Been a while since I reviewed this book, which used to be my absolute favorite. I'm still enjoying it, although the twists and turns of "Counterfifth Detective" and a general feeling of continuity weighing down the stories have drained some of my enthusiasm. So a group of single issue stories, each focused on a different important character, is just the thing to reinvigorate my enthusiasm for the book, and that's what has happened. This issue's particular focus is on Lono, a psychotic hitman who has been on the fringes of most of the stories, and Azzarello and Risso give us a good sense of what makes him tick, what he's really like and what he wants, along with an ending I did not see coming.
Early on, the big question with 100 Bullets was what the conspiracy was, and who was behind it. Now that The Trust and Graves's organization has been established a little better, the questions seem to be what's going to happen with the war and what happened in Atlantic City to cause the split in the first place. Lono, along with Sheperd and Graves, seems to have been involved with the story from the beginning, and so even in his solo issue there's a little bit of continuity, references to the Trust and Atlantic City and attempts on Lono's life making their way into a simple story of a hitman and what he does on a daily basis. This is good in that it keeps the overall story moving, and bad in that the book seems to be shifting subtly into the "reads better in trades" format.
What Azzarello and Risso have always excelled at is atmosphere, and that's still true. Actually, you have to include colorist Mulvihill in that respect as well, because it is her work on the orange and yellow fading sunlight or the low light in the bar hotel that give the book a lot of its atmosphere. But at any rate, the feeling of Lono's world, one of low-rent hotels, people who don't particularly like him and constant violence and threats of violence, comes through loud and clear in this work. It seems pretty clear that Lono is always either looking for a fight, fighting or recovering from a fight. The comparison to an angry dog early on seems pretty apt.
While this issue is largely about establishing who Lono is when he's not being the threatening heavy on the edge of the story, it is also a story of Lono's loyalty and his relationship with Sheperd. The setup and payoff of Sheperd playing Lono is kept nice and subtle, but is easy to catch onto when it happens, and it's clear that Lono knows what has happened when he makes his choice. I must admit, I didn't expect such a big status quo change to happen in these self-contained issues, which I had expected would be mostly exploratory character pieces.
Now well into its fourth year, 100 Bullets has lost the shock of the new for me. But it remains a fantastic read, one of the best crime books on the stands with artwork that few others can touch. These single issues seem like a great way for new readers to get into the books, but Azzarello isn't leaving the old readers spinning their wheels while their stories are told, and the balance of conspiracy story and character development is pretty solid.
