Scalped #50

Written by Jason Aaron
Art by RM Guera, Igor Kordey, Tim Truman, Jill Thomspon, Jordi Bernet, Denys Cowan, Dean Haspiel, Brendan McCarthy, and Steve Dillon

For as long as I've been writing about comics on the Internet, I've been hoping to draw new readers to Scalped (it was the first comic I ever reviewed).  I have been, on a monthly basis, blown away by the quality of this comic, and it is something that I think most comics readers would appreciate if they gave it a chance.  One hurdle, though, has been accessibility.  Scalped is a sprawling, complex story that, had a new reader not started at the beginning, it would be difficult to follow.

This fiftieth anniversary issue (and congratulations - that kind of number is amazing for a book like Scalped in today's market) is a perfect sampler for a new reader to get a sense of what this book is all about.  The issue opens with a father and son scalping a Sioux man in Montana in 1876.  The father, from a long line of 'Indian hunters' is passing on the finer points of scalping to his son, and shares with him their family's story, which is basically the story of the worst aspects of American history.  Things soon shift to a Sioux father and son, whose actions and lives parallel that of the Americans'.  The Sioux son's name is His Many Bad Horses, a name with great resonance for readers of Scalped.

Later, we see Bad Horses as a man, brought to the Prairie Rose reservation in 1889 by government soldiers, after being one of the last hold-outs among his people.  Once there, he has a vision which is shown in a series of splash pages, each drawn by a different artist.  The narration of these pages reads like a tone poem, giving a new reader everything they would need to know about Scalped in terms of its atmosphere, while rewarding long-time readers with a new perspective or way of looking at most of the central characters.

It's interesting to read Scalped as a book about hope and resistance.  So often, the title feels to be more about despair, acceptance, and defeat.  Aaron is a subtle and gifted writer, and I found it awesome to see so many different artists provide their interpretations of things.  The best sequence in the book belongs to regular series artist RM Guera however, as he hand-letters his pages, and makes the old Wild West look as dirty and sad as it really was.

I also appreciate the way that Jill Thompson snuck the Beasts of Burden into the book too.