In the final issue of the first arc of “Southern Bastards”, Earl Tubb is pushed to his breaking point; He has seen a young kid murdered, another beaten half to death, his house has been vandalized his truck and property destroyer, and his Daddy’s tomb stone broken in half. Tear-filled, Earl calls his daughter one last time to tell her he loves her before laying siege to the diner. This is the issue you read with a glass of scotch and a box of tissues.
WRITTEN BY: Jason Aaron
ART BY: Jason Latour
PUBLISHER: Image
PRICE: $3.50
RELEASE: September 3. 2014
Reviewed by Epic Switzer
*SPOILERS*
You gotta love Earl. As stubborn and idealistic and lacking in self-preservation as he might be, the man is a god damn hero. Earl came to Craw County with every intention of packing up the old house, minding his own business, and being on his way. And maybe it is the case that something we don’t yet know about Earl is that he causes trouble wherever he goes, but the bottom line is that Earl saw some shit going down that he couldn’t abide, and he did something about it. With fists and insults and some of the most violent southern language you’ve ever heard, he did something about it. You gotta love Earl for that.
Every man has his limits though and these Bastards, though they encouraged Earl to mind his own business and leave Craw, take great pleasure in breaking this man. Here, in issue 4, we have the showdown we’ve been waiting for. Without getting into the horrible, stomach turning, beautiful, tear-jerking details: Earl approaches the diner and finds the whole town there waiting for him.
He fights his way through every one of them and enters the diner to showdown with Coach Boss. They have it out, throwing accusations back and forth, until Earl lunges, and Coach beats him to death with his daddy’s stick. It is difficult even know to relive the scene and discuss it. This is one issue that will certainly stick with me for a long time.
For me, this book represents an ideological struggle; the futility of progress. It specifically deals with culture in the American South but the ideas are in no way limited to those people. Change isn’t something these people were interested, and Earl, no matter how noble, was never going to change anything. He was only a man, and his power was physical, he tried to overpower minds with strength. I don’t imagine Earl ever thought he was going to kill every single person in Craw, but it was the only tool he had, the only way he ever knew to deal with conflict.
It going to take a lot more to deal with these people, and, without spoiling the last page, Aaron is setting something up that I think will be pretty profound, if not more horrible than anything that has happened yet. I love this book. I think it can be appreciated on a social level even if you have no exposure to this particular culture. It is an archetypal story, I can’t wait to see how fucked up things can get.
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Epic Switzer AKA Eric is an aspiring filmmaker and screenplay writer living in Los Angeles. His work tends to focus on the lighter side of entropy, dystopic futures, and man’s innate struggle with his own mortality. He can be found on twitter @epicswitzer or reached via email at ericswitzerfilm@gmail.com.