Back in the realms of sanity, Vertigo is launching another ongoing title, with Jason Aaron and RM Guera's Scalped.

As you've probably guessed, it's a book about Native Americans.  But in fact, there's not much scalping going on.  It's set in the present day, on a reservation in South Dakota.  Largely ignored by the rest of America, the reservation has pretty much fallen into the hands of organised crime under the head of local politician Red Crow, who is cheerfully building a shiny new casino. 

Dashiell, who left the reservation years ago, returns as a violent-looking skinhead, for reasons that become apparent as the issue progresses.  He ends up getting recruited by Red Crow and, in the manner of such stories, being reintroduced to the society he left behind.

Jason Aaron is also writing the miniseries The Other Side at the moment, and he's showing real promise as a Vertigo writer.  It's been a while since Vertigo produced any major successes, and they tend to come from the fantasy titles rather than from books like these.  But as their current adverts make clear, Vertigo would really like to be the HBO of comics, and this is very much an HBO series concept.

There's plenty of material to be explored with the reservation.  Aaron's main theme seems to be the contrast between the supposed traditions of the tribe, and the way they're actually living.  Some characters seem to be paying lip service to the tribe, others are exploiting it for their own ends.  Dashiell insists that he doesn't care about the tribe at all, even though he ends up in their thoroughly untrustworthy Tribal Police force.

Given that all this exists within the USA, it's surprising to think how little TV and cinema have done with the reservations.  Although, of course, that would mean casting an entire show with native American actors - which rather limits your choice of stars, quite aside from anything else.  Vertigo, naturally, has no such worries.

It's a strong debut issue with a good central hook.  The art tends a bit towards the Vertigo house style, but it's solid enough, and does convey a sense of the place.  I have my doubts about the commercial prospects for a book like this, but it's a promising start.

Rating: B+

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