The Paybacks
Listeners with long memories might recall that I mentioned the first four-issue “The Paybacks” miniseries when I talked about the stuff I was reading on my Kindle that one time. It’s idea of a superhero repo squad that targeted other superheroes who couldn’t afford the payments on their flashy tech was a fun one with the execution providing plenty of jokes along the way. That it ended on a cliffhanger was pretty disappointing, but it turned out to not be the end of the story! “The Paybacks’” creators were able to take the series to Titan Comics for another four-issue miniseries which wrapped up the story. It didn’t sell well enough for them to publish a collected edition for both miniseries, but then a funny thing happened: Its creators blew up. You see, the co-writer of “The Paybacks” is Donny Cates (with Eliot Rahal) and the artist is his “God Country” and “Thanos Wins” buddy Geoff Shaw. It’s probably obvious now why both miniseries have been collected by Dark Horse for our reading enjoyment.
While I’m glad to finally find out how the story ends, I was kinda missing the “workplace comedy” vibe that the earlier issues had. Smartly realizing that the second miniseries was going to be the last we saw of this series, Cates and Rahal decided to go big and opted for a massive clash between the Paybacks and the superheroes who believed that their secret identities had been revealed by these repo people. It’s fine for a series-ending climax, especially when you’ve got someone like Shaw who can deliver this kind of spectacle. My issue with it is that it’s decidedly at odds with the goofball fun of the first half which saw them collecting from (among other people) a very English Batman-wannabe. That the whole thing holds together at all by the end is a testament to the skills of the creators involved. It doesn’t change the fact that “The Paybacks” suffers from the sin of too much ambition as it tries but doesn’t quite succeed at cramming an entire series’ worth of characters, plot twists, and explosions into eight issues.