Written by: Donny Cates and Eliot Rahal
Art by: Geoff Shaw
Publisher: Dark Horse
Have you ever wondered how much Batman’s equipment costs? Seriously, the Batmobile, Batplane, and Utility Belt must be worth millions of dollars. Not to mention the Shark Repellant. You can’t buy that handy spray at Costco.
The sheer amount of overhead may not be worrisome to billionaires like Bruce Wayne and Oliver Queen, but how does it affect the common vigilante? Most budding superheroes can’t afford a month’s rent, let alone Kevlar padding and specialty planes. Normal banks and credit unions aren’t going to give out a loan for crime fighting equipment, so these heroes have to search for other means. Enter Donny Cates and Eliot Rahal, who created a comic called The Paybacks.
This comic is set in modern times, and it follows a repo team called the Paybacks. This team is made up of former heroes who received loans from a mysterious individual known as Mr. Pierce. Unable to repay these loans, the heroes were forced to give up their equipment and join a repo squad. Now the team spends its days hunting other heroes who owe Mr. Pierce money.
The Paybacks #1 is focused mainly on two repo targets: a London-based vigilante named Night Knight and a NYC playboy known as Battery. Both men borrowed money from Mr. Pierce and failed to make payments, so the Paybacks split into two separate teams to assault their fortresses of solitude. Night Knights’ home was easy to break into simply because it was a mansion occupied by an old butler. Battery, on the other hand, had a trickier base to infiltrate. His home was filled with crazy traps and bi-polar bears that totally caused havoc among the teams. Sadly, Battery didn’t really make an appearance until very late in the issue. Night Knight, on the other hand, spent a majority of the episode roaming around with his sentient unicorn. The entertaining part about Night Knight owning a unicorn is the simple fact that he doesn’t even ride it. They just run around together wearing masks and armor.
A talking unicorn is great, but it isn’t even the best part of this entertaining first issue. The Paybacks is a self-described comedy series, and that is the perfect description. The writing is well done, and there are humorous little details throughout. One spot on an early page even makes a joke about what happened in the nonexistent previous issues.
Of course, it also helps that the characters work well with the writing. All of the characters are goofy in their own right, even the angry ones like The Driver. No character is more essential to this first issue’s success than the Soviet Nunchuck. This behemoth of a man doesn’t speak any English, but one of the teammates did teach him to quote lines from The Terminator and Blade. For some reason, watching a giant bearded man yell “Some motherf$ckers always trying to ice-skate uphill” at the wrong moment is pretty entertaining. It also helps that Geoff Shaw’s art puts the Soviet Nunchuck in the crane position while facing off with an oncoming van—that isn’t really a van.
The Paybacks #1 seemed like a fun comic just from the description alone, and the final product does not disappoint. Donny Cates and Eliot Rahal wrote a humorous story, and Geoff Shaw enhanced it with good art and little details. Sure, there are some serious moments in the issue that lead to a darker story, but they don’t stop the humor from shining through. The funny characters are just an added bonus. Hopefully, some of the more minor characters like Reflectoid will make a return after a grand entrance to the series.
The Paybacks #1 is off to a great start. Cates and Rahal just need to keep the repo train rolling.
