Scalped #56 – Review

By: Jason Aaron (writer), R.M. Guera (artist), Giulia Brusco (colors), Sal Cipriano (letters), Jock (cover), Mark Doyle (assistant editor) & Will Dennis (editor)

The Story: Surprise!  It’s not what you think.  A surprising jump forward for the soon-to-end series.

A few things: [with SPOILERS]

1. Whoa!  Not what I expected… – The first page features a classic Scalped scene: Dash walking Red Crow into the Prairie Rose Reservation’s police station and locking him up.  In true Scalped fashion, it’s grimy as hell: Dash is bleeding all over (from his fight with Shunka) and he’s barefoot and in his underpants.  Then we jump ahead 8 months?!?  That is not at all what I expected.  But I must say, it opens up a lot of story-telling possibilities for Jason Aaron.  One thing Scalped sometimes lacks is the time to let events breathe.  By 8 months ahead, these characters are moving on with their lives and making some rational decisions rather than simply reacting to whatever horrible thing has just happened: curb stomping, drug overdose, abortions, eyeball removals, etc.  Let these folks catch their breaths.  But, I’m sure we haven’t seen the last dead body in Scalped either….

2. Carol is back.  Yay! – I’ve had Scalped on “my list” to review for a year or so now and I’ve been steadily banging the drum for Carol to come back.  To me, she is the soul of this series and I wasn’t going to be happy with the finale unless Carol’s story was tied up.  So, I’m very much looking forward to seeing how she and Dash resolve things.  Do they end up together?  Or has too much happened and are they too damaged for that to happen?  Or did they only love each other because of the stress of the moment?  I’m pulling for the two of them to end up living in some quiet oceanfront town, but I doubt that’ll happen.

3. Not the fat chick! – What I really didn’t get is the fact that if Dash is fooling around with this new community organizer lady (have we ever seen her before?) just to show how emotionally unsettled he is?  That he can’t notice that Carol is standing right there?  That he’s so desperate for any human companionship after years of being undercover that he’ll take up with a woman who really isn’t his type?  Dash doesn’t care about the reservation, so why shack up with a community organizer?  And was this a one-time hook-up, or has he been fooling around with this lady for a while?  I couldn’t really tell.

Dean’s Top Picks

Best of the past week: Prophet #22 – This was just as fun as I thought it would be.  Don’t let the unwise numbering fool you, this is only the second issue of a VERY new reader friendly reboot of Prophet.  I love the world building that Brandon Graham and Simon Roy are doing as John Prophet finds his way across this future-Earth that has turned into a wasteland of sorts. Weird machines.  Aliens?  Mutated insects.  Animals that crap concrete.   The whole thing has a very Jack Kirby – Kamandi vibe to it.  Catch up now and enjoy it!  Runner-up: Wolverine and the X-Men #6

Most anticipated this week: Orc Stain #7 – Where have you been, my pretty?!?!?  This has been so delayed that I honestly worry that my comic shop might not have a copy for me, but there’s always digital and there won’t be any keeping me away from James Stokoe’s crazy orc-world that is full of all sorts of zany animalistic contraptions.  But, this is a LOADED week for lovers of creator-owned comics and there are about 5 other comics to get seriously excited about.

Other picks: Scalped #56, Spaceman #4, The Unwritten #34.5, Hack/Slash #13, Vescell #6, The Walking Dead #94, Amazing Spider-Man #680