What can I say about this trade other than it's FUCKING BRILLIANT! Jason Aaron writes a compelling, deep seeded book that R.M. Guera draws about Dashiell Bad Horse, a Lakota man who's come back to The Rez to find it in worse shape than when he left. Bad Horse is made a law man by Lincoln Red Crow, with the hopes of cleaning up the reservation in time for the Crazy Horse Casino opening. Dash is not at all excited about the new position he has, but takes it like a champ kicking the shit out of anyone who gets in his way. Not the least is his former Red Power revolutionary mother, Gina, with whom he is estranged. Red Horse busts out meth houses, while keeping tabs on the old love he left behind 15 years ago. And she hasn't forgotten the heart break either.
Red Crow, the prosperous tribal leader is mired in getting his 97 million dollar casino off the ground, while structuring back alley deals with drug dealers and the men who put him power. Also on his plate is dealing with his scandalous daughter who is the source of much shame to him. Red Crow surrounds himself with plenty of muscle and guns to keep things from going under. But there's only so much that can save you when the man you just hired to keep the situation in order is an undercover FBI agent. And Red Crow has a little too much on his plate to notice all the holes in his grand scheme.
Bad Horse is a bad mother fucker in every sense of those three words. The term "tough as nails cop," gets thrown around a lot too often in descriptions for movies, tv shows and novels these days. As sadly America's vocabulary suffers greatly from lack of use of a thesaurus. But Bad Horse is someone you do not wanna fuck with. Upon his return, everything is thrown into the blender and then poured out in a concoction of gasoline and volatile methamphetamine chemical cocktails. This is a book you do not want to miss.
Guera's artwork is fashionably subdued for this piece. Nothing is warranted like a book with the perfect art to compliment the writing. And it doesn't get any better than Scalped. With a solid Earth-tone palette and grizzly realism, Guera paints a gritty and fucked up picture to Aaron's words. And the flashback sequences are nothing short of genius, having the palette shift to gray scale to show the separation of time. If this duo hasn't won an award yet, it's not for lack of effort, that's for fucking sure. People need to put this book on their pull list for fear of being left out of a title that truly changes the face of comics today. And that is what has set Vertigo apart from the rest for so many years now. Their willingness to let the talent be the talent and let them tell stories the way they can do it best.
The intrigue from a double murder almost 25 years earlier, sends FBI agent Nitz recruiting Bad Horse from the academy and sending him back to Lakota land to bring down Red Crow. This all ties in with Red Crow, Bad Horse's mother and the mysterious man trailing Bad Horse at his secret rendezvous with Nitz. And that's just the first two story arcs.
Scalped is one of the most brutally shocking crime noir comics ever, and that's it's best selling point.
As you may well know these reviews are graded based upon moments in wrestling history. The more hardcore, sexual, violent, classic or otherwise the moment, the more I approve of the piece I am reviewing. Scalped rates pretty fucking high on that list. With its frankly downright honest dialog and story telling to the truth it holds with the art, I cannot help but fucking love this book. You won't hear mention of Hulk Hogan in this review, except for right there. Hardcore is a title that is earned and should never ever be given to someone or something. Especially when that someone or something has not earned it. And when Vince McMahon bought ECW, he thought he bought the idea of hardcore. You can't buy a legacy. You can't hold an idea in your hands and claim it's yours cause you shelled out a few million bucks for it. But when Pantera's "Walk" blared into the Hammerstein Ballroom on January 7, 2001 it meant something. And when Rob Van Dam, stepped from behind those curtains that night, the crowd lost it. He confidently sauntered to the ring in his now iconic tiger striped singlet and the crowd chanted with him, "WHOLE FUCKIN' SHOW!" as he did the double thumbs. Rob put on a performance that few have tried and even fewer have equaled. That night he fought the only man to ever take him to his limit in Jerry Lynn, new recruit to Cyrus. Lynn professed at the start of the pay per view that he would only wrestle in main events if he ever wrestled again. It was the main event and it was spectacular, as Van Dam and Lynn pulled out all the stops and then some. And with no one on his side. Sidekick and manager Bill Alphonso was not at ring side to help, who was gonna aide Van Dam in delivering the most dangerous and deadly finisher is wrestling. In steps the quintessential stud muffin, Joel Gertner who had been battling with Cyrus all through 2000 on pay per views and during the Friday night ECW on TNN. Gertner jumped into the ring saying he could do Van Dam's bidding, and so he should. Holding the steel chair over Lynn's face as he lay damn near unconscious in the corner. All in one motion, Van Dam leaped to the top turnbuckle and sprang corner to corner, to deliver the very last Van Terminator in ECW.
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