Southern Bastards vol. 4: Gut Check

Ever since the final pages of the first volume teased that we’d be getting a racially-charged gender-swapped revisionist take on the “one man cleans up a crooked town” storyline, I’ve been waiting for this series to make good on it.  Volumes one and two did a good job laying the groundwork, but while the individual stories in vol. 3 continued to build on that they did so at the expense of my patience.  That’s something vol. 4 continues to do even as it features the female African-American army veteran who’s set to clean up the town, Roberta Tubb, more prominently than in the previous volumes.  While I figured that role would eventually turn her into the ostensible protagonist in this series, “Gut Check” really makes it clear that this is Coach Euless Boss’ story more than anyone else’s.

After the Runnin’ Rebs devastating loss at their homecoming things don’t get any better for Coach Boss.  Everyone around him is sensing weakness and that his time is finally over. From the shifty politicians in town, to the other criminal organizations in nearby counties, everyone’s putting the screws to him.  To the point where Euless starts thinking that it’s a good idea to go and take out another team’s star player personally in order to get his team winning again. Then you’ve got Roberta who finally has all the information she needs to make a move against the man who killed her father.

While we get to know more about Roberta than in previous volumes, thanks to a well-done issue written by regular artist Jason Latour and illustrated by Chris Brunner, she’s still basically a supporting character in the overall narrative.  Coach Boss has been the focus of the series up to this point and all of the action here is focused around his struggle to hold onto what he has. I think that he makes for a fascinating lead character as he is clearly amoral and ruthless yet not without his own twisted sense of honor.  It’s just going to take a little getting used to, realizing that he’s the actual protagonist when Roberta has been teased for that role since the beginning. Then again, I’ll probably have all the time I need since vol. 5 is described as “Coming Sooner or Later” at the end of the volume…