Comic Info
Comic Name: 100 Bullets/Vertigo: Winter’s Edge
Publisher: DC Comics/Vertigo
Writer: Brian Azzarello
Artist: Eduardo Risso
# of Issues: 5
Release Date: 2000
100 Bullets #1
Reprints 100 Bullets #1-5 and Vertigo: Winter’s Edge #3 (August 1999-January 2000). Dizzy Cordova has been released from prison and been given a unique opportunity. A man named Agent Graves has given Dizzy the men responsible for the death of her family and a gun with one hundred untraceable bullets…now Dizzy must decide what she’s going to do about it. Also a man named Lee Dolan gets a gun and one hundred bullets to get revenge on Megan Dietrich…the woman who got him branded as a pedophile.
Written by Brian Azzarello and illustrated by Eduardo Risso, 100 Bullets Volume 1: First Shot, Last Call reprints the first two story arcs from 100 Bullets (“100 Bullets” and “Shot, Water Black”) plus a short story from Vertigo: Winter’s Edge #3 (January 2000). The series was critically acclaimed and also collected in a deluxe edition.
I picked up 100 Bullets 1: First Shot, Last Call not long after the series was released. Reading the comic (and rereading the comic) I wondered if I was missing something…I don’t know that I believe the hype of the series.
100 Bullets #4
The good part of 100 Bullets is that the basic concept is worth exploring. The idea of being able to commit a crime without being caught is an interesting one and brings up a ton of moral issues. I like this and the secret covert organization story which leaves readers questioning what is going on.
What really hurts 100 Bullets is that Brian Azzarello can’t write dialect. All of Dizzy and her friends conversations are bad clichés and almost unreadable. It is like a bad ’70s blaxploitation film…it isn’t good, it isn’t realistic, and is laughable. If you think I’m lying, try to read them out loud.
The art for the series is quite strong, but without superheroes and costumes, Risso has the challenge of making characters distinguishable. It works in this volume, but sometimes in later volumes, I have problems telling some of the characters apart.
100 Bullets is worth checking out if you haven’t read it, but I wasn’t wowed by the comic. I did stick with the series and it did get better, but I still find that the comic’s issue-to-issue problems exist. 100 Bullets 1: First Shot, Last Call was followed by 100 Bullets 2: Split Second Chance.
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