100 Bullets #97

From Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, 100 Bullets #97 arrives in January 2009 with a cover by Dave Johnson that commands immediate attention: a blonde woman is surrounded by spinning saw-blade medallions, each bearing either a red handprint or a small portrait — including a stern older man and a younger figure — dangling from her like an unsettling marionette arrangement. The imagery of fragmented, sharp-edged pieces flying around her and those toothed emblems of the Trust give the cover a tense, almost ritualistic quality that fits perfectly with Vertigo's mature crime noir tone. "Chapter Nine: Fearsomality Crisis" promises the kind of morally charged storytelling this series delivers so well as it heads toward its conclusion.