Ernie has done some pretty bad things in his time. Perhaps worst of all? He's failed to live up to his potential. A lot. If he does manage to turn things around, is he going to be able to be what he was? He deals with this question and more in the fifth issue of The Scumbag. Writer Rick Remender and artist Wes Craig continue the story of an unlikeable likable hero in another installment that narrowly manages to make a larger point in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Ernie makes a great deal of progress in a largely satisfying fifth issue in the series. 

Ernie just shook hands with someone that he shouldn't have shaken hands with. He's got a suitcase full of gold for it but lost a hell of a lot in the process. When things go sideways, he's going to need an altruism he may not have inside him to unlock the kind of power that he's going to need to make certain that things turn out alright in the end. There's an excellent chance that he's not going to be able to do so. 

Remender modulates the story quite well. Ernie is given a real chance to make some serious progress and some sophisticated development. He reluctantly does so in a way that doesn't feel nearly as simplistic and grandiose as it might have. Action comedy is easy enough to render, but to be able to do so while managing some genuinely believable character development is really, really impressive. Remender isn't exactly re-inventing the wheel with the overall plot. Still, he's doing something really fun with the title character: he's taking the type of slimy, reprehensible character so often used as comic relief and making him seem deeply appealing. 

Craig's treatment of action slides across the page with compelling momentum. It's been fun watching the awkward comic nature of the lead character in the heat of combat, but there's also an engaging sense of drama that's been feeding into the appealingly glacial pace of Ernie's awakening. Craig takes a simple conversation between Ernie and a cartoony conifer AI feel like remarkably serious emotional stuff. The truly strange nature of that interaction doesn't really settle-in until a few pages later as the overarching plot rejoins the narrative and the action resumes. It's weird, but it's weirdly cool, and Craig has a really, really good handle on it.

Ernie's gradual awakening into being something more than a selfish piece of human garbage has been a bit of a struggle. Early-on in the series, he's come across as the kind of comic relief he's meant to be evolving from, but the fifth issue has him coming to a deeper understanding of the nature of the world, and he's beginning to meet some of his potential. The fifth issue in the series manages a really sharp balance between drama, action, comedy, and adventure.

Grade: B+