REVIEW: Bitter Root #4

Writer: David F. Walker and Chuck Brown; Artist: Sanford Greene; Colorist: Rico Renzi and Sanford Greene; Letterer: Clayton Cowles.

Previously in Bitter Root:In the 1st police district, the police are amassing in Harlem to try to find whoever killed two of their own last night, only to realize as the actionÂ heats up,Â that many of them have turned into Jinoo! (A Jinoo is a person who“s soul is corrupted so they become a devil; this was a devil who appeared as a man.)Â Cullen crossed the river to get the estranged Uncle Enoch“s house, and is attacked by a pack of weird little creatures, who turn out to be Enoch“s guard dogs,Â that accompany them back to Harlem in the middle of the Jinoo mess.Â To help defend the black folk that are being attacked by the Jinoo.Â But now it appears that some of the black folk have become attacked

As I write this on paper i can’t help thinking of how ridiculous it all sounds…until Bitter Root #4 bring us back Biter Root is an allegory and the monsters, and devils are metaphors to describe theÂ events around Red Summer of 1919. The Red Summer refers to the summer and fall of 1919, in which race riots exploded in a number of cities in both the North and South.Â The bloody riot in Chicago began when a black teenager floated onto a white beach and was attacked. Gangs of whites spread their attacks to blacks passing through white neighborhoods, and the local Chicago police did nothing to stop the brutality. In response, blacks attacked whites passing through or near black ghettoes.Â Â For 13 days Chicago was without law and order despite the fact that the state militia had been called out on the fourth day. By the end, 38 were dead (23 blacks, 15 whites), 537 injured, and 1,000 black families made homeless.

Politics are like “edgy” jokes, if you do it poorly, it’s just going to come off bad. And it can get dated. But Bitter Root will not have that problem.Â David Walker and Chuck Brown are just putting on a clinic on how to approach the subject matter of a dark corner of American History.

Bitter Root #4 comes with (4) covers; Cover A Regular Sanford Greene ;Cover B Variant David Mack; Cover C Variant Kevin Nowlan Cover;Bitter Root #4 Cover D Variant Natacha Bustos; Â Cover D Variant Natacha Bustos

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

(W) David Walker (A) Sanford Greene