100 Bullets Vol. 1: First Shot, Last Call by Brian Azzarello
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Book Reviews of 100 Bullets Vol. 1: First Shot, Last Call
Book Review: Get it now!
Summary: 5 Stars
The ultimate mindf**k. I strongly suggest you read this series. Start with Vol 1 and proceed in sequence. As a matter of fact, I won't waste any more of your time...order and read it now!Book Review: The first steps in a trip down the rabbit hole...
Summary: 5 Stars
No question...the series is a must for anyone who enjoys an excellent plot and detailed, serious illustrations. Volume 1 is intriguing and sets a foundation for things to come (and oh what delightful things do come!)
This series sneeaks up on you, as it initially feels like taking what you think is a shortcut, a road you've never taken before, just to avoid the traffic.
Volume 1 is when you first turn on the road...things look familiar to you and you think have an idea where the road is going, as you see your destination on the horizon. Then you realize (by the end of Volume 1) that this road starts to lead you away from familiar territory...and suddenly you are in dangerous, alien territory. There is no exit in sight, the cell phone don't work, and you can't turn back. Nothing to do but enjoy the ride!
Best series I have read in a long time. Volume 1 is the start of the ultimate mindjob.
If you liked the intricacies of novels like Sleeper or DMZ, you are off to a great start on a fantastic series with Volume 1.
Book Review: This is what Brian Azzarello was born to do.
Summary: 5 Stars
Brian Azzarello, 100 Bullets: The Hard Way (Vertigo, 2005)
Every time I pick up another Brian Azzarello book, I finish it thinking "there's no way he can top that." And, so far, every time I've been proven wrong.
The Hard Way takes us into the second half of Azzarello's epic 100 Bullets, and it contains his finest creation to date: Gabe, a little man with a very big trumpet. Gabe is not a main character, but he ends up being, from the standpoint of the book's quality, its most important asset.
What the book is actually about is the mission given to Wylie Times at the end of Book 6, the one that caused every 100 Bullets reader's jaw to hit the carpet. This mission puts Wylie back into close contact with Dizzy, and much of the book's pace comes from the back-and-forth between the two of them, the secrets they need to keep from one another, what they choose to reveal, and the times in which they find themselves forced into partnership. Gabe is just a part of the scenery, most of the time, a kid who finds himself in a complex relationship with Wylie, the only person who ever stood up for him.
The first three-quarters of the book is setup; as with all of 100 Bullets, though, the setup is always fun, as Azzarello is capable of keeping the reader interested with a minimum of verbiage, letting Eduardo Risso's wonderful artwork do much of the talking. Then, once the dominoes are set up, Azzarello gives them a nudge, and everything comes toppling down in a design that looks nothing like what you expect it to-- but that ties everything up anyway.
The Hard Way is more than just an installment in a series of graphic novels (or comic books, depending). Where 100 Bullets has often been passed off as a genre noir title-- and in a number of cases, it's simply been satisfied to rise to that level and float-- The Hard Way transcends both graphic novel-dom and noir, in the same way Watchmen or the best issues of Love and Rockets did. The Hard Way is good, solid literature. There are a number of excellent entry points into the world if graphic novels, if you've dismissed them as "just comics" up to this point; while I'm not sure 100 Bullets is one of them (because of the series' weaker volumes), once you've got a few Watchmens, Sandmans, and Preachers, under your belt, tackle 100 Bullets. When you get to The Hard Way, you'll be able to experience it in all its glory. I envy you the chance to experience it for the first time. **** ½
Book Review: A great follow-up and continuation to First Shot, Last Call
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Book Review: 100 Bullets comes into its own.
Summary: 4 Stars
Brian Azzarello, 100 Bullets: The Counterfifth Detective (Vertigo, 2003)
The fifth volume of the 100 Bullets series is something new for Azzarello, at least within the scope of this series, and it's quite refreshing. This is more classic-noir style than the rest of the series, something Azzarello doesn't normally do. I can't say it's a surprise to see that he does it well (after all, he treaded the line, without ever going across it, in Hellblazer: Freezes Over), but it's a surprise to see that he does it, overall, better than most of the things he does. And Azzarello does everything well.
As most noir does, The Counterfifth Detective starts out with-- what else?-- a private investigator (whom we saw receive his hundred bullets in the background in A Foregone Tomorrow). Milo Garret's stay in the hospital, he finds, wasn't an accident, and Graves has offered him the opportunity to get even. From there, you have the basic revenge storyline that informs most standalone 100 Bullets stories, but filtered here through Dashiell Hammett and a dirty sweat sock.
The best volume so far. If you haven't discovered 100 Bullets yet, you want to. *** ?