Arigon Starr

Indigenous creators honor the Cherokee, Choctaw, Kiowa, Muscogee Creek, Comanche, and Caddo code talkers of World War I, World War II and the Korean War in this anthology of historical fiction short stories. These soldiers deserve praise for stepping up to serve the United States despite the racism and discrimination they faced in the military and back home. There is dark irony in the fact that some of them were sent to residential schools for forced assimilation to white culture. As show more Assiniboine code talker Gilbert Horn, Sr., underlines in a barbed quote on the last page: "The language which they forbade me to speak is the language that saved this country."

I was touched by the emotional impact of several of the stories and appreciated the inclusion of the frequently overlooked Aleutian Islands campaign. show less

A campy, corny, and mildly humorous send-up of old superhero comics with Native American Hubert Logan being the Clark Kent/Peter Parker milquetoast alter ego of the title character. It's also an Archie Comics mash-up, with more time spent on the crushes of the young people of the Leaning Oaks Reservation than on actual superheroics.

I have the second volume on hand, but I'm a little worried if it can build on the momentum or will succumb to a sophomore slump.

It's clever to turn blood quantum and the Bureau of Indian Affairs into the basis for a horror story arc where the bureaucrats literally suck the life force from Native Americans, but even for a retro superhero story this one is too clumsy and herky-jerky to really get into. Half-hearted references are made to The Bride of Frankenstein and The Princess Bride, but a large part of the story is devoted to a parody of the Twilight movies that doesn't go far enough in eviscerating them for my show more taste.

A back-up story about bingo is a nonsensical chore to read and really drives home that Super Indian, the character, is really not very competent or even essential to the series at this point. Maybe it's time to actually let him be heroic?

A third volume of Super Indian seems to be in limbo right now, but I'd check it out if it ever gets published. show less

We need more books like this to defy stereotypes and reflect realities! Superhero story with humor and some over-the-top characters, plus a sense of life on the "rez," or at least of being Native in a majority world and among your peers. Fun read.