3 out of 5

Purchased for the Paybacks intro, which was nowhere near as much fun as the regular series.  …And I don’t know if I would’ve followed up on it based on this short, if I’m being honest.  Elsewhere, a totally average DHP issue, lacking in any sense of tonal or editorial consistency from tale to tale, the issue the average mix of okay stories and boring ones and the one that makes you want to buy the next issue…

An Arcudi Abe Sapien tale leads the bunch.  It’s a pretty typical “Abe is sad” story, but it’s nice to see Arcudi back on Abe, as I stopped reading the book with Scott Allie scripting it.  Mark Nelson’s painted jellyfish people are pretty great looking.

The Paybacks – a Suicide Squad on repo detail – works, honestly, moreso in retrospect of reading the mini-series.  On its own, the balance of humor and drama – as the team recruits a new member – feels weird; you’re expecting a joke due to the humorous setup but then you realize it’s actually a serious story.

Dennis Calero’s “The Suit” has super stiff painted art and a confusing story, woop woop.

Black Past by Fabian Rangel has a promising “I done sold my soul to the devil” setup, but the incredibly sketchy art by Pablo Clark is too sloppy to be discernible at times, making reading the issue a turn-off.

The flipside of that is the pleasantly cartoony Kyrra: Alien Jungle Girl, which has a pointless setup leading to a pointless (because it has not context yet) cliffhanger.

…But the issue ends on a high note with Colonus, an interesting sci-fi tale with awesome Metropolis-esque grandiose, dual-toned art from Arturio Lauria.  For a short story, it feels like it has the right blend of broad strokes and world-building.  I probably won’t buy the DHP issues to complete this tale, so I hope it  gets collected at some point.