100 Bullets: Split Second Chances

Finally time to start writing up my thoughts on the second volumes of the various comic series I'm reading in collected trade paperback form. First up, as before, it's 100 Bullets. (Book one is here)

It's hard when you're reading something as old as 100 Bullets; the issues in this collection are well over a decade old; to avoid spoilers but I've pretty much managed not to find out any specifics of plot. I don't know, for example, what anyone's motivations are, or when major characters are going to get killed off, or anything like that. What I do know, though, is that this series does not adhere to it's seeming anthology format for the duration of it's run. There is a lot going on under the surface, and many clues are being laid. Even knowing this, though, I didn't expect the major background story to erupt as early as this 2nd book.

Chucky Spinks

Of course, at first glance this collection seems much like the first. We open on a two issue arc about ex con Chucky Spinks who learns from Agent Graves; he of the irrefutable proof against those who wronged you and 100 untraceable bullets to do with that information what you will; that he had been set up, and just who exactly had done the framing.  After some soul searching, we see what he does about it. Just as with Dizzy Cordova and Lee Dolan in the first book, things refuse to play out how you'd expect.

After a brief one issue stop over in which Graves sits down for a coffee with an old colleague and we learn a hell of a lot about the world he inhabits, although one suspects not nearly enough to so much as scratch the surface of what's really going on, it's back to business as usual. Someone has been wronged, and Graves is here to help.

Recipient this time is Cole Burns, ice cream man and seller of knock off cigarettes who is given evidence of a certain local mob bosses culpability in the death of a loved one.

Cole Burns

Whatever will he do? I'm not telling, except to say that, well, it doesn't go well for him and things are looking bad. Until...

Lilly Roach

Lilly Roach is up next and her story is perhaps the darkest we've seen so far. Her daughter ran away from home, and Lilly doesn't know why. Or maybe she doesn't want to know. But Graves is going to make sure she can't hide from the truth forever. Lilly begins and ends her story in one issue.

It's at this point that the series takes the turn that I knew was coming but didn't expect anywhere near this early. We meet a reporter who has been investigating the shady figures behind Graves, and previous recipients of his 'help' start showing up again; at least, those who survived the events of their opening stories; Dizzy is back, just in time to receive a dire warning, Cole Burns seems to be taking to his new circumstances rather well, and Graves' adversary, who may not be quite so much of an adversary as we were led to believe, is beginning to show his hand.

All told, I have absolutely no idea where things are going to go from here. With one character going through some very weird Manchurian Candidate/Bourne style mind altering freakery, and the growing idea that some kind of uber-conspiracy may be essentially running everything, this could go anywhere. I'm definitely along for the ride.

Mr Branch. May have uncovered more than is healthy.

As is customary in my comics posts I shall now make my perfunctory 'I don't understand art but I know what I like' comment. I like this art. There, done. Eduardo Risso has, as you can see from the character panels above, a style which you couldn't really describe as 'realistic', but it complements Brian Azzarello's dark, twisty scripts, with their dark, twisty, tragic characters, to perfection. I wouldn't have thought it would, which shows what I know.

Next week; assuming I write a post, which lets be honest is never exactly a done deal; I shall be discussing The Outcast Dead, from the Horus Heresy series. Something for you to look forward to there. 

100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call

I recently began a re-read of all the Graphic Novels in my collection that are part of series I never finished, with the intention of getting reacquainted with the various characters and storylines before delving into the new volumes which I can now afford to resume purchasing. First series on my list was 100 Bullets, by Brian Azzerello (writer) and Eduardo Risso (artist).


100 Bullets begins simply enough, with a young girl (Isabelle 'Dizzy' Cordova) being released from prison and returning to the neighbourhood she grew up in. There, she learns that little has changed since she went inside. The players may be different but the rules are the same; the gangs still rule, the cops are still the enemy and a persons greatest weapon is still their reputation. The biggest change she finds is in herself; despite only being in her early 20's, Dizzy has grown old; too old, possibly, to ever walk these streets the same way again.

Dizzy
Not long after her return home Dizzy is confronted by mysterious black suited stranger Agent Graves. Offering her irrefutable evidence of the identities of those responsible for her greatest loss, and an untraceable gun with an equally untraceable 100 bullets to do about it what she will. Use this weapon and no law enforcement agency will touch her, she is told.

Will she use them,and in the process surrender herself to the life of violence she has paid lip service to leaving behind? And just as importantly, how will this seemingly small and personal conundrum support an ongoing comic book for any kind of lengthy duration? It is, after all, a fairly finite premise.

Agent Graves
The answer to the first question, and the journey Dizzy goes on to arrive at her decision, forms the meat of the story of the first three issues of 100 Bullets. It's a fairly straightforward tale of revenge and redemption that serves as a neat introduction to the concept behind the book and while the identities of the villains and certain revelations concerning Dizzys nearest and dearest are unlikely to surprise many hardened thriller readers it still manages to grip you throughout.

Sometimes the journey is King and the destination just an excuse to go on it and this journey is about the people; people caught in a cycle of violence and deprivation that they are powerless to escape from, short of going to jail or the grave. There is a moment in a park, with Dizzy and her old group of friends, as Dizzy realises that her generation are considered past it - "We old...We all in our twenties, we got our babies, we old girls" - that serves to remind us of this. These girls are stuck, and the truth is, some of them wouldn't have it any other way, because they don't know any other way.

The answer to the second question - How will this small, personal story propel an ongoing comic book? - is that it won't, this series is shooting for bigger things than that. In issue 4 we meet a new protagonist - we've left Dizzy behind for now, but I'm sure she'll be back - with his own tale of woe, his own cross to bear and his own revenge to take, should he choose to accept Agent Graves offer of those oh so tempting 100 bullets.

Lee Dolan
Lee Dolan, once successful in business and with a happy family life, is now living working as a bartender in a slum bar, a shell of his former self, his business gone and his family having disowned him. All of this because someone else, someone much more powerful than he, decided to play games with his life. Graves points him in the direction of the person responsible, one Megan Dietrich, and lets him make his own mind up what to do about it. Dolan makes much the same decision as Dizzy did, but his enemies are of a different nature to hers and events have a very different outcome.

Megan Deitrich
Hints are dropped that Agent Graves has an agenda totally apart from helping his bullet recipients and there is obviously a lot more to Dolans tormentors than meets the eye, so we leave issue 5 - and this first trade collection - with the sense that the world of 100 bullets is much vaster and much scarier than Dizzy Cordova or Lee Dolan have ever dreamed, and that they and no doubt plenty of others, are mere pawns in the games of some very powerful people. I for one am champing at the bit to see what the next move is.

Brian Azzarello

Eduardo Risso