Billi 99 #1-4 (September – December 1991)
Written by Sarah E. Byam
Art by Tim Sale
Spoilers (from thirty-one years ago)
I don’t remember if this would have been the first place where I saw Tim Sale’s artwork, because I wasn’t reading Grendel when he was working on it, but it was definitely the first place where I remembered Tim Sale’s name. After Sale passed away recently, I started thinking about his career and I started thinking about this miniseries, which I remember really liking.
I don’t really remember anything about the story, but I remember looking forward to each new issue, and feeling the atmosphere that Sale created. It’s the reason why I paid attention to his career later on, and got excited about his Batman: The Long Hallowe’en (back when I could get through Jeph Loeb stories). The writer, Sarah Byam, didn’t write a whole lot of comics before or after this series.
I always find it curious when I have clear memories of reading and enjoying a comic, with no idea of what the content is. That’s where I am as I get into this book. The covers give me a bit of a Clockwork Orange vibe, and I vaguely remember this being a feminist comic. But that could all be nonsense. I guess we’ll find out…
Let’s track who turned up in the title:
Hero
- Toleado (Billi Chadam; #1-4)
Villains
- Cas Euchre (#1-4)
- Eric Vey Hunder (#1-3)
- The Deadmen (#2-3)
- Roxanne (The Deadmen; #2-3)
Supporting Characters
- Unk (#1-3)
- Audrey (#1)
- Karen (#1-3)
- Don Quixote (#1-4)
- Maters (union leader; #1-4)
- Anunzio Engrionelli (gangster; #1-4)
- Angel Duste (#1)
- Chief Seagram Andrews (#2-4)
- Captain Holt (#2, 4)
- Father Ventre (#2)
- Metzo Engrionelli (Anunzio’s father; #2-4)
- Randy (#2-4)
- Frankie O’Connor (#4)
Let’s take a look at what happened in these books, with some commentary as we go:
- The series opens with the tagline “World War III came and nobody noticed…” We see a wanted poster showing a young woman. A young woman (the same one as on the poster?) who looks like she’s lived a little rougher grabs it off the wall and runs down an alley. We see a checkpoint in the middle of the city (it makes me think of photos I’ve seen of Israel), and watch as the woman climbs the skeleton of a building that is being constructed, overlooking the checkpoint. From above, we can see that the two sides of the checkpoint are very different, with one side being orderly and neat. We’re shown that ‘ristos’ – the very wealthy – cruise the rougher area in their limousines to access sex workers. A man has a stall set up selling pancakes, and goes to give one to a woman who looks like she’s having a rough time, but instead of taking it, she walks up to the limo we just saw. The woman at the start of the issue uses a zipline to get from the shell of the building into ‘the cordon’, which she says no one ever breaks into. As she walks through the narrow streets, a risto pulls up and gets out of his car to proposition her. She punches the guy in the face when he grabs her, and moves on. She talks to the guy with the pancake stall. We learn that his name is Unk, that she is Billi, and he reminds her that she’s not the Sword of Toleado, and shouldn’t be beating up bad guys. She climbs into the open window of a woman’s apartment. The woman is named Karen, and they are friends. We figure out that Karen is very poor, and very scared, but leaves her window open so Billi can sneak into their building, a shelter, after curfew. Karen mentions that the Engrionellis, who must be the local mafia, offer protection, but she can’t afford them. Billi’s brought some food for Karen from the restaurant where she works – broccoli that got thrown out because a risto doesn’t like it, and some coffee that she stole. Billi goes to her own apartment, and opens a little shrine she keeps there. We see from a newspaper clipping that her father, Ray Chadam, was an industrialist that was murdered. The article mentions that his daughter, Billi, had gone missing. We see some of Billi’s memories, of her father teaching her to be brave, and teaching her to fight with a sword. It turns out that her father was the Sword of Toleado, a vigilante, despite being kind of out of shape. We also see that Billi found her father strung up on a large tunnel grate, and that he didn’t trust one of the directors of his company, Chadam International, a man named Euchre. Billi wakes to find one of her neighbours, an old hippy type named Don, in her apartment, telling her she’s late for work. At the Chadam International director’s meeting, they talk about the importance of finding Billi. We learn that the company is in a financial crisis, and that someone named Eric Vey Hunder is buying up all the stock that he can. Euchre is his inside man, working for his benefit with the board. We see that the union owns 11% of the stock, and Billi owns 40%, so without her, Vey Hunder can’t take over. He enters the meeting, and they try to explain to him that he can’t buy any more stock because Billi is missing. He makes it clear that she is accused of her father’s murder. Vey Hunder wants the company to take on a military contract, which is against their principles. Vey Hunder walks out, and then talks with Euchre, and we see that they’re trying to play the board. Billi is at work at the diner, but gets fired for giving food to the woman that Unk tried to feed before. A cop tries to harass Billi for being in the neighbourhood, but a car pulls up and Engrionelli pays him to go away. Billi is upset that the man pulled a mafia move to help her, and tells him off. The sex worker from the restaurant gets picked up by a limo – Euchre tells her he outsmarted a rich man, and wants her to celebrate with him. Billi, dressed up in something like the Sword of Toleado outfit, stands outside a nightclub where Angel Duste is singing. Her narration tells us that Angel is sixteen, and being taken advantage of by the men who run the club. We see that her ‘owners’ keep her drug-addicted mother as collateral, and that the girl wants out. She steps outside the club, and finds Toleado waiting. Billi tells Angel that she can take her someplace safe, but they are followed to a trailer on a construction site. Billi tries to fight the two men, who think she’s a boy. She has her sword broken, and is clearly out of her league. She tells Angel to go to a particular church, and then attacks the one man left standing. They fight, and Billi ends up killing the guy when he won’t stand down. Later, Billi goes to Anunzio Engrionelli’s house. We learn that they have some kind of relationship, and after she soaks in a tub, she tells him that she killed someone. As they lie in bed together, she makes it clear that she doesn’t approve of his methods of making people pay to be safe. We see that Anunzio is conflicted, but he still puts in a call to Euchre. Euchre, meanwhile, takes the sex worker to the top of a building under construction (probably the same one from before). He has her put on a specific dress, and they have a brief picnic on a top floor. He talks about how he’s going to end up owning CI after getting Billi’s stock from her. He says that Billi trusts him, and that she can’t reveal how her father died, so she has to play along with him. Euchre admits that he is the one that killed Ray, and then he has sex with the woman before throwing her off the building. Billi goes to see her priest for an early morning confession.
- The police pull Audrey’s body out of the water at the foot of the building where Euchre dropped her last issue. Police Captain Holt and Chief Andrews talk about how this is the fourth supposed suicide in this spot in recent weeks, but they don’t believe that these are suicides. Billi’s confession with Father Ventre is interrupted by the arrival of two members of the Deadmen gang, looking to rob the church. After one of the gang members slaps the Father, Billi emerges in her Toleado gear. She beats them down and leaves. As she walks home, Unk gives her a free pancake – Don Quixote, the hippy, told him that she’d lost her job, but Billi doesn’t know how he’d know that. She asks Don who killed her father, and he makes vague references to Julius Caesar and Brutus (which we readers know is confirmation that Euchre killed him). Euchre and Vey Hunder go to meet with Anunzio Engrionelli and his father, who is the mafia don of the city. First, Euchre talks to them about his search for Billi, referencing the fact that she might be mentally ill (Anunzio visibly stiffens at this). The don agrees to ask around about Billi as a favour. Vey Hunder interrupts, wanting to move the discussion to what it will cost him to get Engrionelli to lean on the CI union so they’ll sell him their shares in the company. He gives him a briefcase full of money. Engrionelli makes it clear that he won’t work with him, and rudely returns the briefcase. After he leaves, Engrionelli tells Anunzio that Vey Hunder started to make his money with poorly run care homes, like the one that Anunzio’s mother died in, and that he won’t work with him. Anunzio makes it clear that he thinks very poorly of Euchre, and they talk about who would have ‘bought paper’ on Billi’s father. Engrionelli expects that Vey Hunder will ‘buy paper’ on him, and it’s suggested that he expects Anunzio will take care of it for him. Karen’s landlord tells her that he’s raising her rent, and it’s clear that leaves her with little choice but to start walking the street. The two Deadmen that Billi beat up go to see their leader, Rox, to tell her that Toleado is not dead. She knows it’s not the real Toleado, because she’s the one that killed him, but she puts word out that she wants the new Toleado found. A man spray paints a big T on a wall. Billi goes to see Anunzio, but he’s not home. She finds that he’s left her a new sword and other gear. She finds the man standing by his spray painted T, which I guess is this world’s version of the bat-signal. He has a newspaper article about Audrey’s death, and says that his wife was also declared a suicide after falling from the same building. The thing is, his wife was not suicidal, and was afraid of the water. He knew his wife was doing sex work, and believes that she was killed. Billi starts investigating, learning more about Maggie and her movements around the Cordon in the days leading up to her death. She goes to see Randy, a three-card monty hustler who plays on the sidewalk, and whom Billi knows is very observant. He refuses to help, so Billi uses some sleight of hand to help a gambler. She then teaches Randy what she did, in return for learning that a particular ‘risto’ trolls the neighbourhood for women, often following them for a few days before arranging a date with them. These are all the women who have died so far. Vey Hunder talks to Euchre about how he wants to replace all of the unionized workers with cheaper day labourers, even if it impacts the quality of what CI makes. The Deadmen tag over the Toleado tag, and arrange a trap for Billi. Karen is out on the street for the first time, and two women try to check on her. Euchre’s car pulls up, right where the tag is, and the Deadmen recognize his car. Billi, meanwhile, climbs into Karen’s window and learns that she’s gone out. She figures out what’s happening, and leaves Don to watch the kids. She goes running out of the building, hoping to find Karen in time. Euchre calls on Karen to get in his car, but Toleado jumps on the hood, telling Karen not to go with him. Billi recognizes Euchre, who drives away quickly. At least a half dozen Deadmen emerge from the shadows, and Billi tells Karen to go home.
- As Don watches Karen’s kids, and Karen runs from the coming fight, Billi gets pinned down by the Deadmen. Rox is taking her contract to kill Toleado seriously, saying it extends to anyone who puts on his costume. When she learns that Rox killed her father, Billi bites her nose, and the others start beating on her. There’s a charity fashion show happening in the lobby of CI that Euchre interrupts. He heads up to his office and asks to speak to Chief Andrews, who apparently has been waiting for him for some time. We learn from Don’s narration that the police department was subsidized by Chadam’s donations, and that Euchre has continued this practice. He tells Andrews that he saw Billi in the Cordon and is angry that they haven’t brought her in yet. Andrews is offended by Euchre, and reminds him that he doesn’t work for him (in less polite language). He asks for access to CI’s corporate database and leaves. He calls Holt to tell him to use the database to look for the person who’s been killing sex workers. In a flashback, we see that Billi brought her dying father home, and that he wouldn’t let her call for medical help until after he’d been changed out of his Toleado getup (he also had her promise to keep his secret). Because of the delay in getting treatment, and the holes in the story that Billi cooked up to cover her father’s secret, suspicion was placed on her. Euchre told the investigating detective that Billi was adopted, and prone to getting into fights with her father. When the cops went to take her into custody, she ran. In the present, Billi challenges Rox by spitting in her face. Karen arrives with Unk and a small group of friends, armed with bats. Unk tries to stop the fight between Billi (who a lot of people keep misgendering) and Rox, but that buys him a knee to the guts from a Deadman. The fight continues, with Billi trying to learn who hired the Deadmen to kill her father, but she ends up running her sword through Rox, killing her. Unk makes it clear to Billi that she can’t give up after this, and has to keep fighting. Some suit starts buying up CI stock options from union workers who have just lost their jobs, even though Maters, the union rep, keeps trying to get them to hold onto it. Vey Hunder is eating in France when he dies from poisoning. We see that it was Anunzio that slipped some of the wrong mushrooms into his Hungarian mushroom soup. Unk gives Billi a bit of a pep talk, and she walks home with him and Karen. Later, we see that Billi has a small team doing research for her, and we see that Billi understands the precarious position her father’s company is in. Anunzio speaks with his father, who warns him that his girlfriend is going to lose her company. He makes it clear that they can’t support her financially. Many of the laid-off CI workers are now being hired back on a daily basis, and this causes some anger, especially since they aren’t receiving the same benefits or following seniority. When one worker flips over a table outside the plant, the cops start beating on him. Billi struggles with the realization that it was probably Euchre who ordered his father’s death. Randy recognizes him as the guy that picked up all the sex workers who turned up dead. Captain Andrews is in the newspaper archives, and comes to the realization that Chadam was Toleado, and heads out to look for Billi. Billi (dressed as Toleado) goes to the building where Euchre has been doing his killing, examining the scene for any evidence. She figures that Euchre wouldn’t be having unprotected sex with the women he’s killed, so she climbs down to the rocks beneath the unfinished building, and finds a used condom. Andrews turns up, holding a gun. Billi runs, and Andrews tries to both chase her and calm her down. He falls, and she turns back. He says she needs to help him. Euchre looks out of his office at the protest happening outside the company.
- Issue four opens at the home of Frankie O’Connor, one of the CI workers and union leaders who cannot decide what the right course is for himself. His wife makes it clear that she wants him to sell his stock, but that feels like he’s betraying his union, and his career. He leaves to go to a meeting. Billi and Andrews talk, and Billi shares that she doesn’t know how to return to her home and former life. Frankie arrives at the union meeting, where he and Maters talk to some of their more hostile and conflicted members. Don and Randy approach CI’s main plant. Randy is stopped by the police who are guarding the place, and he bluffs that the foreman is expecting him. Don pulls something like a Jedi mind trick to get past the same cops, and then we see him tucked away somewhere in the factory, mixing chemicals. Andrews and Billi talk about Euchre killing women, and the cop is honest that it’s not all that likely that they can arrest him without getting him to confess. When Andrews calls in to Holt, he learns that Euchre has been bribing cops to protect CI, and that Holt can see physical conflict coming. The Engrionellis arrive at the union meeting, and after kicking out one person he knows isn’t loyal, Anunzio starts handing out weapons. We see that there are big crowds on both sides of the walls around CI, with the police standing in the middle. It’s clear that the cops don’t really know what they’re doing, especially when Maters shows proof that he has part ownership of the company and every right to be there. A cop pushes Maters, and that’s enough for violence to break out, with the cops beating on the strikers. Billi and Andrews drive their car right into the middle of the madness, and Andrews starts yelling at the cops to stop. Euchre comes up behind Billi and taunts her, so she slugs him in the face. She climbs up on the wall with a megaphone and yells for everyone to stop fighting. That’s when whatever Don was making explodes, getting everyones’ attention. Billi explains who she is, and then asks for the chemical foreman, who happens to be Frankie, to go in and figure out what’s burning. Anunzio is carrying Randy, who was hurt in the blast. Billi tells Euchre she blames him for all of this, but he says he’s not responsible. She pulls out a condom wrapper and he acts like he doesn’t know what it is. He asks Andrews to arrest Billi, but he says he might arrest him instead. Euchre makes it clear that if they are both arrested, the company will fall into government hands. This is when Anunzio comes forward, claiming he has a confession to make. Later, in court, Anunzio confesses to having killed Ray for Euchre. Billi is in the court with Anunzio’s father, who stops her from interrupting, pointing out that while Anunzio had nothing to do with Billi’s father’s death, he has killed a lot of people. Anunzio is taken away. Later, in his cell, Anunzio hangs himself. Andrews is with Billi at the CI offices, giving his condolences for the loss of Anunzio. Frankie comes to thank her on behalf of all the workers. Andrews also thanks her, saying that the department is now out from under Euchre’s influence and money. The board of directors welcomes Billi, and she’s surprised to see a familiar face – Juan Quixote is there in a suit, having joined the board. She gets ready to get to work. A plane departs for Sicily, and we see that Anunzio is on it.
I’m really glad I pulled this series out and gave it another read. I’ve seen the trade at a used bookstore I frequent, and have been tempted, but there’s nothing better than reading this in its original format – square bound forty-eight page issues on black and white newsprint. Sale’s art looks so good in this book, with the black and white approach helping to accentuate the minimalism of his art.
I thought this was a very interesting story. In 1991, Sarah Byam and Sale had a vision of a dark future that they expected to come to pass in just eight years. Their vision of a poorly funded city, corrupt police, and concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the ‘ristos’ has still not come to pass thirty-some years later, but I feel like we’re getting closer to it all the time.
Billi, in 1991, would have been still a novel take on what has started to feel like a superhero trope. The young woman who takes up the mantle of a male hero has happened with more frequency now, but this was a cool way to do it, especially since many of the people Billi came across didn’t know she was a woman.
I found the structure of the story to be curious. At times, I was wondering, is this a book about a Zorro type of hero? Is this about clearing Billi’s name and capturing her serial killer uncle? Is this about labour rights? In the end, it’s about all of these things, but I’m not sure that any of these channels were explored satisfactorily. I think that perhaps this story needed some more space to breathe and grow.
I also was puzzled by Billi’s relationship with Anunzio. They seemed to be very much in love, but never spent any time together. Why is Billi living in a rathole apartment if she could just as easily be set up in secrecy by her mobster boyfriend? I found it weird that the end of the book focused on him so much, too.
The early nineties were an interesting time in comics. People were experimenting with a lot of new approaches at a variety of companies. While in some circles the trends moved towards extreme (aka terrible) storytelling, there was also a quieter, more mature movement, and this book fit there nicely.
I’m not sure why Byam didn’t have more of a career in comics, or where she went after this. Sale’s story is pretty well known. His partnering with Jeph Loeb on the Batman: Long Hallowe’en story cemented his career (they’d done a Challenges of the Unknown comic together before that), and led to their colour-based explorations of Marvel characters. Sale was a terrific artist, and he’s much missed.
It was nice diving into a book that was so separate from continuity and a shared world (although I have a lot more questions about Toleado, and how the first one was so successful, being an overweight swordsman), especially after the continuity-defining Crisis that I read last week. Next up, I’m going to be looking at one of the strangest and most unlikely team books that Marvel ever created (not the Champions), that spun out of some of their most popular titles.
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