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Stray Bullets Killers #7
Released by: Image Comics
Released on: September 17th, 2014.
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David Lapham's Stray Bullets: Killers has been building for a few issues now, leaving readers to wonder when it was all going to hit the fan. The answer? Now. Issue seven. That, dear readers, is when it is all going to hit the fan. How so? Patience. We'll get there.
The issue opens at a baseball game in 1987, our two young love birds, Virginia and Eli, are having a good time attending, the latter still reeling from his acceptance to art school. As he 'dorks out' about school, Virginia does the same over the game. Her father was an Oriels fan. They drive home through a bad neighborhood and talk about their respective parents. The park the car and head into Pete's Electronics so that Virginia can catch up with Marisol and introduce her to Eli. Since Eli's going to school, Virginia wants to crash with her for a while but Marisol says she can't, Dez is still causing problems and Harry left her with a mess to deal with. She's carrying a gun because of it.
Eli and Virginia go outside to talk, he's not impressed and he wants her to distance herself from these criminals. They argue. Eli has a point but Virginia isn't one to bend easily, even if as Eli points out, Marisol carries a gun and deals drugs out of the back of an electronics store. When gun shots erupt, a person on the street opening fire, and a bystander is shot in the face Marisol fires back but she and her 'co-worker' Dicky are shot. Viriginia and the guy behind the counter start carrying what they can out of the store to Eli's car while Eli freaks out, cop sirens getting closer. They take off in a car with a bullet hole in the windshield and a trunk full of drugs. As they drive, they talk, and Eli decides he's going to ditch art school and they two of them are going to go to the shore and get away from Virginia's criminal ties. Not surprisingly, she protests, but only about him not going to school. She wants to tell Marisol's sister and Dez what happened, he protests this time but she talks him into it. They hit Dez's place and his wife thinks she's there to babysit, just like she used to but once she talks to Dez and tells him what happened… yeah, the shit really does hit the fan.
We knew Lapham was going somewhere with all of this from the very first issue and while there's still presumably plenty more to tell, this issue serves as a pretty big reveal. Virginia's past had to rear its ugly head again, it was inevitable, but just exactly how it does in this issue is where Lapham really delivers. The art is on the same level of excellent quality as what came before, solid line work that somehow seems more appropriate in black and white than it probably would in color, but the storytelling… hot damn. This is edge of your seat type stuff, the violence hits and it hits hard and it has an impact, this is not superficial action for the sake of action but an integral part of Virginia and Eli's collective story.
This is an ugly chapter, to be sure, but at the same time there is some effective humor once again playing a big part in the success of the narrative. Most of this revolves around Eli, we won't spoil it as the best laughs come towards the finale but they serve as a perfect contrast to what Virginia is coerced into at the same time. Lapham paints some great contrasts here, making us wonder if these two young lovers who we've been cheering for since they met are meant for each other after all…
