100 BULLETS 449
be above the law. Th e discrepancy between the reprisal off ered by Graves and the
means he provides to ensure it is indicative of the series’ ongoing examination of
the excesses of violence and authority. Th ese excesses are recorded in the series’ title
itself, and visually reiterated as each new attaché is put into play: if retribution can
ostensibly be attained with one pull on the trigger, then providing 100 bullets is dis-
turbingly disproportionate, a point that serves to enhance the ominous premise of
consequence-free revenge.
Although Graves’s bullets prove to be untraceable, some recipients of the attachés
nevertheless fi nd that the promise of carte blanche is not enough to compel them to kill;
others fi nd that Graves’s form of payback does not provide the peace they were seek-
ing, or they do not follow his instructions. For example, Graves’s fi rst contact, Isabelle
Cordova, ends up taking more vengeance and killing additional felons, while Graves’s
second client, Lee Dolan, chooses not to take revenge. More signifi cantly, a grander
plot explaining Graves’s motivations slowly begins to take shape, becoming exponen-
tially intricate with each issue. Readers learn that the briefcases are used by Graves in
some—but not all—instances to recruit potential members of the Minutemen, a group
of seven lethal and nearly unstoppable assassins associated with a powerful collective
known as the Trust. Th e Trust is led by the heads of 13 “families,” with the Minute-
men acting as both their enforcers and as a kind of internal security mechanism that
ensures no one family in the Trust gains a disproportionate share of power or infl uence.
Should one Trust family make a move to destabilize or weaken the position of another,
the Minutemen are mandated to respond in kind. A confl ict between Graves and the
Trust is revealed in snippets, as is the clandestine infl uence that the Trust has exerted
throughout its long history (the Trust’s role in the assassination of JFK is implied in a
number of issues). Th rough a steady trickle of veiled conversations and layered fl ash-
backs, it comes to light that the earliest incarnation of the Trust crossed the Atlantic and
deployed seven killers of the original Minutemen to slaughter the original colonists at
Roanoke. Th is killing was an act of revenge by the Trust because the Trust had off ered
the kings of Europe complete autonomy over the new world in exchange for relinquish-
ing control of the old world (Europe) to the Trust. England ignored the off er and was
punished by having its colonists murdered. Forgoing interest in European matters, the
Trust staked a bloody claim to what would become the United States of America, and
their descendants have reaped the benefi ts ever since. Graves once headed the modern-
day collection of Minutemen, but he disbanded them and put them into hiding after
the Trust seemingly violated its agreement with them in asking for the Minutemen’s
involvement in another grand crime of comparable magnitude; some of these hidden
Minutemen have their memories wiped clean and are placed in mundane lives until they
are reactivated by a mysterious watchword— Croatoa —that hearkens back to Roanoke
and America’s origins. Certain attachés are given to “sleeping” Minutemen as Graves,
now ostensibly devoted to destroying the Trust, manipulates various players among
constantly shifting factions comprised of the families of the Trust, and the Minutemen
past, present, and future.
