HELL TO PAY #1 by Charles Soule and Will Sliney (Image, November 2022) “The Shrouded College - Book 1.”
Now that the great ONCE & FUTURE has wrapped up after 30 issues, I’m not necessarily looking for another supernatural fantasy/adventure title to follow. But if I was it might be HELL TO PAY. The debut issue is very impressive and lays the foundation for some imaginative world-building in what one reviewer referred to as “Hellboy meets Indiana Jones”.
Helping create the favorable impression is the gorgeous eye-candy illustrations by artist Will Sliney and Rachelle Rosenberg. Sliney’s work here is very creative, featuring a descending staircase throughout several panels on one page, and later a double-page action scene with panels that angle across both pages to depict a fight scene on the same staircase.
Irish billionaire Ian Macready describes Charles Soule’s version of Hell in an early scene: “It begins with three words . . . Hell is real . . . This isn’t about religion. Hell is a place, connected to our world in very particular ways. Very powerful beings live there. They have a hierarchy. They have rules. And most importantly . . . they have money.”
The coin of the realm is called Qurrakh. During a failed revolt of souls, one individual escaped and brought 666 Qurrakh out of Hell, each by itself able to hire the services of a demon. Over the years 349 coin were spent, each unleashing misery as a consequence.
Husband and wife team Alex and Maia are working off an unholy debt to The Shrouded College and have collected 316 Qurrakh, now after the single remaining coin in the possession of Macready. But there’s a twist, and before they can unravel the mystery Macready is taken out of the picture. Could there be more coins out there?
Soule has ambitious plans for this title, with seven story arcs/books planned for a total of 42 issues. Here’s hoping HELL TO PAY sells enough copies to see his outline make it to the printed page. FIVE STARS.
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