By Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, Vertigo Comics
What would you do with the perfect opportunity for revenge? 100 Bullets, in its earliest chapters, asks just that question when the mysterious Agent Graves gives characters lurking on the edges of society a briefcase containing a clean handgun, 100 bullets of untraceable ammunition, incontrovertible proof of a perpetrators guilt, and the promise of no repercussions. From these grisly, intense moral experiments, 100 Bullets grows into an immense and convoluted crime epic about the power of the shadowy Trust, broken by greed and ambition and guilt, and the horribly flawed enforcers whose job is to referee it. In many ways 100 Bullets is a comic of flaws: horrendously, glorious flawed characters performing flawed and reprehensible acts, for reasons that are equally disgusting and flawed. It is an absolutely brutal read, that, I think contains within it, amongst the shock and violence, some truly remarkable and sublime moments. Brian Azzarello delivers an unrelenting script that never shies from going to the most uncomfortable and tragic places; it is a brave and audacious story. Eduardo Risso, meanwhile, is a goddamn genius. His artwork, this minimalistic cartoon line, has such beauty and elegance of composition to it, and yet, renders such brutality and evil with such ease. It is worth the price of admission alone. That said, 100 Bullets does have some flaws itself: some creative decisions treat groups of characters, particularly women, in spectacularly shitty ways that are wildly problematic. 100 Bullets is a gloriously, horribly flawed comic that you should read.
Word count: 250
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