Scalped, Vol 1: Indian Country

Scalped, Vol 1: Indian Country

By Jason Aaron & R.M. Guéra (Vertigo)
ISBN 1-84576-561-3

Not so long ago “grim and gritty” comics meant good guys in tights savagely killing really bad guys instead of arresting them. But now the grime of realism is back where it belongs – in crime comics – and this new series from Jason Aaron combines the familiar and exotic in a dark, vicious and heady brew.

The Native American has had a pretty hard time since the white man came. In recent years lip-service and guilt have been turned into some concessions to the most disadvantaged ethnicity in the USA, and the contemporary Federal mandates that allow gambling on Indian territories have meant a cash bonanza for the various tribes on reservations throughout the country. The Indians are getting rich. Well, some of them are…

Son of a 1970s Native American activist, Dashiell Bad Horse ran away from the desolate squalor of the Prairie Rose Indian Reservation when he turned fifteen. Now he’s back and although there’s a glitzty new casino the Rez is still a hell-hole and a demilitarized Zone. Reluctantly he takes a sheriff’s job, but he knows he’s really just another leg-breaker for the Tribal Leader and crime boss Lincoln Red Crow. Whilst wiping out rival drug and booze gangs Bad Horse is getting closer to the all powerful Indian Godfather, who was once his mother’s closest ally in the freedom Movement. And that’s good. After all, that’s why the FBI planted him there in the first place…

Seedy, violent, overtly sexual, this dark brutal Crime Noir is an uncompromising thriller that hits hard, hits often and hit home. The oddly familiar yet foreign locale and painfully unchanging foibles of people on the edge make this tale an instant classic. Hold on to your hat and jump right in.

© 2007 Jason Aaron & Rajko Milosevich. All Rights Reserved.