Creative Staff:
Story: Jeff Parker
Art: Matthew Dow Smith
Colors: Tony Avina
Letterer: Deron Bennett
What They Say:
Waller’s last chance to save her soul from damnation is at hand, but can she grasp it tightly enough?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Hell to Pay draws to a close with this installment and the long con that Jeff Parker put into play rolls into its conclusion. The trick of it all may have been apparent to some earlier in the run but for me it comes together nicely here as the reveal hits, particularly since Parker delivers the dialogue so well and we get a good bit of camp along the way because it is the Squad. Matthew Dow Smith has handled the bulk of the art in the series and finishes out the same here but it never really gelled for me. There were some good layouts to be had to be sure but the characters and their designs simply didn’t do it for me, though it all helped to carry the story along. When it delved into the mystical it all worked better, so there are good things in this one with the Spectre in particular.
The book basically does the two main tracks that it wants to as we get the Squad facing off against Solomon Grundy in order to get the key out of him. It’s well-placed to make it a challenge and Grundy doesn’t make it any easier. There’s a good back and forth about it before Harley rallies everyone around the idea of the Squad doing things that could kill them and they have a pretty creative plan to get it out of Grundy. But the lumbering back and forth for him is fun as is the bits with Deadman and the Gentleman Ghost as they wrangle to the side to let the more physical elements of the fight unfold. And all of that unfolds while Waller is struggling in the space between realms with the Spectre making all of his threats, so there’s a good bit of intensity about it.
What becomes amusing is the truth of what the key is all about in that once acquired by Scandal, who does scandalous things with it, we get the reveal that everything was orchestrated by Jason Blood. His goal of using the key to free himself from Etrigan makes a whole lot of sense but he couldn’t let Etrigan or anyone else know, so had to use others – including the Spectre – in order to do it. As Harley says, he out-Wallered Waller but he gets taken in by Scandal’s own trick. This is a kind of no-win end in a way for a lot of what we’ve followed but it works well for Scandal in particular as she sets herself on a new path and has some real bargaining power to use, which you know Waller won’t forget to even the scales on. It does ring a little hollow overall in that it was just Blood’s grand game but it fits with his big-picture view of everything and the briefness of all their lives compared to his.
In Summary:
I’m a big fan of the digital-first books that DC produces at the 99-cent level and this one let me engage with characters that I don’t in the mainline universe for a few months, so it was a lot of fun. While I struggled with the artwork and there’s a part of me that wishes the overall story was tightened up a bit or that we got more character material instead of fighting, there was a lot of fun along the way and some good action. I really liked the cast that Parker got to play with here and seeing how it all unfolded largely worked well, though it left me unsettled more than anything else when you really get down to it. Hopefully, there’s more of this in the future or that Jeff Parker gets another digital-first book to work on and have fun with.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: June 6th, 2018
MSRP: $0.99
