Donny Cates is an author to watch. Already noticed for his God Courntry or Ghost Fleet, the young 37-year-old screenwriter animates this editorial spring with no less than two very attractive titles: The Paybacks and Crossover. Two independent works but which are part of the same universe. Reading the first title was a total pleasure heralding the blossoming of pure talent. Here we explain why.
Whoever pays his debts gets richer
Superheroes have conquered everything: galactic threat, magic monster, crime genius. Nothing resists them. Or almost because they all have the same Achilles heel. Money. The war on crime is expensive, terribly expensive. And to fund their gadgets, supersonic weapons, and other upgrades, many have no choice but to go into debt. From loans to credits, the arrangement of receivables accumulates until the cleaver falls. It's time to pay back. That's when the Unpaid Ones, a brigade of superheroes in charge of recovery, come in. The system is intractable. Nothing escapes seizure. Not even the heroes. Indeed, when their debts exceed their assets, they must put themselves at the service of the Unpaid and become implacable chasers of bad payers. Everything is well oiled, capitalism always triumphs until the unpaid fall on a bone. Someone eliminates their targets before they have paid off their debts. 
The Paybacks : Justice does not pay
This one shot is great first of all by its history. We follow a band of collectors in their daily missions. Cynical, this team excels at hunting down penniless heroes. She does it with efficiency and class. But very quickly, the scenario takes us to new horizons. Who is the mysterious boss of unpaid bills? Who is trying to double them? What is the secret of the driver of the van housing the huge Q.G. unpaid bills. History is then devoured in one go. The narration continues to break the fourth, further energizing the rhythm. The Paybackss is a declaration of love to superheroic mythology. Each chapter delves deeper into a universe that is both new and full of references. You'll find a stilted version of Batman, a beatnik variation of Doctor Strange. Donny Yates who worked for Marvel likes to summon the entire pantheon of comics. Based on the excellent drawing of Geoff Shaw, the story offers rich plates where the reader will have fun spotting the quotes. Narrative referenced but not stifled by these tributes. Everything holds in balance thanks to the right proportion of winks. 
The bank always wins
If you are looking for a committed narrative, satire of current capitalism, The Paybacks is for you. Indeed, the comics takes an iconoclastic bias. Defending justice is not a profitable business except for multibillionaire heroes… and Again. In a world where everything can be bought, the defense of the good has a price that is negotiated in monthly payments, in interest rates. Donny Cates then implicitly raises the question of why continue to defend the Good. He answers them very elegantly. Because it is priceless. He adds another thought. What if this struggle of good against evil was only a zero-sum game except for the bank which always wins? This scathing statement is part of the tradition of these offbeat, somewhat violent series that are The Boys, Invincible, The Authority or even The Umbrella Academy. The pragmatic, almost parodic story comes to celebrate a band of ultimate anti-heroes depositories of a morality in perdition. If the Gods live among us, will they suffer the same depravity? On a deeply amoral idea, Donny Cates constructs a moral fable. Superheroes turned proletarians must extricate themselves from the social straitjacket at the risk of remaining perpetual prey. 
Bold, uninhibited, jubilant, parodic, The Paybacks is all at once. This is certainly the comic of this spring to discover urgently at your bookseller. And for those who would like to read more, Urban Comics also publishes Crossover, the new series of Donny Cates where the heroes of The Paybacks meet.
