Scalped #38

Written by Jason Aaron
Art by RM Guera

Predictably, this is another brilliant issue of Scalped.  It's nice to see Guera back on art, especially for a one-off tale like this one.  The focus this time around is on Wade, Dash Bad Horse's father.  Wade was sent to fight in Vietnam, and had a string of early brushes with death that built up his reputation as someone who couldn't be killed.  After being discharged, Wade stuck around in Vietnam, shipping heroin back to the States for two ex-MPs who lived in the same area of South Dakota as he did.

Dash doesn't appear to fall far from the tree where Wade is concerned.  The father is a selfish bastard, looking out only for himself.  When Saigon falls and the good times end, Wade returns to the Prairie Rose Reservation, and we learn of another way in which the son's life parallels the father's.

In a lot of ways, the early pages of this book remind me of Aaron's The Other Side, his brilliant debut comic which was set in Vietnam, and they make me wish that Aaron would spend less time writing for Marvel and would give us another war comic instead.  He has an affinity for them.