Customer Reviews

100 Bullets Vol. 4: A Foregone Tomorrow

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Brian Azzarello, 100 Bullets: A Foregone Tomorrow (Vertigo, 2002)

100 Bullets, Azzarello's take on noir, offers its fourth incarnation up before us. The bulk of the book continues on with the Trust storyline, which is decent. What's really going to blow you away-- and set you up for volume five-- is one story. It's short, but it's worth the price of admission on its own. Graves goes to the hospital to deliver his hundred bullets to someone. As he's on his way out, he meets a man to whom he gave the same offer decades before, and the two of them reminisce about the consequences of their actions. It's an amazing piece, with an even more amazing twist. Even if the Trust storyline isn't doing anything for you, this one you want. *** ?

I'm not a big fan of Azz and Risso's 100 Bullets series. I think it's a wonderful concept, but their execution, concetrating on this boring Minute Man/Trust conspiricy, is a snoozefest. Until this volume.

With the thinly veiled Joe Dimaggio/Marliyn Monroe story in this volume, Azz and Risso finally tap the potentional of the concept. Forget the rest of this volume, it, like the rest of the series, is slightly above average conspiricy stuff the occasional character study tossed in. The Dimaggio/Monroe story is a masterpiece and worth the price of admission alone.

I always figured comic books were either for kids or for adults and took themselves way too seriously. Then one day, I was reading a respectable magazine and found an article about comic books. It was then when I realized that I hadn't ever actually read a comic book. So I went down to my local comic book store and bought a few comic books, or "graphic novels" as it seems comic book junkies prefer to call them. The first couple were boring and stupid, but one of them caught my eye. It was 100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call, and it was quite good, so I returned to the comic book store and purchased a few more. To my surprise, what started out as a simple story about revenge quickly evolved into a hardboiled tale of crime and corruption with beautiful artwork and great writing. I was hooked! This book is absolutely phenomonal. Buy today, you won't regret it.

Definately one of the top 3 volumes in the series. I was shocked at how fliudly the writers weaved the legend of the breifcase into one of the most recognizable events in the american mythos. I had hoped that they would have repeated this formulae later in the series but unfortunately this was a one shot deal.

This fourth TPB (of thirteen) collects eleven issues (#20-#30) of the Brian Azzarello/Eduardo Risso crime series with a ten-year run that is widely considered among the very best of the decade. Azzarello explores themes of revenge, justice, power, desperation and moral ambiguity in the realistic, sometimes violent narrative. Connections emerge as characters from earlier in the series reappear in a new setting and Azzarello's complex master plot continues to unfold. The DiMaggio/Monroe/JFK plotline is a highlight as noted by a previous reviewer. I'm working my way through the 100 Bullets series, and reading each trade paperback inspires me to include the subsequent volume in my next Amazon order. Though at times a bit slow, this hefty and attractively priced fourth volume should entertain almost all readers of the first nineteen issues.

This is the best trade of 100 bullets I have read, easily. Definitely recommended. More on The Trust, Graves, the younger generation, and some possibles. It is the history between The Trust, and Graves, and who they are, and who the various younger characters that we have been introduced to are, that is the interesting part. Here you learn a lot more about that, and how they relate to each other.