Scout

Scout Volume II TPB by Timothy Truman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Emmanuel Santana roams the post-apocalyptic United States as Scout!

Timothy Truman's Scout and Grimjack were comics I snapped up whenever I found them in dollar bins as a kid but it was hard to find a block of them at a time. This trade contains #8-16 so I couldn't resist snapping it up for $5.

I read an interview a long time ago that someone asked Truman what he'd like to follow Grimjack up with and he said without thinking "An Apache samurai riding a motorcycle." That eventually became Scout.

Armed with guns, knives, and Apache mystacism, Scout roams post-apocalyptic America, defending the downtrodden and running into trouble wherever he goes, be it a religious cult leader who quotes Tolkien, an Israeli mech, or basic government thuggery.

I thought the story would feel like a relic from the 1980s but it feels sadly timely with shady government types, climate change, PTSD, and other things that haven't seem to have gone out of style in the past few decades.

Since Scout falls between Grimjack and Hawkworld on the Timothy Truman timeline, it feels like a transitional book in some ways. His style isn't quite as gritty as it would later feel on things like Hawkworld or Jonah Hex but it's still greasier than Grimjack. Scout's world feels lived in and run over by a thousand tanks. Scout's no super hero so the fights are violent and bloody. I can't help but think Truman would have done a great Wolverine origin story back in the day if the opportunity had presented itself.

In Scout, Truman does a great job marrying Apache culture with post-apocalyptic America. I'm going to have to track down the other volumes in this series. 3.5 out of 5 stars.


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