SPOILER ALERT
This is the basic plot, stolen from Wikipedia, is it correct though:
The initial plot of 100 Bullets hinges on the question of
whether people would take the chance to get away with revenge.
Occasionally in a given story arc, the mysterious Agent Graves
approaches someone who has been the victim of a terrible wrong, and
gives them the chance to set things right in the form of a nondescript attaché case containing a handgun,
100 bullets, a photograph of a person, and irrefutable evidence that
this person is primarily responsible for their woes. He informs the
candidate that the bullets are completely untraceable: any police
investigation that uncovers one of them will stop.
Though all of the murders enabled by Agent Graves are presented as
justifiable, the candidates are neither rewarded nor punished for
taking up the offer, and appear to receive nothing other than closure
for their actions. Several people have declined the offer. This is
later revealed to be only a minor part of a much wider story.
Agent Graves was the leader of a group known as "The Minutemen". Although somewhat related to the civilian riflemen who fought in the American Revolution, Graves' group were also the enforcers and assassins for the shadowy organization known as "The Trust". The Trust was originally formed by the heads of 13 powerful European aristocratic families who made an offer to the kings of Europe to abandon the "Old World", where they had considerable influence and holdings, in exchange for complete autonomy in the still unclaimed portion of the "New World". When England ignored this proposition and colonized Roanoke Island
late in the 16th century, the Minutemen were formed. The original
Minutemen, seven vicious killers, eradicated the colony and left behind
the message "Croatoa"
as a warning. Since that time, the Minutemen's charge has been to
protect the 13 Trust families, partly from outside threats, but
primarily from each other. They were betrayed by the Trust and
disbanded after Agent Graves refused to re-enact "The Greatest Crime in
the History of Mankind". Some of the former Minutemen had their
memories wiped for their protection and were living normal, if
lackluster, lives at the beginning of the story.
Many of those who are offered the chance for vengeance by Graves are
actually former Minutemen, or people who have been wronged by the Trust
or its agents. Trusting to luck and the importance of his "experiment",
Agent Graves goes on to reactivate several former Minutemen and recruit
potential new members during the course of the series, with the
tentative help of the Trust's warlord, the shady and double-dealing Mr. Shepherd.
