Criminal Vol 1 - Coward by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

Coward is the story of Leo, a professional pickpocket known as a legendary heist-planner and thief. But there's a catch with Leo, he won't work any job that he doesn't call all the shots on, he won't allow guns, and the minute things turn south, he's looking for any exit that won't land him in prison. We see one of his past heists in which everyone is killed except him as he knows when to leave a situation before the shooting starts. But is he just lucky or is he really a coward? He has to live with that guilt.

Cut to the present, he's lured into a risky heist by the widow of one of the guys killed in a the past heist. She brings on the guilt, saying he owes her for her husband's life. So he agrees to the heist even though his gut is telling him to run. He comes up with a plan but others keep changing the rules. After the heist goes wrong, all his rules go out the window, and he ends up on the run from the cops and the bad men who double-crossed him. Now Leo must come face-to-face with the violence he's kept bottled up inside for 20 years, and nothing will ever be the same for him again. Everyone seems to die around him but he can't even do that right. Is he really a coward or just a survivor?

Interesting GN. I had read about it in an online article about the Parker GN that just came out. So I thought I'd give it a try. It's gritty and shocking and definitely not happy but thought provoking. What would you do when everything seems against you and there seems like no way out but the wrong way? The illustrations are dark and sinister and the shadows show more than the light. I had to read this in small batches as the melancholy was hard to take, as I knew there wasn't going to be a happy ending. But now that I'm done I keep thinking about it.