Leatherface agreed. Down at the dinner table, Cook introduced the rest of the family to Jason, while Jason wrote his name on the wall with what seemed to be blood, but the Sawyer family called it Kool-Aid. It started to feel that Jason had finally found a new home and family.
A Day With The Family
Jason slept at the Sawyer house that night and dreamt of the day he had drowned as a child, how there was no lifeguard or counselor to save the little boy from drowning. Although the counselors had warned him not to go into the water without a friend, none of the other kids in the camp wanted to be his friend. And the water looked so tempting on that summer day that Jason went into it anyway.
The nightmare was scaring the fearsome man in his sleep, but it ended when Cook woke him up for breakfast. Cook had prepared some delicious scrambled brains, Hitchhiker’s favorite they were. If you’re still wondering, yes, they were human brains. Even before they started to eat, Hitchhiker picked up a one-sided argument with Leatherface and began to beat him. This reminded Jason of another incident from his past where his father would beat a younger Jason for no good reason.
Cook then gave Jason a tour of his kitchen and smokehouse; bodies were hanging everywhere; few were severed, the others decapitated. It was a true slaughterhouse, straight from the kitchen of the likes of Hannibal Lecter, only messier, much messier. Cook told Jason all about his cutlery secrets and how he wanted to one day open a fancy-ass restaurant with a fancy name.
Later that day, Hitchhiker was supposed to go to pick up groceries; by groceries, they meant more humans, more food. Usually, Leatherface would go with Cook or Hitchhiker, but that day, Cook suggested that Jason should go. And, why not! So, the two of them hit the road, killed an elderly couple, and brought back their corpses.
Hitchhiker was disappointed because Jason didn’t make the woman squeal and scream before killing her; he complained that Jason killed her too quickly. Cook, on the other hand, was disappointed because he wished to have some nice tender meat of young people. What a psycho!
Once back from the hunting, I mean, groceries trip, Hitchhiker invited Jason into a cabin to show him the art he had created, although he preferred to call it his hobby. He had made a rocking chair for his grandfather as his birthday present; well, it was a chair made of a skeleton.
But as fate would have it, Leatherface accidentally threw himself on the chair, and it got destroyed. This enraged Hitchhiker, who started hurling insults at Leatherface, and Jason was transported to yet another memory from his childhood where his father rebuked him often and went so far as saying that Jason wasn’t even his son. In that memory, Jason’s mother, Doris, killed her husband with a machete to save her son.
Now, there’s an issue here. Jason’s mother was named Pamela in the films. Nevertheless, Jason could empathize with Leatherface, and he slammed Hitchhiker away from Leatherface, saving him. Jason was fully prepared to kill Hitchhiker for the way he had just treated Leatherface, but no matter how cruelly his elder brother treated him, Leatherface couldn’t let Jason kill him and, Hitchhiker was spared by Jason.
The Faceoff
Supper that day was about to bring some real action to the table. It turned out that Leatherface had been reading one of Hitchhikers comics. Hitchhiker confronted Leatherface at the table and showed him the Iron Man comics. Hitchhiker was prepared to do whatever was necessary to teach Leatherface a lesson.
He went as far as saying that Leatherface should find himself a new leather suit like the leather mask he had been wearing. Now, although Leatherface is a formidable serial killer, he had always been submissive to his elder brother. If we come to think of it, their relationship was similar to that of the Hound and The Mountain’s relationship from Game of Thrones. Anyway, Jason once again came to Leatherface’s defense and threw Hitch to a corner.
An enraged Hitch stabbed a knife into Jason’s chest, but he didn’t know what Jason really was. Jason took out his machete and chased Hitch. Cook knew that it wouldn’t be easy to stop Jason, and he sent Leatherface to get his saw.
Meanwhile, Cook tried to defend his elder nephew, but to no avail, because Jason had cornered them both. Just as Jason was about to slay the two cannibals, Leatherface appeared from behind and charged at Jason.
A gruesome fight ensued, and Leatherface landed the first serious blow by running his chainsaw through Jason’s belly. This was the first time in his life that Jason cared for anyone apart from his mother, he really wanted to protect Leatherface from the treatment that his elder brother gave him. And all that he got in return was pain and suffering. I mean, yes, all of them deserve to die, but then, you know what I mean.
By now, it had become clear to Jason that Leatherface was a living human, and he knew what love was. And everyone who lives and loves must die. The machete and the chainsaw started to clash with each other, slaying everything that came in their way. While Cook and Hitch cheered for Leatherface, Jason kept hurting him, almost slashed his arm.
However, the fight ended when Hitch attacked Jason from behind and smashed an arrow into his head. Jason’s brains were spilling out of his skull and falling onto the ground. It was over for Jason, or was it? He wasn’t breathing, and his blood was all over the place. Seemingly dead, Hitch suggested that they eat him like the others, but Cook had developed some sort of respect for Jason.
He couldn’t agree with Hitch, and the idea of cooking Jason up in a stew was too much to take. So, he suggested that they bind his body with some rope and blocks of bricks and throw him down into a nearby water body. It was turning out to become a full circle. Jason was going back to the place where he started from.
Just before throwing him into the water, Leatherface placed Jason’s machete into his hand. Leatherface even threw a flower at the center of the ripples that Jason’s drowning body had created. It wasn’t necessarily that he didn’t understand what Jason was trying to do, but it was just that Leatherface loved his family more than he cared for Jason. Was it really the end of Jason Voorhees? Of course not.
The cannibals had tied Jason with ropes and not chains, so he managed to cut the ropes with his machete, courtesy of Leatherface, and emerged out of the lake. Jason was now free from his constraints and could have killed the cannibals one by one, but he didn’t do that.
I mean, he could have done it earlier as well, but he chose to spare the lives of the cannibals for reasons unknown. Was it that Jason really empathized with them? Or, did he feel pity for them? Whatever may be the reason, Jason started his journey back to Crystal Lake.
But this leaves us with two questions, how did he survive the brutal assault on his skull that was so bad that his brains started to pour out of his ears? Second, who was the ultimate winner, Jason or Leatherface?
As far as the first question is concerned, it seems that water is somewhat his resting and go-to place; water gives him the strength to regenerate himself. It almost always starts with water and ends with water for him, much like the predictable fairy tales his mother used to tell him as a child. They always began the same way and ended the same way. And as for the second question, we think it was Jason who won.
I mean, yes, he lost a battle but could have won the war. Leatherface could never defeat Jason in one-to-one combat, and it was ultimately Hitch who had laid the final blow on Jason. Furthermore, Jason had every opportunity to kill Leatherface but he chose not to. Let us know what you thought about the comic, and who do you think really won.