review # 217: Scalped
When I went to pick up my comics from the comic store last week, the proprietor put the first issue of the new Metal Men series in my box, as he’s prone to doing with titles he thinks I might be interested in. I was interested, but declined. He then gave me a free copy of Scalped by DC’s Vertigo imprint. He said that I’d be back to buy the rest. I just finished reading that issue and I’ll say that he was right, in a way.
The story is of a Native American man with nunchucks named Dashiell Bad Horse who comes back to his hometown on the rez after being gone for years. He starts shit with every hood in town then gets hauled to see Boss Red Crow who he knows from way back. He’s the crooked head of everything and he offers Dash a job on his police force because he’s grown up into such a bad-ass. There is the subsequent revealing of people he knows from his past and by the end of the first issue, we see that Dash is not all he seems.
The plot has a Grand Theft Auto feel to it, with the street-level-thug protagonist who works his way up in organized crime. There are a lot of clichéd, Hollywood moments in just the first issue of this book. Some of the dialogue is poorly paced and feels akward. At times the art is cluttered and it’s difficult to tell what’s going on. There is a scene that covers several pages that takes place in Boss Red Crow’s office. On the second page we see a man lying on the ground that Red Crow has scalped. It’s not said who the man is or why he’s there.
Despite all these criticisms, Scalped did keep me interested enough o want to read more. Maybe it was because they set so much up in the story that if this an ongoing monthy series like I think it is, there’s a big possibility the story could stray far from it’s less-than-original starting point.
But am I going to go back and buy more? Nope. I know the momentum that Vertigo currently has, and I know that several issues of this title will be reprinted in a trade paperback. I’ll just wait for that to come around.