Scalped

It's easy enough to imagine the tagline: "The Sopranos with Indians." There's some truth to that, in as much as Scalped does chronicle a sordid saga of organized crime with Native American characters on a reservation. You'll also find all the gangland fiction tropes trotted out for a spin, from the femme fatale to the tortured kingpin to the "inside man" working both sides of the law.

Where writer Jason Aaron and artist R.M. Guera's title truly soars is in the execution of these classic archetypes. Guera's art is inky black and dank, but in a good way; it conveys the brutal nature of these characters and this world with visceral accuracy. Aaron's writing accomplishes a similar feat, in that his plots and characterizations hit with the impact of a punch in the gut.

Perhaps most compelling of all is Scalped's big "villain," the local mob boss and casino owner Chief Lincoln Red Crow. He is a ruthless man, intent upon mastering all he surveys, and he looms larger than life over all the action in Scalped, to the extent that he resonates from the page more than even the book's alleged lead character, Dashiell Bad Horse. Yet there's something sad about his character as well; as Red Crow is unpeeled, the distance he has traveled from his more idealistic younger days becomes clear, and you start to actually feel for this murderous criminal.

Twists of sympathy like that easily elevate Scalped above a simple gangland pastiche, and make it a must-read title and one of the most promising Vertigo launches in some time.