Written by Brian Azzarello
Art by Eduardo Risso
Cover by Dave Johnson
Published by Vertigo
Regular readers of the COW awards may have noticed that 100 Bullets haven't made it to the top of the pile in a few months--and they may have assumed that has been due to a lapse in quality. Nothing could be further from the truth-the crew at Vertigo have been steadily putting out some of the most dynamic work available on this long-running crime comic, and it has only failed to receive the Factual's highest honor due to it's consistency. We try to embrace work that is both innovative as well as excellent here, and while the Bullets have been great in the past few months, perfect even, it wasn't until issue 77 that they, once again, ripped open their now-twisted plot to reveal an even higher level of intelligence than thought possible.
Simply put, 100 Bullets dispensed with what seemed its initial plot dynamic about three years ago--while new players are still introduced, and some of the old guard have been put to rest, the game has stayed the same. Each issue layers another chapter upon the basic foundation: some really tough people are coming after the "families" that betrayed them, and they are doing it methodically, violently, and slowly; following a plan that only a few seem to fully comprehend. It makes for fascinating reading--each month one is guaranteed yet another hard-boiled epic tale, each one delivered in the best dialog of any comic on the shelf, bar none. (A short moment of admiration: 100 Bullets would be totally unworkable if it wasn't for Azzarello's dialog--the man has created an entirely new version of the sort of noirish poetry that hasn't really been updated since Double Indemnity. Nowhere has any artist seemed to grasp what Azzarello proves each month: noir dialog can only work in current settings if it sounds like current language--merely forcing actors/characters to parrot James Cagney and Sam Spade doesn't work, except for nostalgic masturbation--which is why Sin City sounded so cheesy, and why Brick didn't--children talking like 50's films sounds weird enough to be serious, but when Bruce Willis does it, it just sounds terribly, terribly lame.)
Since the beginning, it's been clear that the characters in 100 Bullets weren't what any reasonable person would call "good." Instead, it's followed the regular anti-hero format, set up years ago in the work of Kurosawa or Clint Eastwood: yes, they aren't nice, and they don't play fair, but they aren't as bad as the really bad guys. What Azzarello had been hinting at for months finally came the closest to full bloom as his type of storytelling will allow; that not only is it possible that our main characters may be worse than was expected, we may have spent the last 77 issues rooting for the wrong team. To put it into context, it's like watching the Star Wars movies, only to discover in the last five minutes that the Emperor was the good guy all along. It's not that Azzarello has been lying to us--it's that we, the reader, have been lying to ourselves; assuming that whatever these characters were doing, it was for the greater good.
With issue 77, that lie was thrown back in our face. Whatever they are, whatever they're planning, it's going to go badly for a whole lot of people--and the reader has been cheering them along the entire time. Azzarello, with a deftness for illusion that is his greatest strength, has made it impossible for any regular reader to ignore their now shared guilt in all the horror and hate that have gone before. In doing so, Azzarello and Risso have reminded everybody who reads comics how much power these cheap things can have--and they've done it without a hint of condescension or irony.
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