Too often comic fans rally around a series far too late, when it’s already been cancelled or announced its ending. We’ve recently seen that with the cancellation of Nighthawk and Mockingbird, two solid series that featured excellent writing, but lacked the buzz to keep them going.

Introducing “Wednesday Comic Rally” (the eventual name to still be determined) where I hope to spotlight a series, comic, graphic novel, etc., that you should go check out when you head to the shop each week. The idea is to focus on small press and indie comics as well as low selling mainstream comics and make the case as to why you should get it (and actually provide options as to where you can purchase the comic if you don’t have a local shop or prefer digital).

We saw how easily we can boost a series like Mockingbird so lets show our power as comic fans and speak with our dollars to keep quality comics around by showing our support.

This week’s rally? The Paybacks #4 by Donny Cates, Eliot Rahal, Geoff Shaw, and published by Heavy Metal.

Heroism doesn’t come cheap, so when superheroes borrow money to finance their genetic enhancements or crime-fighting supercomputers, their debts make student loans look like IOUs. Enter the Paybacks, a repo squad composed of bankrupt former heroes here to foreclose on everybody’s secret lairs!

The second volume has to do with a database of superhero identities being leaked and the Paybacks being blamed for it. Yes, this is Wikileaks meets superheroes and it’s funny as all hell.

There’s been two volumes of The Paybacks with the first being published by Dark Horse and second by Heavy Metal and judging by its sales numbers that’s estimated, a lot of you missed the series. The basic gist is explained above taking a comedic send-up to the superhero genre lampooning so many characters it’s almost too many to name (there’s an entire character based around pouches!). It’s funny. It’s really funny. But more importantly, the comic is fun. If you grew up reading comics in the 90s, it especially nails the ridiculous nature of some of the characters that ruled the stands during that time and in general many of the comic icons today.

Without the comedic tone of the series, it’d likely fall flat being too serious and it wouldn’t work, not standing out at all from the bunch. The humor is what really makes the comic, taking what otherwise would be just another action superhero comic and moving it to a whole other level of entertainment. From the gags in the action and the characters to every small detail in the background each issue packs laughs within.

Everyone that I’ve had read an issue has been converted and hopped on board. It’s a style of comic that you just don’t see a lot of on the shelves which makes it stand out even more and really feels like a unique experience. This fourth issue looks to wrap things up, but you can catch up digitally and find out why this is a series I continuously gush about. You won’t be disappointed.

You can purchase The Paybacks #4 at your local shop, on comiXology, volume 1 through Amazon, or some single issues through Things From Another World.