Scalped #46

Written by Jason Aaron
Art by RM Guera

It probably won't come as a surprise, but I still love Scalped.  This issue is just another example of why this series is so good, as the murder of Gina Bad Horse, which happened years ago in our time, is looking like it may finally be solved.  Or at least dealt with by the characters, as it doesn't look like there could be any solutions to what's going on.

Officer Falls Down has been the captive of Catcher for months now, and the crazy old guy has decided to set him free, provided that the Thunder Spirits guide him through a cave of bear traps, trip wires, snakes and spears.  The conversation between these men is interesting, especially what happens when Falls Down decides to give up and let Catcher kill him.  Good stuff.

Most interesting though is the visit between Chief Red Crow and Lawrence Belcourt.  Belcourt is a Leonard Peltier figure in the story - he's been wrongly convicted of killing FBI agents back in the AIM days, and has been sitting in the pen ever since.  He was the last person to ever speak to Gina, and knew who she was going to see when she was killed, and has finally decided to tell Lincoln about it, knowing that Red Crow will take no time to deal with the man.  He also tells Red Crow to take away the protection he'd been paying for.

Lawrence spends the rest of the issue expecting to die, shown in a series of scenes that are incredibly tense and wrought with expectation.  It's pages like these that show how well Aaron and Guera work together, and are the reasons why I love this comic so much.