Heavy Metal Comics 2016
Written by Donny Cates & Eliot Rahal
Illustrated by Geoff Shaw
Coloured by Dee Cunniffe
Lettered by Taylor Esposito
The Paybacks are a group of “C-list” superheroes who have defaulted on loans given them by the shadowy Mr. Pierce in order to fund their crime-fighting caped crusades. Now, in order to pay off their debts, they are forced to repossess other delinquent do-gooders along with their super stuff! They live in a van that’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Cool, right? Well, here’s what sucks: Someone has been killing their repo targets before The Paybacks can get to them. BUT, HOW? Well Veronica Hart--AKA the Original Miss-Adventure (who everyone thought was dead but totally isn’t) has placed a mole on the team (her adopted daughter Zoe Hart, AKA “the new” Miss-Adventure) in order to destroy them from the inside. Recently Zoe was able to smuggle repossessed item known as the Super-Dex off the van and give it to Veronica. But why? What is Veronica’s goal here? Well…...let’s go find out!
Get all that good now you can start with this issue and just enjoy the heck out of it. Personally this is the first issue of the Paybacks i’m reading and honestly I haven’t had any trouble following what’s going on here. Completely new reader friendly and that’s a huge bonus in starting something new.
This issue starts off with the Matador getting his initiation so by extension we get one too. Perfect way to introduce new readers to what’s what. We do however see how old the intro video message is and we learn about the Van. So much like the Tardis but on a much larger scale and is apparently as sentient and fun like Danny the Street so already a huge bonus for a geek like me.
It doesn’t take very long before the story gets under way in earnest and I have to say i’ve been really impressed here. The characterization, the plot advancement and the storytelling are really strong and move at a great pace. It feels like we’re getting a lot of story here and that’s what we look for. That we get this amount of information, that the story has an intro and then gets quickly into the meat of it while givings us this level of characterization is rare.
Geoff and Dee do some great work on the interiors. They have that detailed, crisp clean linework to them that I love. Plenty of backgrounds to flesh out the scenes and give a larger picture of the world they inhabit not to mention set the mood, tone and feelings for the dialogue. The flow through the pages is great, use of angles and perspective in panels is effective to get us involved in them.
I had no idea this was at Dark Horse first and that Heavy Metal has it now well they’ve got a coup cause this is excellent. The writing and interiors are great and the premise of who and what makes a “C-list” hero well that’s always interesting and I love a team book that takes those individuals whom are considered lesser and make them awesome by learning to work as a unit. I’ll be along for the ride and so far it’s off to a bang-up start!