Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, 1OO Bullets, Book 1 (DC Vertigo 2014)
A man calling himself Agent Graves approaches someone and gives them an attaché case containing absolute proof that a particular person has done them a great wrong. The case also contains a gun and a hundred bullets, which Agent Graves asserts can be used with complete impunity to kill the one who has done the wrong.
Will the person receiving the case take revenge, or will something other than fear of the legal consequences stop them?
That’s the set-up for the first issues in this series of 100 comics that were published from 1999 to 2009.
This book is a compilation of the first 20 issues, and it turns out, as you would expect, that this fairly crude moral dilemma broadens out in unexpected directions. Is Agent Graves a supernatural figure and does this turn out to be in the horror genre? Well, no, at least I don’t think so at this stage. This is one of those stories where a hidden cabal wields huge power in the world, and Agent Graves is somehow either their enemy or their enforcer. A group called the Minutemen is involved and perhaps the attaché case is a recruitment device …
It’s stylishly done, with too much traditionally ‘sexy’ female flesh on display. For my taste, it’s more interesting than superhero comics, and I may read on …
Me fail? I fly! 