100 Bullets: Brother Lono #8 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story), Eduardo Risso (art)

The Story: The better question is who doesn’t die at the end of the issue?

The Review: I’ve come to expect the unexpected when it comes to Azzarello’s comics, but one thing I never expect from him is a happy ending.  Not that he’s incapable of delivering one—Wonder Woman #18 ended on a hopeful note, at least—but it just doesn’t seem to be part of his makeup.  Even if it was, it certainly wouldn’t seem to fit into the pervasive grimness of Brother Lono.  This series has been a lot of things, but sentimental is not one of them.

This final issue is still bleak, though, even for Lono.  I’m not just talking about the gruesome outbreak of violence, which is only to be expected once our protagonist decided that the gloves should come off.  Spoiler alert—while the orphanage is ultimately saved, the price paid by all the major characters makes the victory feel a bit hollow.  Cesar and Paulo are dead, Manny is blinded, June (a.k.a. agent Linda May) gravely wounded, and Lono is back on the hell train.

100 Bullets: Brother Lono #7 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story), Eduardo Risso (art)

The Story: Cortez gives new meaning to “The truth will set you free.”

The Review: While I’m not the most religious person in the world—I may love the word “bitch” a little too much—I think it’s relevant to point out that in most other respects, I’m fairly devoted to my Catholicism.  As such, I feel qualified in saying that Brother Lono has been admirably nuanced in its depiction of the Church and of Father Manny, in particular.  Manny is no saint, but he is a man who sincerely tries to act on his deeply-held beliefs.

Like many people of faith, Manny struggles most in situations where he must balance the value of human life against his own moral integrity, and like many of people of faith, he chooses to compromise himself to save the lives of others.  In this case, lying about lying to persuade Cortez to release Lono, in itself a measure to save Cortez and his men from Lono’s wrath, does more than add a venial sin to Manny’s heavenly docket; it also puts him at Cortez’s mercy, which makes him vulnerable to further, probably worse, temptations.

100 Bullets: Brother Lono #6 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story), Eduardo Risso (art)

The Story: Lono has his own temptation in the desert.

The Review: This just tells you how much I take comments to heart, but I still remember the somewhat vitriolic reaction one JamesLM had when, in my review of Wonder Woman #8, I compared Azzarello’s writing to Earnest Hemingway’s.  What I was talking about, of course, was the sparseness of their writing styles, not their respective literary brilliance.  If you must know, I still believe Azzarello has one of the most effective minimalist writing styles around.

I think more than a lot of writers in the comic book biz, Azzarello appreciates that one’s choice of words can convey meaning that is independent of their actual substance.  For people like me, whose life’s work is the parsing of words to find the layers of meaning within, there’s nothing better than reading over what seems like an inconsequential, passing moment, and realizing how important it is to the story’s development.

100 Bullets: Brother Lono #5 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story), Eduardo Risso (art)

The Story: Lono learns that turning the other cheek is not all it’s cracked up to be.

The Review: As much as Christianity has become a religion of peace, love, and compassion, its Old Testament origins were hardly strangers to the notion of violence.  Two verses are particularly appropriate.  Deuteronomy 20:12 advises, “However, if [a city] does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it.”  And of course, Ecclesiastes 3:8 admits that there’s “[a] time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace.”*

But you don’t need biblical support to navigate the moral quandaries that confront Lono in this issue, as he receives a vision of Christ Himself.  Whether this is a true spiritual experience or merely the manifestation of Lono’s subconscious turmoil, when God purports to speak, you listen and figure out what He’s saying.  Christ, suspended from the cross, asks Lono for help, but rebukes him when Lono begins removing the nails.

“We all have our roles in life,” He explains to the confused smoter.  “Mine is to die for you.  Yours is to kill me.”  But when Lono exclaims at the idea that he’s his Lord’s murderer, Christ replies, “You think very highly of yourself, don’t you?  You’re not that important…  And you’re not alone.”

What this seems to be leading to, of course, is a situation where Lono would be forced to test his resolve to remain on the better path against direct and unavoidable threats, perhaps quite literally, as you see Cráneo bearing down on Lono in an SUV.  Even Father Manny foresees such a scenario and implies that “trust” (which is a handy stand-in for faith) alone may not be the right response.  When he asks if Lono go back to the way he was “before, given the right circumstances,” he’s clearly alluding to the biblical conditions for violence I mentioned earlier.  Even though he quickly berates himself for making such an suggestion, it lingers on, begging the question of what circumstances would be the right ones.

100 Bullets: Brother Lono #4 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story), Eduardo Risso (art)

The Story: Holy land, shmoley land—let’s make some drugs!

The Review: Without naming names or calling any particular group to task, have you ever noticed how often the most overtly self-righteous people end up behaving as if they’re none of those things?  One minute, they’ll rant about everything going wrong with the world and the next, they become part of the problem.  Principles without hypocrisy are a rare thing, hard evidence of the difficulty of rising above human fallibility when one is in fact human.

For exactly those reasons, Father Manny’s religious convictions drive far more of the series’ tension than perhaps you gave him credit for.  He may have had to accept certain ugly realities to preserve his church, but there’s no doubt that of all the characters, he has the most sincere desire to do the right thing.  Even though Paulo left of his own accord, and his mistakes afterward are entirely his own, Manny still blames himself for how his adoptive son has turned out and, of all things, begs forgiveness from someone who spits on his shoe.

100 Bullets: Brother Lono #3 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story), Eduardo Risso (art)

The Story: This’ll make the kids think twice before they ever eat vegetables again.

The Review: One of my creative writing professors used to tell his classes that every story is actually two stories: one about what happens—the plot—and the other about what it means—the message.  With most stories, it’s usually easier to catch on to the plot first, whereas the message reveals itself over time.  Some writers get so fixated with the ongoing action that they neglect an overarching purpose entirely, what I call a lack of direction.

The unusual thing about Brother Lono is we have a case where we already know what the series is leading up to—Lono’s redemption, if such a thing is possible—but we still don’t know exactly what plot will get us there.  Azzarello spent the first two issues establishing the bleak setting and the equally grim cast of characters, giving us a very general sense of the story’s tension.  We know life is essentially a drag in this part of Mexico, and the Twin Towers are behind it somewhere, but nothing more specific than that.

100 Bullets: Brother Lono #2 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story), Eduardo Risso (art)

The Story: Serving the poorest orphans of an impoverished city—sounds like a great gig.

The Review: It’s one of those odd quirks of humanity that some of the unrepentant criminals have the greatest dedication to their faiths.  In my line of work, I’ve encountered gang members who have already settled upon a lifetime of sex, drugs, and violence—the trifecta!—and yet will decry harm against a priest, or pray during moments of crisis, or even continue attending church.  It’s this strange intersection of religion and sin that reveals the power of faith.

Azzarello seems intent on exploring this intersection, and unlike many of his peers, who would rather oversimplify that tension into one of pure hypocrisy, he clearly plans to give us a more complicated view of how one might abide by religious principle in a place that has no care for it.  Why else would he choose for his protagonists a priest who takes bribes, a nun who’s beautiful and knows it, and a wannabe monk who must continually put himself in prison to stay straight?

Many of us might question the sincerity and point of Lono’s attempt at a life of faith, especially those of you who’ve seen his grisly exploits in the original 100 Bullets.  This seems to reveal more about ourselves and our own notions of what can be forgiven than anything else.  There’s no doubt that Lono is plagued not only by his past, but by his nature as well; he can’t seem to help going into a bar, checking out the hotties, and stirring up potential fights.  From his wake-up in a jail cell last issue, this seems to be a regular occurrence—so why bother trying?

100 Bullets: Brother Lono #1 – Review

By: Brian Azzarello (story), Eduardo Risso (art)

The Story: Can you really repent when you’re still in the middle of your latest sin?

The Review: Some might say it’s a bit cocky, even foolhardy, to read a spin-off without having ever read the original series it actually spun off from.  What can I say?  Call me a fictional daredevil.  I sort of enjoy flinging myself into unknown situations and seeing if I can get a handle on them just by reading the circumstances.  What’s possibly more reprehensible is the fact that to date, I still have not read 100 Bullets, which I gather is rather seminal comics reading.

So yes, while that fact is enough to make me a terrible person, I must point out that it’s not entirely certain that having read 100 Bullets would necessarily make reading this series any more enlightening.*  The first issue of Brother Lono by and large functions pretty well on its own.  Azzarello steeps us completely in the heartless, violent world these characters exist in, and while he makes some introductions more effectively than others, you certainly have no problem sorting out the relationships among the cast.