100 Bullets

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100 Bullets is an Eisner and Harvey Award-winning comic book written by Brian Azzarello and illustrated by Eduardo Risso. It is published by DC Comics under its Vertigo imprint.

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Style

Both the writing and artwork in 100 Bullets exemplifies the noir and pulp genres. It presents morally ambiguous stories with dark realism.

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Plot synopsis

The plot of 100 Bullets hinges on the question of whether people would take the chance to get away with revenge. In each story arc, the mysterious Agent Graves approaches someone who has been wronged in some way, and gives them the chance to set things right in the form of a nondescript attaché case containing a handgun, 100 bullets, the identity of the person who ruined their life and irrefutable evidence of this. He informs the candidate that the bullets are completely untraceable, and any police agency that recovers these bullets as part of an investigation will, through some unexplained process, immediately drop that investigation and ignore any transgressions related to it.

Though all of the murders enabled by Agent Graves are presented as justifiable, the candidates are neither rewarded nor punished for taking up the offer, and appear to receive nothing other than closure for their actions. Several people have declined the offer.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Template:TOCleft It is revealed that Agent Graves was the leader of a group known as "The Minutemen", the enforcers and assassins for the shadowy organization known as "The Trust". The Trust was originally formed by the heads of 13 powerful European aristocratic families who offered to the kings of Europe to abandon the "Old World", where they had considerable influence and holdings, in exchange for complete autonomy in the still unclaimed portion of the "New World". When this agreement was broken by England's colonization of Roanoke Island late in the 16th century, the Minutemen were formed. The original Minutemen, seven vicious killers, eradicated the colony and left behind the message "Croatoa" as a warning. Since that time, the Minutemen's charge has been to protect the 13 Trust families from outside threats as well as from each other. They were betrayed by the Trust and disbanded after Agent Graves refused to re-enact "The Greatest Crime in the History of Mankind". Some of the former Minutemen had their memories wiped for their protection and were living normal lives at the beginning of the story arc.

Many of those who are offered the chance for vengeance by Graves are actually former Minutemen, or people who have been wronged by the Trust or its agents. Trusting to luck and the importance of his "experiment", Agent Graves goes on to reactivate several former Minutemen and recruit potential new members during the course of the series, with the tentative help of the Trust's warlord, the shady and double-dealing Mr. Shepherd.

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Characters

Main article: List of characters in 100 Bullets
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Issues/Story Arcs

Main article: 100 Bullets (issues)
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Collected editions

There are currently eight trade paperbacks in publication for this series. The titles of the trade paperbacks all seem to be somehow related with their volume number ("First Shot", "Second Chance", "Foregone", "Counterfifth", "Six Feet", "Strychnine"), with two being indirect references ("Samurai" being book 7, for Seven Samurai, and book 8 titled "the Hard Way," a reference to a roll in craps), save for book 3, "Hang Up on the Hang Low," which was apparently just given the title of the collection's largest plot arc.

Title Issues collected ISBN Story arcs reprinted
First Shot, Last Call 1 - 5 ISBN 1563896451 "100 Bullets", "Shot, Water Back", "Silencer Night".
Split Second Chance 6 - 14 ISBN 1563897113 "Short Con, Long Odds", "Day, Hour, Minute... Man", "The Right Ear, Left in the Cold", "Heartbreak Sunnyside Up", "Parlez Kung Vous".
Hang up on the Hang Low 15-19 ISBN 1563898551 "Hang Up on the Hang Low", "Epilogue For a Road Dog".
A Foregone Tomorrow 20-30 ISBN 1563898276 "The Mimic", "Sell Fish and Out to Sea", "Red Prince Blues", "Mr. Branch and the Family Tree", "Idol Chatter", "Contrabandolero".
The Counterfifth Detective 31-36 ISBN 1563899485 "The Counterfifth Detective"
Six Feet Under The Gun 37-42 ISBN 1563899965 "On Accidental Purpose", "Cole Burns' Slow Hand", "Ambition's Audition", "Night of the Payday", "A Crash", "Point Off the Edge".
Samurai 43-49 ISBN 140120189X "Chill in the Oven", "In Stinked"
The Hard Way 50-58 ISBN 1401204902 "Prey for Reign", "Wylie Runs the Voodoo Down", "Coda Smoke".
Strychnine Lives 59-67 ISBN 1401209289 "The Calm", "Staring at the Sun", "The Dive", "New Tricks", "Love Let Her".
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Other media adaptations

Acclaim had announced plans to release a video game based on 100 Bullets, but following the collapse of Acclaim's publishing house, the game is now in developmental limbo and has been canceled.

Like the comic book series, the console game's main draw is weaponry. The player will be either Cole Burns or Snow Falls (a completely original character) in third person view. The plot is still generally unknown, aside from a supposition that it will follow the plot of the comic book.

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Awards

The series won the 2002 Harvey Awards for Best Writer, Best Artist and Best Continuing Series, the 2003 Harvey Award for Best Artist, as well as the 2004 Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series.

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External links

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