The Stop Button

I’m guessing this time won’t be the last I observe this issue of Scalped is the best so far.

Aaron opens on a flashback to the seventies, when Dash’s mom and his boss were activists. Not just sign carrying activists, but gun-carrying ones. But that opening’s just a setup for the issue’s closing flashback. The modern day stuff juxtaposes two obsessions and how Dash and Red Crow deal differently with them.

Scalped‘s character lines are nice and twisted; Aaron uses the relatively small size of the reservation (more its politically active population) to basically tell a really good soap opera without it seeming contrived.

Dash is in love with Red Crow’s daughter, Red Crow’s in love with Dash’s mom. Obviously, no good is going to come out of either.

Aaron weaves in Dash and his mother’s strained relationship to bring her relationship with Red Crow out.

It’s indescribably fantastic.

CREDITS

Hoka Hey, Part One of Two; writer, Jason Aaron; artist, R.M. Guera; colorist, Lee Loughridge; letterer, Phil Balsman; editors, Casey Seijas and Will Dennis; publisher, Vertigo.