Volume 6...
Issue #37 “On
Accidental Purpose”
You can’t go home again… a lesson
Dizzy learns in this, the first chapter in a collection of issues which place
the focus on the various characters of the series. You may think that makes
these single issue “character pieces” something of a breather after all the
bluster of the last few issues, but that’s not entirely the case. For this
issue, Shepherd brings Dizzy Cordova back to her Chicago barrio after a year of
being away, and Dizzy finds out just how much she’s changed since leaving. All
her old friends are either on welfare or working multiple shit part-time jobs
to barely scrape out a living, while Dizzy herself has been travelling the world
and eating fine food and drinking expensive wine. Of course, there is the
little matter of her being thrown about like a pawn on a chess-board by some of
the nastiest, most devious people on the planet, but you take what you can get.
While Dizzy revisits old haunts, Shepherd meets up with Graves, and the two
continue their uneasy alliance… or do they? It’s another elliptical
conversation between characters who don’t trust anyone, and thus anything is up
for interpretation in where the chips will fall within their relationship. One
thing is for certain, however: they both have major plans for Dizzy, and they
don’t seem to lead anywhere good.
Issue #38 “Cole Burns,
Slow Hand”
This second standalone is a breather from the main story, as
there’s virtually no talk of the Trust or the Minutemen. Rather, we get a split
story that details a bar robbery gone wrong and Cole Burns’ attempt to win back
his girlfriend Sasha, who we last saw him leave behind in his debut story
almost twenty issues ago. It’s a minor character piece, but it gives us a nice
excuse to get a bit more Cole in our lives. Also, after “The Counterfifth
Detective” and its vast array of women all but dropping their pants at the
sight of Milo Garrett, it’s nice to see a female character who is not going to
put up with any more of this macho bullshit, as Sasha closes the door on Cole
permanently. Of course, the two stories eventually collide (violently, natch), and we end
with the smooth-talking Cole for once left without much to say.
Issue #39 “Ambition’s
Audition”
Apathetic heir-apparent Benito
Medici is the focus of this story, whom by issue’s end featuring an attempt on
his life, is decidedly less apathetic, and more willing to get involved with
the family business. It’s a nice way to progress Benito’s character, who can
only do the burn-out thing for so long before he starts to get annoying, and
also a nice insight into his relationship with his father. Despite his day job,
Augustus Medici is certainly not a man without empathy: he loves his son, and
wants nothing more than for him to reach his full potential - the fact that
reaching that full potential means heading up the largest crime syndicate in the
world is almost beside the point. Once more, it is the characters that shine
through and make 100 Bullets as
engaging as it is.
Risso also deserves special mention,
as the shootout that concludes this issue is a master-class in how to layout a
tense scene for the comic page.
Issue #40 “Night of the
Payday”
There’s something about Lono. He’s
easily the most despicable character of the entire series, perpetrating some of
the most horrible shit ever committed to a comic page, with a big grin plastered to his
face all the while. And yet, for all of Lono’s sociopathy, there’s still
something that keeps you from taking your eyes away from him. It certainly has
something to do with his “no apologies” attitude: no matter how vile they are, we’re
almost instinctually attracted to people who say and do what’s on their minds
without fear of consequence. Lono’s a wild card, and he remains interesting
precisely because you don’t know what he’s going to do next. In a series of
shifting allegiances and underground wars, Lono stands for nothing but himself
- and remains almost impossible to kill, in spite of what happens at the end of
this issue, in which Lono's many sins start to catch up with him
It’s also interesting to note Lono’s
changing appearance throughout the series. When he first appeared, Risso drew
him more or less like a normal person, but now Lono is starting to take on the
more monstrous look we know and love - a brawnier, almost wolf-like look,
not unlike Marvel Comics' Wolverine.
Issue #41 “A Crash”
Azzarello and Risso certainly have
developed a template for how your typical 100
Bullets story arc will play out: there’s the main story, usually involving
one or more of the series’ regulars, and then another, smaller crime story -
usually not connected in any way with the story of the Trust and the Minutemen,
but often thematically similar. Such is the case for this outing, which sees
Graves meeting with three families of the Trust who aren’t so keen on Augustus
Medici’s strong-arming the organization into a forced peace, and would be
willing to reinstate Graves and his Minutemen to their former status if
Augustus were to suddenly be put out of the picture. All of this plays out as a
young couple rushes to the scene of a car accident, only to find a corpse with
a winning lottery ticket in hand. The writing in this issue proves to be some
of Azzarello’s most polished yet, as the two otherwise-unrelated stories intersect
and complement each other in increasingly clever ways. Much like the couple
deciding what the “right” thing to do with the lottery ticket is, Graves finds himself
at a crossroads, where he must choose to align with the (still small)
contingent of the Trust who want him back, or to continue on with his business
as planned. And much like the couple this issue, he’ll have to make his
decision fast if he wants to get out of this story alive.
Issue #42 “Point Off
The Edge”
We close out the volume by catching up with
professional slacker Wylie Times, who this issue gets the dubious honor of
Graves’ attaché. Wylie is loathe to accept it, but after a robbery gone wrong
at the gas station Wylie works at, he finds himself a little more agreeable to
Graves’ offer. The meat of the story is about as straightforward as it gets,
and Azzarello gets to sum up Wylie’s whole arc over the course of the series
with expertly written lines of dialogue such as, “Assholes are meant to give a
shit, not eat it.” It may not seem like a big moment in the series, but the
ramifications of Wylie accepting Graves’ offer will be felt for the rest of 100 Bullets’ run. Not to mention that this
issue acts as something of a prelude for Wylie’s big story coming up in Vol. 8,
which also happens to be my favorite story arc of the whole series.
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