Split Second Chance

I was totally blown away by 100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call. Most people think of comic books as mostly about superheroes and villains. Sure there's the rare serious titles that deal with more than just costumed heroes and out of this world situations, but outside of Miller's Sin City, there's not been another comic book to truly take a shot at creating a noir title that does the word honor. Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso's 100 Bullets series brings the world of Dashiell Hammett, James Cain, Mickey Spillane and Raymond Chandler to the world of comic books, or should I say in this regard: the graphic novel. With the first volume, Azzarello quickly introduces the reader to his world of revenge, femme fatales and smoke-filled backrooms. He clearly establishes that the world of 100 Bullets is closer to the real world than Miller's Sin City. Where Miller goes the minimalist and overly simplistic route (in both artwork and storytelling) with his Sin City series, Azzarello bases his story in a world that looks so similar to the real world, but with a slight undercurrent of hyperrealism. With this second volume, Azzarello continues the basic theme of carte blanche revenge offered by the old and grizzly Agent Graves to what seem like a random group of people. It is later in the volume that we slowly get a new insight to who Agent Graves is and the secrets behind him and his actions. This revelation actually goes through a three-issue arc that ends the second half of the volume. The one story that really stood out was a stand-alone featuring Lilly Roach in "Heartbreak Sunnyside Up." It stood out not for Lilly taking Graves' offer of the briefcase and the gun, but in Azzarello's heartbreaking and brutal telling of a mother's love for her daughter and losing it in a way both shocking and terrible. 100 Bullets, Split Second Chance marks the second volume in the ongoing series. It takes issues 6 through 14 and adds more mythology to the world Azzarello and Risso have built with the first volume. It's a thicker volume than First Shot, Last Call, but reads just as fast. I highly recommend that people who have read the first volume pick this one up. The previous one may have been Last Call, but this volume just served up a smooth, dangerous second round that would feel at home in anything Spillane, Cain, Chandler and Hammett call home.

When I first dipped into the world of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso's "100 Bullets", I have to confess that I wasn't immediately taken. I had picked up the first volume a year ago based on the strong word of mouth and was pretty underwhelmed by what seemed to be little more than an assortment of slang-ridden short stories centering on revenge. I didn't dislike it, I just felt like maybe the hype was a bit too much. With "Split Second Chance," though, I'm starting to see where all the critical raves are coming from. The cover blurb on this drew me back in with the promise that things were going to start to be tied together into a larger narrative. And in fact, that's what happens. We re-enter the world introduced on the first volume, a world in which wronged people are given an opportunity to seek vengeance with an untraceable gun that allows them to operate above the law. But unlike the first volume, here we begin to see that these acts of vengeance are tied together, with hints of something much bigger than the seemingly one-off stories of the first volume. Secret organizations, shady characters, and some looming conspiracy. Azzarello doesn't lay all his cards out on the table, but offers just enough hints so that you want to find out more. Top notch work. I'll probably be catching up with this series now.

100 BULLETS: SPLIT SECOND CHANCE is the second graphic novel from the award-winning monthly 100 BULLETS comic book put out by DC Comics' Vertigo line. Again, series writer Brian Azzarello keeps the mix violent and unpredictable, fusing the cold shadows of the street with the hot fury of betrayal. The book opens up with a two-part story, "Short Con, Long Odds", about Chucky and Pony, two childhood friends who grow up to be gamblers. Then Agent Graves, the unknown man of mystery who always kicks the stories into high gear, shows up carrying a briefcase loaded with a semi-automatic pistol and 100 rounds of untraceable ammunition. He tells Chucky that Pony set him up for a seven-year fall in prison that he should have taken--at the same time that Pony is stealing Chucky's woman. The biggest risk either of Chucky and Pony ever took was being friends with each other, and that's about to change. "Day, Hour, Minute...Man" offers up a quick peek into the mysterious agency that Mr. Graves works for, and shows Mr. Graves coldly dealing out vengeance of his own. "The Right Ear, Left In The Cold" tells the story of Cole Burns, an ice cream man who sells ice cream and stolen cigarettes out of his truck, and who is much more than he appears to be. Mr. Graves gives him a briefcase and the 100 rounds of ammunition, then tells him that Goldy Petrovic is the man responsible for the burning death of Cole's grandmother in the nursing home. Besides wanting vengeance, Cole also has to deal with another ice cream man trying to take his beat. But most of all, Cole Burns is a man on a mission to find himself. "Heartbreak Sunnyside Up" is another stand-alone tale that is brutal and violent, and all too real. Lilly Roach is a waitress in a diner, and a woman who has lost her teenage daughter to the streets. Then, one day, Agent Graves shows up with the story of what really happened to Lilly's daughter--and a briefcase containing a pistol and 100 rounds of untraceable ammunition. Even the back story in this particular episode resonates with truth and pain directly from the real world. The book wraps with a three-chapter arc, "Parlez Kung Vous", that takes the reader back to Dizzy Cordova, the heroine introduced in the first graphic novel. She's in Paris on assignment, hooking up with a man named Mr. Branch. She has a lot in common with Mr. Branch. He was a reporter, very different from the barrio life Dizzy knew, but he was also offered the briefcase and 100 bullets--only Mr. Branch didn't use them and his life is now in jeopardy. The mystery surrounding the Trust, the Minutemen, and Agent Graves is cleared up a little, but only enough to reveal that more twists and turns are ahead.Besides writing 100 BULLETS, Brian Azzarello has also worked on the HELLBLAZER series, BATMAN/DEATHBLOW, the JONNY DOUBLE mini-series for DC COMICS, and STARTLING STORIES: BANNER, CAGE, and SPIDER-MAN for Marvel Comics. Eduard Risso, the co-creator of 100 BULLETS, has also draw

First off read the first 100 Bullets trade. It's a great read if your a comic fan or a fan of crime literature. This second trade continues the excellent storytelling of the first trade. It answers some questions, and brings up many more. It appears the creators are setting up a huge,grand mystery. When 100 Bullets is finished I feel it will be as large an epic as Preacher was. The trade ends with a story featuring the return of Dizzy Cordova from the first storyline. And it ends with a killer last panel that will make you want even more. I eagerly await the next trade paperback. Like I said 100 Bullets is for fans of great stories(comics or otherwise)

100 Bullets has received a great deal of praise from comic publications and fans alike. That's fine and dandy, but you and I both know that comic magazines have raved about things a million times before, and that the results of said raves are usually disappointing, hacky stories that have been done a million times before. This isn't one of those!!!!! 100 Bullets is one of the finest comics out there. Blending a mysterious ongoing plot with the stories of the invidividuals given a gun and 100 untraceable bullets, this is a comic that regularly delivers entertaining, intellectually stimulating stories!!! Some people call it grim and gritty because it deals with crime and its not the happiest book on the face of the planet. Some people want to rave on and on about how good the dialogue is (in my opinion the best part about the dialogue is that you never have to think about it. The dialogue is perfectly natural. You don't feel like you are reading a comic so much as eavesdropping on a conversation.) Anyway, Brain Azzarello and Eduardo Risso have outdone themselves. Before I finish this up, I have two things left to say: 1). Don't even think about buying this until you have read the first collected edition entitled First Shot, Last Call and 2). This collection also features a rather spiffy introduction by comics legend and all around great talent Howard Chaykin!!!! If you have ever liked any type of comic, you have to give this one a try!!!!