Jason Aaron and R.M. Guerra, $9.99, Vertigo

I’m not that bright. It’s true. I’ve had people telling me about how good “SCALPED” is for months now, years even. But I put off checking it out, and put it off, and put it off. Next thing I know, three collections are out and a dozen single issues beyond that. So on a slow week, I figure, what the hell, if it’ll shut these folks up I’ll give the book a considered glance.

Fast forward a week and I’ve blazed through everything I can get my mitts on. Turns out this book really is the best kept secret in comics. In Volume 1, we meet Dash Bad Horse, an FBI agent with a penchant for self destruction, as he is tasked with infiltrating the reservation on which he grew up but left in the dust decades ago. His mission: take down standing chief and murderous criminal mastermind Red Crow.

Nothing I say in this short amount of space can do this book justice. It’s not just about crime, or just these specific characters. It’s about broken families, and broken people desperate to touch something that might redeem them. It’s about poverty in America and what hopeless people turn to when they’ve got nothing else. And it’s about the subjugation of a whole people too proud and powerful to simply role over.

Dumb ole’ me officially declares “SCALPED” the BEST MONTHLY COMIC coming out. And it only took me 27 months to figure it out. It’s not too late, jump on board!