100 Bullets

100 Bullets is an Eisner Award-winning comic book written by Brian Azzarello and illustrated by Eduardo Risso. It is published by DC Comics under its Vertigo imprint.

Contents

1 Plot 2 Style 3 Characters 4 Collected editions 5 Other media 6 External Links

Plot

The plot of 100 Bullets is built on a simple premise: questioning whether people would take the chance to get away with revenge. In each story arc, the mysterious Agent Graves approaches someone who has been wronged in some way, and gives them the chance to set things right in the form of a nondescript attaché case containing a handgun, 100 bullets, the identity of the person who ruined their life and proof of this. He informs the candidate that the bullets are completely untraceable, and any police agency that receives these bullets as part of an investigation will, through some unexplained process, immediately drop that investigation and ignore any transgressions related to it.

Though all of the murders enabled by Agent Graves are presented as justifiable, the candidates are neither rewarded nor punished for taking up the offer, and appear to receive nothing other than closure for their actions. Several people have declined the offer.

It is revealed that Agent Graves was part of a group known as the "Minutemen" who once worked for a shadowy organization known as "The Trust". The Trust was originally formed by a group of 13 powerful European aristocrats who offer to leave Europe, where they have considerable influence, in exchange for complete autonomy in the still unclaimed portion of the new world. When this agreement is broken by the formation of the English colony Roanoke, the Minutemen are formed. The original Minutemen are seven vicious killers, who eradicate the colony and leave the message "Croatoa" as a warning. The Minutemen are charged with protecting the 13 families who make up the Trust, from outside threats and from each other. The Minutemen are eventually betrayed by the Trust, and some of them are brainwashed and live unremarkable, normal lives.

Many of those who are offered the chance for vengeance by Graves are actually former Minutemen, or people who have been wronged by the Trust or its agents. So far he has reactivatived several of the Minutemen and recruited potential new members.

Style

Both the writing and artwork in 100 Bullets exemplifies the noir and pulp genres. It is extremely gritty, and presents the reader with several morally ambiguous cases.

Characters

• Agent Graves - A mysterious old man who presents offers to the candidates
• Mr. Shepherd - An equally mysterious associate of Graves, who works for the Trust.
• Dizzy Cordova - An ex-gangbanger who accepts the offer to get revenge for the deaths of her husband and child, and then attempts to find more about the mysterious organization behind the offers
• Cole Burns - An ice cream man seeking vengeance for his grandmother's untimely death; he has large gaps in his memory.
• Lono - A dangerous, larger-than-life character; the series most unredeeming character.
• Megan Dietrich - The series' femme fatale; a charming, confident yet deadly member of the Trust.
• Augustus Medici- The de-facto leader of the Trust and its most powerful member.
• Benito Medici -Augustus' son and heir; a spoilt, young man more interested in gambling than in his responsibilities.
• Mr. Branch - An ex-journalist who rejected The Trust's offer, and is now living in Paris, France.
• Wylie Times - A seemingly unimportant gas station attendant in El Paso, Texas; there is more to him than meets the eye.
• Loop Hughes - A young Philadelphia-based young man who is re-united with his long lost father by Agent Graves.

Collected editions

There are currently seven trade paperbacks in publication for this series.

Title	Issues collected	ISBN	Story arcs reprinted
First Shot, Last Call	1 - 5	ISBN 1563896451	"100 Bullets", "Shot, Water Back", "Silencer Night".
Split Second Chance	6 - 14	ISBN 1563897113	"Short Con, Long Odds", "Day, Hour, Minute... Man", "The Right Ear, Left in the Cold", "Heartbreak Sunnyside Up", "Parlez Kung Vous".
Hang up on the Hang Low	15-19	ISBN 1563898551	"Hang Up on the Hang Low", "Epilogue For a Road Dog".
A Foregone Tomorrow	20-30	ISBN 1563898276	"The Mimic", "Sell Fish and Out to Sea", "Red Prince Blues", "Mr. Branch and the Family Tree", "Idol Chatter", "Contrabandolero".
The Counterfifth Detective	31-36	ISBN 1563899485	"The Counterfifth Detective"
Six Feet Under The Gun	37-42	ISBN 1563899965	"On Accidental Purpose", "Cole Burns' Slow Hand", "Ambition's Audition", "Night of the Payday", "A Crash", "Point Off the Edge".
Samurai	43-49	ISBN 140120189X	"Chill in the Oven", "In Stinked"
The Hard Way	50-58	ISBN n/a	"Prey for Reign", Wylie Runs the Voodoo Down", "Coda Smoke".

Other media

• Acclaim had announced plans to release a video game based on 100 Bullets, but following the collapse of Acclaim's publishing house, the game is now in developmental limbo with no release in sight.

External Links

• 100 B.U.L.L.E.T.S (http://www.100bullets.com)
• 100 BULLETS Forum (http://www.100bullets.com/forum)
• 100 Bullets (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps2/100bullets) - Early reviews of the video game