5 out of 5

Major spoilers.

Bunn has worked his core group of Drake, Becky, Kirby and Gord through a tumultuous series of gains and losses throughout Sixth Gun, mostly while moving his series inexorably closer to a conclusion that – to its characters, to us – has become more and more clear as things have gone on.  And this is not to discredit any previous arc – any previous keystone to the story, or major turning point in the plot – but ‘Not the Bullet’ has been the first major jaw-dropping moment in an overall stellar series in the sense that its machinations were unbelievably powerful while reading.  And the arc concludes, so we’re not left on a fake cliffhanger – this just happened.  Drake and Becky lost all of the guns.  To one person!  Jesup, who’d already been in possession of Missy Hume’s gun.  I thought I was getting the general ebb and flow of Sixth Gun, and figuring where Bunn was going to take his tragedies, but though this should’ve been a guessable event, it still had me turning the page expecting Jesup to disintegrate, or something, that would give our leads back at least one of the guns.  Of course, we can see our out a bit – Becky uses the Sixth to travel to the past and glean some important (and unseen) knowledge before giving up the gun to save Drake, so certainly the guns’ destruction can still be brought about by some final gambit still achievable with that knowledge, but even seeing that in the last issue of this arc doesn’t tarnish the impact of events.

Something Bunn has done well these past few arcs is spread his story across long action sequences without it feeling like any issue is weighted to light or heavy on story or action.  Volume 7 follows this trend, and even bucks the previous 6-issue arc trend, suggesting our writer was aware that the material needed 5 issues and no more.  Issue 36 has our troupe ‘relaxing’ in Brimstone, passing meaningful looks and barbs back and forth around the bar (and how much do I love that the characterization is so rich that we can ‘feel’ each character’s thoughts while they’ve all cloistered themselves off into solo or small groups), before Becky retires to her room and is attacked by a demon wearing Miss Hume’s skin.  …Then shit gets real.  The action starts the next issue, with Hume breaking apart in snakes in some of the most grossly awesome artwork Hurtt’s delivered yet, only to be matched by the following 3 issues of town-wide insanity.  This is not a simple “for the cameras” battle where it seems like there’s a million bad guys but somehow it’s all easily contained; it looks like a swarm, it looks like a massacre, and our leads do not fare well.  Hurtt has continually outdone himself on this series, though there have been certain highlights over others – great battles, insanely designed creepos.  This goes into the former category, and your eyes scrabble over the pages but do not find a single shortcut – something’s happening from border to border, every panel.

While I don’t want this series to end, it can’t stay this good for too much longer if dragged out.  However, I might’ve said that a battle ago, and volume 7 still knocked the poop outta me, so what do I know.