Scalped #50 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (writer), R.M. Guera (art & letters), Giulia Brusco (colors), Mark Doyle (associate editor) & Will Dennis (editor)

Pin-ups contributed by: Tim Truman, Jill Thompson, Jordi Bernet, Denys Cowan, Dean Haspiel, Brendan McCarthy & Steve Dillon

The Story: It’s an anniversary issue, so we take a break from our regularly scheduled story to enjoy some central themes of the series set in the Old West.

What’s Good: First off, massive congratulations to Jason Aaron, R.M. Guera, Giulia Brusco, Mark Doyle, Will Dennis and all the fill-in artists who have gotten Scalped to issue #50.  That is a real achievement in today’s comic market with a creator-controlled series.  Already Scalped is one of my favorite series ever.  It’s also a special series that disproves the commonly held notion that all comic books are about superheroes and are sold to fat, smelly & bearded men who haven’t adapted to adult-society.  There’s nothing spandex about Scalped.  This is straight-up adult fiction at it’s best.  Bravo guys and thanks!

For this particular issue, we deviate from the ongoing story of Dash, Gina, Catcher, Red Crow, et al and get a story that is largely set in the later 1800’s that deals with the injustices that Native Americans have suffered at the hands of folks of European descent.  Anyone who went to public school in the United States will not find this news, but Aaron finds a way to bring it to us in a special way by showing us a white man who is teaching his son how to scalp Native Americans for the bounty and how this story circles back in a not unexpected, but powerful, way.

Aaron then drags that “you-reap-that-which-you-sow” theme along to show how Native Americans ended up on reservations…. and that while reservations are no cup of tea being on the worst possible tracts of land in the United States and riddled with poverty, substance abuse, crime, etc. that the people who dwell there remain proud and alive and a distinct culture despite all the horrors that have been visited upon them.

The art is standard R.M. Guera goodness.  He excels at the gritty, so I can think of few artists who are better suited for drawing the act of scalping a man alive. Guera also does the lettering by hand.  I love hand-lettering and guess I understand why we dont’ see it much anymore, but it really drives home what an important aspect of the comic lettering can be.  As a treat, a bunch of notable artists contributed splash pages towards the end of the comic.  These mostly served to further excite me that Jordi Bernet is drawing a few issues of American Vampire coming up.

Weekly Comic Book Review’s Top Picks

Alex’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Batman: Gates of Gotham #2 – Detective work and an overarching sense of mythos and history that serves to enhance the story and provide atmosphere without overwhelming the reader makes for an awesome read.  Really fun artwork makes it an even more awesome read.

Most Anticipated: Scalped #50 – Though it doesn’t get as much press as it should, make no mistake, issue after issue, Scalped is continually among the best of the month.  If you at all enjoy Jason Aaron’s other work, you need to be reading this; it’s the man’s best work by far.And here we are, at 50 issues.  Not at all shabby for a creator-owned Vertigo series.  I’m really interested to see what Aaron has in store for us in this sure to be special, landmark issue.

Other Picks: Detective Comics #878, THUNDER Agents #8, American Vampire #16, Amazing Spider-Man #664, FF #5, Venom #4

Dean’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: 2000 AD June “Pack” Progs 1732 – 1735 – This is kinda a weird pick because it isn’t one comic…..it’s four.  I just started reading 2000 AD for the first time and really enjoyed my first exposure.  If you aren’t familiar, 2000 AD is a weekly anthology comic that has been published in England since 1977, so the numbers get high really fast.  Here in the United States, we get them in monthly “packs” of 4 issues at once although they are going to weekly publication in the US in August I believe.  I can’t tell you how satisfying these were to read.  Even though I was picking up in the middle of an anthology series and many stories were 3-4 episodes into a tale, they had just enough exposition that I knew basically what was going on.  Bravo!  Really strong art too!  Why can’t American comics be more like this?

Most Anticipated: American Vampire #16 – Good Lord is this a packed week.  As I stared at my pull list about the only thing I was sure of was that X-Men: Prelude to Schism #4 would NOT be my most anticipated comics of the week.  Picking AV #16 off this list is like asking which of your 10 children do you love the most.  Still, Scott Snyder and Rafa Albuquerque’s tale of vampirism on a Japanese occupied Pacific island in WWII was taking some very cool twists toward the end of AV #15 and I’m very eager to see how things begin to resolve themselves.  American Vampire should be on everyone’s pull list.

Other Picks: Creepy Comics #6, Detective Comics #878, Scalped #50, Butcher Baker the Righteous Maker #4, The Walking Dead #86, Amazing Spider-Man #664, FF #5, Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #6