Comicon Advent Calendar Day 18: Silencer Night In ‘100 Bullets’
by Richard Bruton
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… which means it’s time for Day 18 of the Comicon Advent Calendar, our daily treat of Christmas comics to you…
This one’s from Vertigo Winter’s Edge 2000, 100 Bullets: Silencer Night by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, colours by Grant Goleash and letters by Clem Robins.
If you don’t know 100 Bullets, you’ve really missed a damn great series, created by Azzerello and Risso. 100 issues of the series ran from 1999 to 2009, telling of a shadowy world of crime and power in stark, often brutal terms. Usually, the mysterious Agent Graves was involved, handing out a gun, 100 untraceable bullets, and everything someone needed to be sure that something terrible in their lives was down to one particular target.
Like I say, damn fine series. But not one that really lends itself to Christmas, but hey, here it is, a 100 Bullets tale of seasonal forgiveness. Safe to say, this isn’t one of those saccharine, makes you feel all better about yourself Christmas tales. Nope, just like the rest of the 100 Bullets tale, this one’s nasty and sharp.
It’s Christmas Eve in 100 Bullets land, the police stations busy as usual. Li’l Moe’s cussing anyone and everyone out that his pops, Big Moe, is in lock up. Scumbag and scumbag junior, as the cops would say.
And then the old lady walks in to confess to the murder of Thomas Wright…
Thomas Wright was a developer, dead three years now, heart attack, no police report at all. But Mrs Bugg is insistent that she shot and killed him.
Now, knowing this is 100 Bullets and knowing all about how untraceable Agent Graves’ bullets are and how any evidence found results in the immediate shutdown of any investigation, you have a pretty good idea of the how. All we’re missing is the why. But Mrs Bugg is all about filling us in there.
It was the paint you see, the paint chips Mrs Buggs baby son ate when they lived in one of Wright’s buildings…
Life’s been too hard for Mrs Bugg. Way too hard. And then along comes Agent Graves, with the gun, the bullets, and the proof.
And God help her, she did it, this sweet, innocent, god-fearing woman, she took the gun and she did the deed…
Of course, the cops don’t believe her, certainly don’t want to believe her. You wouldn’t either. The sweet old lady with the disabled son depending on her coming in on Christmas Eve and copping to a crime that, as far as they know, just didn’t happen.
And then we get Azzerello’s little twist in this particular tale… the old lady gets to go home, with a passing reference to the detective’s dead wife…
But there’s also Big Moe and Li’l Moe to deal with, and as they both walk out of here, the self-same detective opens a door to a shadowy figure, a gun, 100 bullets, and the proof over the murdering l’il scumbag who killed his wife…
