For those of you who don't know, I am a huge Vertigo fan.
I think just about everything they put out is at the top of the game in terms of quality. The only long running series I have not read are Y the Last Man, 100 Bullets and Lucifer. I have read the first volume of each of those and I was entertained. The reason for me delay has been mostly that I wanted to read the entire thing in one go.

I have just finished the third volume of Jason Aaron and R. M. Guera's Scalped and I am begging everyone to go out and buy this series.

With the third volume, the series has made a quantum leap. What was an excellent series has moved in to the realm of masterpiece. Your life is less rich for not reading it. This is a series that you need to read and recommend to your friends. We need to make sure that this series lasts as long as possible and that Jason Aaron is the one who decides when it ends.

Scalped tells the story of Dashiell Bad Horse. After an extended absence, he returns to the Indian reservation he left as a young man. He is taken under the wing of the local tribal strongman/casino boss and he becomes a part of the tribal police department. His estranged mother is still on the reservation and leading a faction of Indians who oppose the casino. The major twist (revealed at the end of the first issue) is that Dashiell is an undercover FBI agent sent in on what is essentially a suicide mission to take down the tribal boss.

The third volume also has what has to be one of the most powerful visual sequences I have ever read in comics. It is at the end of the second chapter of the trade paperback. Dashiell has to tell several children that their mother is dead. If anyone is wondering why thought balloons are no longer needed (a debate I have been active in on Digital Webbing), just look at that.

The first volume is only ten dollars and you can read the first issue HERE