Scalped: 8 Reasons It's Going To Make An Amazing TV Show
1. The Story
The story of Scalped fired on all cylinders for the duration of its run. Ostensibly following the return of prodigal son Dashiell Bad Horse to the rez he calls home after some time away, and immediately gaining employment as an enforcer for corrupt Chief Lincoln Red Crow, it's very quickly revealed that Dash is an undercover FBI Agent.
Not only that, but he's working for Agent Baylis Nitz, a man with a decades-long beef with former militant Native American Rights activists Red Crow and Dash's mother, Gina Bad Horse, whom Nitz suspects of being responsible for the deaths of two of his comrades in the 70s.
From there, the story only gets more intricate, as Dash navigates his mission whilst contending with his affections for Red Crow's daughter Carol; another undercover FBI agent on the rez with sadistic tendencies; the influence of Korean mobsters over Red Crow's business dealings; and a mysterious old man named Catcher whose motivations, allegiance and past are a constant riddle.
The evolution of the story partly resembles The Wire in the sense that different aspects of Native American culture are highlighted and explored at different points in the tale, from the disaffected, hopeless local youth to such prevalent societal issues as militant activism, alcoholism and drug and gambling addiction.
The comic book spotlights a variety of problems facing Native American culture and history, from the unfortunately commonplace Alcohol Foetal Syndrome to the effect that Mission schools had on Native American children growing up in the mid-20th Century - where children were forcibly removed from their homes, given Christian names and forced to cut their hair and forsake their cultural identity in the name of conversion - Lincoln Red Crow being one of these children, now a man grown with a heck of a justified chip on his shoulder.
The story is so all-encompassing that all these themes and sub-plots are delivered with the necessary time and care to have an impact on the reader; and, in the case of the upcoming TV show, the viewer.