Scalped Deluxe Ed. Book One

Jason Aaron can be a very polarizing writer you either like his writing or you don’t.  I have only read one title by him prior to this & that was Wolverine.  I like Jason Aaron’s style but this was a little hard to get into at first.  Scalped is not told in a linear fashion like 100 Bullets for example however that being said if you liked 100 Bullets you will like Scalped.  The art style is very similar in terms of color pallet but art in this book is grittier.  In 100 Bullets some of the characters were quite likable I have not found that to be the case in this book in fact by the end of this first volume I have only two characters that I like.  This book takes a lot of cues for Quentin Tarantino movies & forces the reader to piece things together.  This book is told through flashbacks, dreams, flash-forwards & different vantage points of the present.  It is truly amazing & confusing at the same time.  For example one of the main characters is killed off about half-way through this book but yet they are still heavily involved with the rest of the story in this volume because their death was revealed in a flash-forward.  I like the fact that this story takes place on a Native American Reservation for the Sioux Indians in South Dakota.  I love studying about Native American history however I am deeply saddened by the United States treatment of Native Americans even to this day.  It shows that America as a country has not learned its lesson.  Similar to that of the story even though this story is about a decade old it still rings true as taking place in the present.

Anyway there are several characters that we are introduced to in this opening volume the first is Catcher even though we don’t know it him at the time.  He shares a past with many of our main characters that is coming back to haunt them.  The second is Dashiell Bad Horse, he is supposed to be the protagonist of the story but I just can’t bring myself to like him.  From the very beginning he is more than what he seems but even the reveal of him working with the F.B.I. doesn’t make him any more likable in fact it gives off the opposite effect.  The next is Lincoln Red Crow who also has a lot of history with this reservation & a past with Catcher.  Red Crow is positioned to be the villain of the story but every time he appears a little more is revealed about him & he’s not as bad as everybody says he is.  Gina Bad Horse is one of the more relatable characters in the book simply because it is so hard to like her son Dashiell.  She also shares history with Red Crow & Catcher.  Carol Red Crow is a girl from Dashiell’s past & Lincoln’s daughter.  Agent Nitz is an F.B.I. agent with a grudge against the Native Americans.  That brings us to Dino Poor Bear who is just a teenage dad trying to create a better life for his daughter.  He dreams of leaving the reservation but something is always pulling him back in.  I really hope he survives this tale but I think that this is just beginning of what is set to be one long tragedy.  I look forward to reading the next volume in the series.  This is the series that put Jason Aaron on the map as a comic book writing & his career has just skyrocketed since.