100 Bullets Vol. 1: First Shot, Last Call
by Brian Azzarello

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Book Reviews of 100 Bullets Vol. 1: First Shot, Last Call

Book Review: Give It A Chance!
Summary: 4 Stars

100 Bullets is a crime / conspiracy comic. Like the Warren Ellis comic Planetary (which it has little else in common with), it presents a series of seemingly unconnected short stories and links them within a bigger picture without ever really explaining clearly what that picture is. Writer Brian Azzarello seems more than happy to take his time with this series and, as it's apparently set to run to 100 issues, I wouldn't expect the answers any time soon. Each issue so far seems to raise as many questions as it answers (I'm currently up to issue seventeen and I still don't know what's going on) and this may just annoy some people. To me, however, this is part of its appeal and what keeps me coming back for more.

The main problem with this particular collection, though, is that the first of the two stories contained here (a three-parter) is a little dragged out and predictable and may have worked better in just one or two parts. Still, it serves its purpose in that it introduces us to the excellent idea behind the series and its main reoccuring character: the mysterious Agent Graves, who turns up in the lives of people who've been wronged (in this case a female Latino ex-gang-member whose husband and son were murdered while she was in prison) and offers them a gun and 100 untraceable bullets with which they can exact revenge without fear of prosecution.

The second story here, about a once-successful chef whose life has been ruined by false allegations concerning questionable pictures found on his computer, is a lot better and the first to indicate that there's a lot more to this series than at first meets the eye. Although all of the stories in 100 Bullets so far work quite well on their own, it was actually only once it became clear that there was a much bigger picture that this series really came to life. Unfortunately, it's not until the very end of this book that you realize that there is something more here than a series of short crime stories but the ending should leave you wanting more and whet your appetite for the nine issues contained in the soon-to-be-published, much better second volume.

Oh, and did I mention that series artist Eduardo Risso is excellent?

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