List of Sin City yarns
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These are the individual stories, usually referred to as "yarns", set in Frank Miller's Sin City universe. They are listed here in order of publication. The chronology of Sin City is described below.
[edit] The Hard Goodbye
- Main article: The Hard Goodbye
First published as Sin City in Dark Horse Presents issues #51-62 and 5th Anniversary Special (June 1991–June 1992), and reprinted as Sin City (The Hard Goodbye) (January 1993), The Hard Goodbye is the first comic book story that Frank Miller drew and wrote about the desperate denizens of Basin City/"Sin City". It was originally titled simply Sin City when it was released in the Dark Horse Presents Fifth Anniversary Special and issues Dark Horse Presents #51-62 , but it was given its own title in trade paperback form. The protagonist is Marv, a dangerous, possibly psychotic convict, with, (in the comics,) it seems an odd penchant for fine coats. Marv wakes up after a one-night stand to discover Goldie, the woman he had just met and had sex with, has been killed in the night. The thirteen-part serial follows Marv on his brutal, single-minded quest to understand why Goldie was killed and bring revenge upon her murderers.
This story is one of three Sin City stories retold in the movie Sin City. In the film version, Mickey Rourke plays Marv, Jaime King plays Goldie and Wendy, Carla Gugino plays Lucille, Elijah Wood plays Kevin, and Rutger Hauer plays Cardinal Roark.
Marv, a huge, heavily scarred hulk of a man, is approached in a seedy saloon by a beautiful woman named Goldie. Later they meet in an equally run-down hotel room for a night together. The two of them have sex, and when Marv wakes up she is lying in the bed next to him, murdered. Heavily armored police officers (on duty officers wear SWAT gear possibly due to the high crime rate) from Basin City's corrupt police force storm the building, and Marv fights his way through them and escapes into the streets.
As he roams the streets in pursuit of the truth, Marv has to deal with several issues. First, he feels indebted to Goldie for her kindness and wishes to repay her by avenging her death. Second, he suffers from a medical condition which causes him to 'get confused'; how this manifests is never clear, but given the criteria he associates it with, it is presumably akin to selective amnesia and mild hallucination. Even with this condition Marv seems somehow bright and street smart, and respectful of his mother, whom is not seen in the theatrical release of the movie (her scenes are included in the "uncut" DVD edition), and only a sillhouette is seen of her in the comics. At several points in the narrative he wonders if he actually murdered Goldie, especially since the two of them were alone and he feels sure he would have known if anyone had entered the room to kill Goldie. To allow him to think and act clearly and with certainty, he goes to his parole officer Lucille, a lesbian, to obtain a bottle of the pills he requires to control his condition. Finally, Marv knows from the police raid that whoever's behind Goldie's murder has deep underworld connections to set him up as Goldie's killer and have even gone to his mother's home to see if Marv took refuge there.
At one point in his journey, Marv stops by the strip club Kadie's Club Pecos, where he watches the dancing act of Nancy Callahan and to send the message out through an informant named Weevil to anyone out looking for him that he's been at bars drinking heavily and lamenting Goldie's death.
Marv's investigation eventually leads him to The Farm (the same place Detective Hartigan and Yellow Bastard had their final confrontation), where he defeats a pet wolf and discovers human remains. Marv finally encounters Goldie's killer: a beefy, shadowy figure with glowing glasses and a Charlie Brown-looking sweater. The killer is supernaturally silent and quick, and manages to sneak up on, blind and beat Marv with ease; quite a feat; Marv is over seven feet tall, probably weighs in excess of 300lbs, and had earlier shown amazing endurance escaping from the police raid on his hotel room and surviving being hit multiple times by a speeding car.
Marv wakes up in a holding cell, where he is greeted by the sight of several stuffed female heads, mounted on the wall like trophies. Also held in the cell is Lucille, who explains that the killer kills women so that he can dine on their flesh. Lucille is understandably quite shaken, as the killer had previously kidnapped her and forced her to watch while he cooked and sucked the flesh off her severed left hand. From the cell, Marv watches the killer being picked up by a limousine, and learns that his name is "Kevin."
Marv and Lucille escape, but are intercepted by a SWAT team. Unwilling to die in a shootout, Lucille knocks Marv down and runs towards the cops. Believing she has been rescued, Lucille attempts to convince them not to kill Marv. The cops quickly kill her to eliminate any witnesses. Marv kills the cops and learns from torturing the lead detective that the man who wants him dead is Cardinal Roark, brother to Senator Roark and a member of the powerful and corrupt Roark family that founded and runs Basin City.
In trying to dig up more leads to who Goldie was, Marv heads to Old Town. Marv is soon captured by the Old Town prostitutes, led by Goldie's twin sister Wendy, who all believe Marv is responsible for Goldie's death (and the other missing prostitutes Kevin killed and ate) and thus intend to torture and kill him. Marv convinces them that he is innocent, stating that no prostitute in their right mind would let someone as ugly and fearsome-looking as him close enough to kill her, and they release him. Along with Wendy, Marv picks up the items he needs to confront Kevin.
Armed with gasoline, handcuffs, razor wire, a hatchet, his gun 'Gladys' and his "mitts", Marv sets up a series of traps around the Farm, then flushes Kevin out by bombarding the Farm with a Molotov cocktail bomb. Kevin manages to avoid Marv's razor wire rig, and the two of them fight it out hand-to-hand. Marv takes quite a beating, but keeps on fighting and eventually manages to outsmart Kevin by handcuffing him to himself, allowing him to knock out Kevin with a strong punch to the face. Wendy shows up with a gun, intending to kill Kevin herself, but Marv knocks her out and carries her back to the car; he intends to torture Kevin himself first, and doesn't want Wendy to have nightmares from witnessing it.
Marv proceeds to dismember Kevin with a hacksaw, then feeds his still-living torso to Kevin's pet wolf. Even as his entrails are being devoured by his own pet, Kevin simply smiles calmly and doesn't utter a sound. Marv decapitates Kevin's body and proceeds to take the unconscious Wendy back to Nancy's apartment, (after putting a call in to Kadie's for her,) where Nancy patches him up, gives him a couple of beers and agrees to put Wendy on a plane at Sacred Oaks.
Robbed of any satisfaction from Kevin's death, Marv goes on to sneak into Cardinal Roark's heavily guarded mission. Marv kills Roark's guards and confronts the naked Cardinal in his bed. Marv then presents Kevin's still smiling head to Roark, and demands an explanation. Roark, anguished over Kevin's death, confesses that he shielded the boy because he had a "voice like an angel". Roark babbles on about how Kevin not only ate his victims' bodies, but also their souls, making him pure and clean. Roark confesses to envying Kevin's "gift", ultimately joining Kevin in his meals of murdered women in order to experience it for himself. Goldie found out about Kevin, so Kevin killed her, and Roark sent in the police to kill Marv, frame him, and cover up Kevin's crimes. Roark rationalizes that the killings were justified because the victims were merely hookers and insignificant.
Marv proceeds to torture Cardinal Roark to death, which he says was every bit as good as he promised, only better. After the Cardinal is dead, armed guards storm the room and fill Marv with sub-machine gun fire, seriously crippling him.
Marv is hospitalized, and ultimately is charged not only with the murders of the people he killed, but also of the serial killings committed by Kevin. A hotshot Assistant District Attorney threatens to have Marv's mother killed if Marv doesn't confess to the crimes, so Marv breaks the Assistant DA's arm in three places, then confesses.
Marv is sentenced to death, much to the glee of Basin City's inhabitants. On his last night, he is visited by Wendy, who says that he can pretend that she's Goldie in one final moment of love.
Finally, that night, Marv is taken to the electric chair. Strapped down with his head shaved, he urges them to "get a move on", but when the switch is thrown he survives. With his last words, he defiantly mocks his executioners, asking if "That's the best you can do, you pansies?" They electrocute him again, which finally kills him.
[edit] A Dame To Kill For
- Main article: A Dame to Kill For
First published November 1993–May 1994, A Dame To Kill For is the second compilation of the Sin City series. It chronicles Dwight's attempts to rescue Ava Lord, Dwight's former fiancée from her husband and servant, who she says are sadistically torturing her. Dwight begins to suspect that things aren't what they seem with Ava.
The story begins as Dwight McCarthy, working as a photographer for a grossly overweight man named Agamemnon, saves one of the Old Town prostitutes from one of her customers, whom Dwight was investigating on behalf of his wife; he then drives her back to Old Town. That night, he receives a call from a woman named Ava, asking him to meet her at a seedy bar called Kadie's Club Pecos. Dwight is suspicious of her, as Ava had broken his heart four years ago by running off with another richer man, but he agrees to meet her anyway. Marv is also there and greets Dwight. Ava arrives late, (as she often used to,) and tries to persuade Dwight to take her back, claiming that her life is "a living Hell"; Dwight refuses to listen. Just then, a large black man named Manute, Ava's husband's valet, arrives, taking Ava away. Dwight goes home, but cannot sleep. He decides to check up on Ava and her new husband, Damien Lord.
He hops a fence and, using his photography equipment, scopes out the estate. He is discovered and claims that he is a Peeping Tom. Manute seemingly doesn't recognize him, but beats him brutally anyway before throwing him from a car into the street. Dwight calls Agamemnon for a ride home, and they stop to get pizza. As he arrives home, he finds his Ford Mustang returned and his door unlocked. In his bedroom is a nude Ava. Following a heated argument, they eventually reconcile and make love. Manute arrives and violently beats a naked Dwight. Dwight is knocked out of his upper story apartment window, where he blacks out momentarily. He awakens to find Manute driving off with Ava.
Determined to rescue her, Dwight arrives at Kadie’s, where Marv is in the middle of a squabble with some out-of-town punks. One of them pulls a gun on Marv, who knocks him flat; the rest quickly scatter. Dwight convinces Marv, over several drinks and whilst watching Nancy dance, to help him storm Damien's estate. As they approach the mansion, Dwight insists Marv leave the punk's gun, which Marv has procured, in the car. Marv tackles the guards as a distraction and eventually takes on Manute, ripping his right eye out and beating him savagely. With Manute and the guards occupied, Dwight makes his way to Damien. When he finds him in his office, he beats him to death. As Dwight begins to realize what he has done, Ava appears, and explains how Dwight was all a part of her plan to get Damien murdered so she could inherit his estate. She shoots Dwight six times, including once in the head. Dwight once again falls out of a window and is picked up by Marv. Upon Dwight's insistence, Marv drives him to Old Town, where Dwight has his old flame, Gail, help him. The girls of Old Town perform surgery on Dwight's multiple bullet wounds, then ask him to leave. He convinces Gail and Miho, a deadly assassin he saved three years prior, to let him stay, and they operate further on him.
Two detectives following up on Damien Lord's death, Mort and Bob, talk to Ava. She claims that Dwight was a stalker psychopath who killed Damien out of jealousy. They believe her story, and Mort starts sleeping with her. They interrogate Agamemnon, who tells how Dwight is an upright man who went clean after being such a wild alcoholic with a short temper in his younger days. When they speak with Dwight's landlady, she tells about letting Ava in and the resulting loud noises of the fight the night of Damien's murder. Bob doubts Ava considerably now, while Mort, still sleeping with Ava, becomes more on-edge towards his partner. This culminates with Mort killing Bob, then committing suicide. (On an unrelated note, during the scene in which Mort kills Bob, while they are driving in the car you can clearly see Wendy and Marv drive past them, presumably on their way to butcher Kevin.)
Meanwhile, Dwight is recovering from his near-fatal wounds and calls Ava to inform her he's coming for her soon. Ava, with her late husband's financial assets, is joining her corporation with the mob boss Wallenquist. Unaffected by Ava's flirting, he warns her not to underestimate him again and tells her to tie up her loose ends with Dwight; he has someone arriving from Phoenix soon to meet her about that.
Dwight (with his new face), accompanied by Gail and Miho, poses as Wallenquist's man from Phoenix. Once inside Ava's estate, Manute sees past the new face and captures Dwight. Gail and Miho strike from Dwight's car, and Dwight shoots Manute with a hidden .25 he had up his left sleeve. Six bullets fail to kill him, and Manute aims shakily at Dwight as Ava grabs one of Manute's guns, shooting Manute in his shoulder. Manute falls through a window and, upon landing, is stabbed in the arms by Miho, pinning him to the ground. Ava then tries to get Dwight to kill him, telling him that Manute had her under mind control to manipulate her and Damien and that it would be a cruel irony if he killed her now. Dwight finally sees through all the lies and kills Ava.
[edit] The Babe Wore Red and Other Stories
First published November 1994, The Babe Wore Red and Other Stories is a publication of short stories. It reprints a serial run in Previews:
- And Behind Door Number Three? (4 pages long)
- The Customer is Always Right (3 pages long)
- The Babe Wore Red (23 pages long)
And Behind Door Number Three? is a short story about Gail and Wendy (who's now wearing Marv's necklace) setting a trap for a man they suspect is 'carving up' girls in Old Town.
The enigmatic "Cowboy" is captured by the allure of Wendy and subsequently shot and tied up by Gail. Although the Cowboy is willing to confess to the cops, the girls have other plans and invite Miho to finish the job.
The Customer is Always Right short served as the opening sequence for the movie Sin City, which featured Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton. The sequence served as the original proof of concept footage that director Robert Rodriguez filmed to convince Frank Miller to allow him to adapt Sin City to the silver screen.
The story involves an enigmatic tryst between two nameless characters; "The Customer" and "The Salesman." They meet on the terrace of a high rise building, hinting that although they seem to be acting like strangers, they do indeed have some sort of past. It is unclear what their past involves even as they embrace in a passionate kiss.
A silenced gunshot stabs the night air to reveal that The Salesman has shot The Customer. The reader is led to believe that The Customer had fallen into a serious and difficult situation and, with no other feasible alternative, hired The Salesman to kill her. Later information given by Frank Miller on the commentary of the Recut & Extended DVD Edition states that The Customer had an affair with a member of the mafia, and when she found out tried to break it off with him. The mafia member then swore to her that she would die in the most terrible way possible, and when it is least expected. The Customer, having connections, hires The Salesman (who is referred to as "The Lady-Killer") to kill her. In the comic The Salesman is the Colonel, as Miller has verified in the BLAM! section page 29 of the one-shot issue Sex & Violence.
The Babe Wore Red centers around the character of Dwight and the murder of his friend Fargo. Dwight stumbles upon the hanging corpse of Fargo in his apartment and encounters Mr Shlubb, half of the recurring supporting duo, Douglas Klump and Burt Shlubb (aka Fat Man and Little Boy).
He knocks out Shlubb and finds the titular character hiding in the shower. Under a barrage of sniper shots from Douglas Klump, Dwight and the Babe reach their car and speed off. Although they successfully elude the pair, Dwight refuses to let them off easy, choosing rather to head to The Farm to deal with them. In the mean time, the Babe introduces herself as a hooker named Mary, but Dwight can tell she's lying. He duels with both of them again and due to insistence from Mary decides to shoot them in the leg instead of killing them. He eventually receives a package from Fargo who had shipped it off before his untimely demise. Dwight reads up on the whole situation and realizes that Fargo was simply the scapegoat for illegal drug-related activities and had paid the ultimate price. He also receives a package from Mary. She was not a hooker, rather a nun that had flirted with temptation before ultimately deciding to dedicate her life to God.
The time frame for the story is given as during the time Marv spent on death row in "The Hard Goodbye", as noted when Dwight mentions that he had a friend on death row because of what happened at the Roark family farm.
[edit] Silent Night
Silent Night is a one-shot short story that Frank Miller released in November 1994. It is a 15-page story about Marv's rescue of a little girl, in which there is almost no dialogue; only one speech bubble appears in the entire story.
Against a backdrop of heavy snow, Marv, a hulking, trenchcoat-clad figure, approaches a door in a dark alley. He intimidates the bouncer, Fatman, with his sheer size and is led inside and down a flight of stairs. He is met by two armed men and a leather-clad woman, who is apparently their boss. Marv hands her a wad of bills and is shown to a steel door in the far wall. Through a small viewing slit, he can see a terrified little girl crouching in darkness in the room beyond. Marv draws two pistols and kills the pair of henchmen, then executes the woman (promptly breaking his own code of honor towards women). It only then becomes apparent that the child was being sold for sex. He retrieves the little girl, saying, "Your momma's been callin' after you, Kimberly. Let's get you home." With the girl in his arms, he walks off into the distance, as the snow obscures his receding form.
[edit] The Big Fat Kill
First published November 1994–March 1995, The Big Fat Kill opens in Shellie's apartment, where a drunken former fling is furiously rapping on her door, demanding to be let in. Shellie is obviously scared, but is comforted by Dwight who has gotten a new face (see A Dame To Kill For). Dwight tells the barmaid to let the man and his ensuing entourage in, expressing confidence in his ability to 'handle them'. When the man outside threatens to break down her door, Shellie reluctantly opens it while Dwight hides in the bathroom.
The drunken man, named Jack, talks about his plans to have fun at every bar in town that night and insists Shellie call in some of her fellow co-workers to come along. Shellie refuses and it culminates in Jack hitting her in the face. He then goes to the bathroom where Dwight is hiding in the shower stall. Getting the jump on Jack, Dwight holds a straight razor to his eye and tells him to stop bothering Shellie.
When Jack scoffs at the threat Dwight dunks his head into the toilet (where Jack had been urinating the minute before) until his body goes limp.
Jack awakens a few seconds later and storms out, demanding that his group not mention these events. Shellie investigates the apartment and finds Dwight on the ledge outside the building. After ensuring her safety, Dwight becomes worried that Jack will cause more trouble and must be stopped somehow. He jumps off the building, ignoring Shellie's muffled yell that sounds like "Stop!".
As Dwight speeds toward Jack's car, his speeding has caught the attention of the police. A police car follows them both, but stops and turns around once the cars enter Old Town, the area of Sin City full of and run by the prostitutes of the area.
As Jack spots a young girl named Becky walking alone in a dark alley, he follows beside her, asking coyly for her services and constantly being rejected. Dwight follows close behind and is then caught off guard by Gail, one of Old Town's most experienced hookers and guardians. She advises Dwight to stay put and let the girls handle Jack themselves. As Dwight spots Miho on the roof, he uncomfortably agrees and watches as the alley is closed off.
Meanwhile, Jack continues to pester Becky, escalating to outright anger at the egging on of his friends. He finally pulls out a handgun and aims it at her. Instead of being scared or surprised, Becky is instead filled with pity, proclaiming that he has just done the dumbest thing in his life. Immediately afterward Miho throws a Manji-shaped projectile that cuts off Jack's hand, then descend on the car and quickly kills every man but Jack.
During the attack, Dwight has an impending sense that something is wrong but can't place his finger on it. Miho and Jack get in a standoff. As Dwight tries to make Jack quit his foolish game, Miho sabotages his gun by throwing a plug into the barrel. When Jack tries to shoot the intervening Dwight his gun backfires, sending the slide into his forehead. Miho finishes him off by slicing his neck, making 'a Pez dispenser out of him'.
As the girls loot the corpses, Dwight searches Jack's person and finds a police badge revealing him to be Detective Lieutenant "Iron" Jack Rafferty. Then he realizes that Shellie was screaming "COP!". This is bad for all of Old Town, as the shaky truce between the police and the girls will be all but shattered. Gail starts proclaiming they'll fight anyone who tries to take them out while Dwight tries to recommend disposing the bodies before anyone suspects anything. Finally, after a tense argument between Gail and Dwight, the girls agree to hide the bodies in the Pits as Dwight recommended.
After acquiring a car, slicing up all the bodies to stuff in the back trunk and leaving Jack in the front seat due to lack of space, Dwight begins the rainy drive to the Pits. On the way there, Dwight begins to hallucinate that Jack is egging him on. Although Dwight knows he is hallucinating, unlike Marv, he cannot quiet the gibbering corpse. With his mind not completely focused, his driving suffers, attracting police attention again. As he contemplates whether or not to kill the cop, he brakes hard. Jack's body slumps forward, hiding the neck wound and the gun casing lodged in his head. The cop looks through Dwight's window and notices the corpse, believing it to be an unconscious, drunken friend. Dwight tells the cop he's the designated driver. The cop then notifies Dwight that he's driving with a broken taillight, and lets him off with a warning.
At the Pits Dwight is attacked by Irish mercenaries. One aims at his heart, fires and dwight falls down, while the mercanaries are arguing how good America is, one finds the badge,which has the bullet he fired. Dwight jumps up and quickly disposes of four of them, but is knocked out by a grenade and falls into the pit along with the car. The mercenaries decapitate Jack, taking the head and leaving Dwight for dead, sinking into the pits. Miho rescues him and Dwight begins to figure out that there is a snitch in Old Town who informed the mob that a cop was murdered by the Old Town prostitutes. Along with Miho and her driver, Dallas, he takes off in pursuit of the remaining mercenaries.
Back at Old Town, Gail has been ambushed and kidnapped by Manute, who has survived the assaults of Dwight and Miho. Gail is tortured but refuses to "facilitate" the process of surrendering Old Town. It becomes clear that Becky had sold out Old Town for money and her mother's safety. Gail bites and rips a chunk off of Becky's neck in anger, vowing that she deserves worse.
Dwight, Dallas and Miho realize they must recover Jack's head. They cut through backroads to reach the Projects, where they catch up with their targets. Dallas rams the car into the mercenaries' and she ends up getting gunned down by one of them. After dodging some grenades, Dwight corners Brian, the last mercenary, in the sewers. Dwight is caught off guard by more grenades and is about to be cut up until Miho arrives to finish Brian off. With the head in tow they go off to rescue Gail and Old Town.
As the gangsters prepare to further torture Gail, and kill Becky, an arrow shoots through one of the henchmen with a note prompting a trade: Jack's head for Gail's life.
As Dwight stands alone in an alley outside the gangsters' building with the head, outnumbered and outgunned, the trade is made: Gail being freed and the head, now bandaged up, handed over. Becky questions why the head is now bandaged when it wasn't before. Dwight then triggers the grenades stolen from the last mercenary, exploding the head.
The gangsters now realize they are in a trap as the girls of Old Town reveal themselves, heavily armed also, on the roof. Before any defensive measures can be taken, the men and Becky are gunned down.
The story is one of three from Sin City related in the film Sin City. In the film, Clive Owen plays Dwight, Brittany Murphy plays Shellie, Benicio del Toro plays Jack, Rosario Dawson plays Gail, Devon Aoki plays Miho, Alexis Bledel plays Becky, and Michael Clarke Duncan plays Manute.
A notable difference from the comic version is that Becky survives the final gunfight by hiding in a nook in the alley, leaving her alive for the final "epilogue" scene of the movie which ends when she meets a killer who had been introduced in the movie's prologue, who was describing Sin City to the viewers. With Becky, he marks another victim.
[edit] That Yellow Bastard
First published in February 1996–July 1996, That Yellow Bastard is a six-issue comic book miniseries, and the sixth in the Sin City series. It follows the usual black and white noir style artistry of previous Sin City novels. That Yellow Bastard is currently under publication by Dark Horse Comics; the first edition became available in July 1997 (ISBN 1-56971-225-5).
The story begins more than eight years before any other Sin City book takes place, with the possibly most noble, and heroic protagonist in the Sin City universe, a policeman known as John Hartigan (who also has severe angina problems) on his final mission before his forced retirement. Roark Junior, son of one of the most powerful and corrupt officials in Basin City, is indulging his penchant for raping and murdering pre-pubescent girls. It is Hartigan's mission to rescue Junior's latest quarry, a thin eleven-year-old named Nancy Callahan - (see also Pedophilia and child sexual abuse in films).
Hartigan succeeds in rescuing Nancy by disabling Junior's getaway car, which was being guarded by two guns-for-hire with 'delusions of eloquence', Burt Schlubb and Douglas Klump (a.k.a. Fat Man and Little Boy), and then proceeds to use his revolver to surgically shoot off Junior's left ear, right hand, and genitals. Before he can finish Junior off, Hartigan's corrupt partner Bob, who fears angering Senator Roark, shoots Hartigan in the back and in the chest several times, seriously injuring him, and paving the way for one of Sin City's most touching and self-sacrificial scenes involving the 11-year-old Nancy and Hartigan.
Roark Jr. lapses into a coma from his injuries, and Senator Roark takes issue with the abuse of his son. Hartigan finds himself framed for raping Nancy, is branded a pedophile and sentenced to a lengthy prison term amidst a public outcry that brands him one of Sin City's most hated citizens. Despite his innocence and the pariah status he has achieved as a result of his conviction, he remains silent about his pain, knowing that Senator Roark would have anyone who ever found out the truth executed. The only one to whom Hartigan spoke in the hospital was Nancy, who snuck out against her parents' wishes to see the man who saved her. Fearing she will be killed, Hartigan tells her to stay away from him, so Nancy tells Hartigan she will write him letters instead. She will sign her name as "Cordelia" to hide her identity from Roark Junior. Hartigan complies and says goodbye to her. Before leaving, Nancy tells Hartigan she loves him.
After his stint in the hospital, Hartigan is seen tied to a chair, cuffed and being beaten by Det. Liebowitz in order to force him to sign a false confession. Amidst the hours of repeated punching and being tempted by prison luxuries and even sex with an Old Town prostitute, Hartigan doesn't crack under the pressure, although he hallucinates that he is granted the strength of Hercules, breaks from his cuffs and kills Liebowitz by exploding his head.
Afterwards, alone in prison and abandoned by his wife Eileen (who proceeds to re-marry and finally have children) and his friends, he finds solace in the carefully disguised weekly letters he receives from Nancy. Hartigan quickly develops a paternal love for young Nancy, and sees her as the daughter he never had. For eight years, he drags himself through his jail time, his only respite the letters his young admirer sends him, until finally the letters stop coming. Although he initially believes Nancy has merely outgrown her childhood hero, Hartigan soon becomes increasingly worried that Senator Roark has finally found Nancy. His fears are confirmed when a deformed, hairless visitor with sickly yellow skin who smells distinctly like a garbage can arrives at his prison cell and punches him out. Hartigan awakens and discovers the same type of envelope Nancy always uses, except instead of a letter from her inside, it contains an index finger from the right hand of a nineteen-year-old girl.
Believing Nancy to be in imminent danger, Hartigan's passive view of his current incarceration changes. He decides to find some way out, and contacts his lawyer, Lucille (the lesbian parole officer from The Hard Goodbye). Much to his own lawyer's surprise and disgust, Hartigan decides to claim responsibility to the crimes of which he was accused. At his parole hearing, he is humiliated again when Senator Roark acts like a good man who's willing to forgive Hartigan. Hartigan knows it's a ruse to insult him, but to show sincerity that he's a reformed man, he asks Senator Roark for forgiveness for what he did to his son. Hartigan is finally released on parole, apparently due to Senator Roark's satisfaction over his confession and submission.
Back on the streets, the elderly ex-con/ex-cop sets off to find Nancy. He looks her name up in a phone book and learns she lives somewhere on North Culver. He goes to her apartment, but finds it empty and in disarray. The only clue to her whereabouts is a pack of matches from Kadie's bar. He follows that lead in hopes of discovering where Nancy, now nineteen, can be found, or at least maybe get more leads. Hartigan finds that she is no longer the little girl he rescued from a child-murderer 8 years ago, but is now a woman who works in the club as an exotic dancer - and is unharmed. The envelope containing the finger was merely a ploy to get him to crack and lead Roark to Nancy. Hartigan smells a set-up, and something far worse, the distinct odor of rotting garbage. "That Yellow Bastard", the man who arrived at the cell with the envelope, has followed him, and he has revealed Nancy's location.
Nancy recognizes Hartigan and jumps into his arms. They leave Kadie's shortly afterward and get into her car. There is a high-speed pursuit, with the "Bastard" close on their tail; Nancy is at the wheel, while Hartigan uses Nancy's revolver to fire a precise shot that hits the "Bastard" in the neck. Hartigan insists on stopping to confirm the kill; accompanied by Nancy, he disovers the "Bastard's" foul-smelling blood everywhere, but no body. Eventually, he and Nancy hide out in a motel. There, they share a kiss, where Nancy reveals she is in love with him; but Hartigan refuses to move any further because of the paternalistic nature of his relationship to Nancy. Unknown to them, the "Bastard" has hidden in the backseat of Nancy's car, and emerges while Hartigan and Nancy are talking in the motel.
Hartigan, in the shower, is ambushed once again by "That Yellow Bastard", who reveals himself to be Roark Junior. Senator Roark used his vast financial resources to resurrect his son using means outside the boundaries of conventional science, hiring doctors, witch doctors, and gene therapists to bring Junior out of his coma and reconstitute his severed body parts. As a result, Junior lives, but not without being an unnatural abomination. Junior knocks Hartigan down, lynches him naked with a noose, and boasts of raping and killing dozens of girls over the past eight years. He then talks about how clever and pretty Nancy was, and kisses her on the neck, saying that while Nancy is older than his usual girls, he'll forgive himself "just this once." With that said, he kicks the desk out from under Hartigan and escapes with Nancy.
Hartigan seems to give up, but awakes in his noose, wills himself back to life, and manages to break free from the rope by breaking a window and using a shattered glass shard to cut the rope around his hands. Fat Man and Little Boy, still seemingly Junior's henchmen after eight years, show up to dispose of Hartigan's body (in a Ferrari with no trunk); they are quickly subdued, and forced to tell Hartigan that Junior had fled to the Roark family farm (described as a place where bad things happen) with Nancy, presumably to rape and murder her.
Racing to the Farm, Hartigan suffers a severe angina attack, but continues in order to save Nancy. At this time, Nancy is being flogged by Junior and, like Hartigan, won't allow her torturer the pleasure of her pain by screaming. Hartigan shows up, takes down a few corrupt police officers guarding the Farm and confronts Junior, who has Nancy at knife point. Hartigan then fakes a heart attack and drops his gun. Junior shoves Nancy aside and decides to slice Hartigan up while he's on the floor. Hartigan suddenly pulls out a switchblade and stabs him in the chest, calls him a "sucker" and then proceeds to castrate Junior once again (this time with his bare hands) and then brutally beat his head into pulp, killing him. Nancy and Hartigan share another kiss, this time without Hartigan's paternalistic feelings getting in the way. Hartigan then tells Nancy to flee, lying to her that he will call up some old police friends of his to clean up the scene of the crime.
With Nancy gone, Hartigan realizes that by killing Roark Jr. he has made a deadly enemy of Senator Roark, who would stop at nothing until Hartigan was dead. Hartigan also realizes that Senator Roark would most likely target Nancy first, in order to make Hartigan suffer for killing his son. In order to spare Nancy this fate, in an act of pure love, Hartigan turns his .44 Magnum on himself and commits suicide.
In Rodriguez's adaptation, Bruce Willis stars as Hartigan, Jessica Alba as Nancy, Nick Stahl as the Yellow Bastard/Junior, Powers Boothe as Senator Roark and Michael Madsen as Hartigan's partner, Bob. There are only a few notable differences in the film version: Mort is replaced by Bob when Hartigan is released from prison, and an appearance by Carla Gugino as Lucille is omitted (but reinstated in the extended version released to DVD).
In the DVD commentary, Frank Miller indicated that he was initially motivated to write That Yellow Bastard after his disappointment with The Dead Pool, the fifth and final film in the Dirty Harry series. Nancy -- who prior to this story had no last name -- was named "Callahan," presumably after Clint Eastwood's character in those films.
[edit] Daddy's Little Girl
Daddy's Little Girl was first published in A Decade of Dark Horse #1 (July 1996) and reprinted in Tales to Offend #1 (July 1997), and Booze, Broads, and Bullets.
Johnny is a middle-aged man who seems to be in love with a much younger girl by the name of Amy. Amy insists that they can't be together and alludes to the solution that he kills her father. Torn by his emotions and manipulated by Amy, he attempts to confront her father first, asking for her hand in marriage. Daddy refuses and Johnny shoots him with a revolver that Amy gave him.
Temporarily overcome with remorse, Johnny realizes that it was all fake and the bullets he shot were blanks. Daddy beats Johnny half to death and it becomes apparent that he is not only her father but also her lover and that the entire ruse was a sadistic form of sexual role-playing. The story closes with Daddy closing his hands around Johnny's throat.
[edit] Lost, Lonely, & Lethal
First published December 1996, Lost, Lonely, & Lethal contains three stories:
- Fat Man and Little Boy (3 pages)
- Blue Eyes (14 pages)
- Rats (7 pages)
Fat Man and Little Boy is a short three-page story about Douglas Klump and Burt Shlubb, who also appear in "That Yellow Bastard" and "Family Values." These characters use a large vocabulary to make it appear that they are more intelligent than they truthfully are. However their wordy speeches are sprinkled with malapropisms. In this yarn, Shlubb's boots are in horrible shape, and he wishes to steal the shoes off a corpse, wrapped in a rug, that they're supposed to dump in the river.
Klump tells him that they're supposed to leave the body as it is. Shlubb disagrees and pulls the boots off, to discover that there are no feet in them, and a ticking sound rings through their ears. This was apparently a test, and the two buffoons get thrown several yards away as the explosion hits. It seems they failed the test miserably.
Blue Eyes, the second story, is the first appearance of Delia. It begins as a man named Jim notices someone he assumes is a hitman following him. He runs into Kadie’s, where he is confronted by an ex-flame named Delia. Marv is sitting next to them at the bar, and provides some comic relief. The hitman enters the bar and Jim convinces Delia to leave with him. Marv then steals his drink, reasoning that it would have gone to waste otherwise.
They go back to his place and make love. She then attacks him, and explains that this is her test. She wants to become a hitwoman, and she must first kill the only man she ever loved. After killing Jim, the Colonel appears who was none other than the 'hitman' who had been following Jim. He gives her an assignment and she takes on the name 'Blue Eyes', which is what Jim used to call her.
Blue Eyes is shown to take place at the same time as A Dame To Kill For, as part of the story shows Gail telling Shelley what to tell the police about Dwight. The story also has brief appearances by many characters, including Miho, Agammemnon and Manute.
Rats is the final story, it is about a disturbed war criminal who eats dog food. It was adapted to a 2004 fan film of the same name. [1]
The sadistic war criminal (and presumed Nazi) stuffs rats in his oven to eat as he mentally rambles about the London Blitz, his arthritis and how he killed all the 'rats', which were all people. A mercenary known amongst readers as 'The Janitor' kicks down the door and incapacitates him, before shoving his head into the oven, gassing him to death.
This story has received negative reception from a wide range of readers, but others still consider it to be a memorable addition to the Sin City series.
'The Janitor' has been speculated to be the same assassin who tried to snipe Wallace in Esther's apartment.
[edit] Sex & Violence
Sex & Violence was first published in March 1997 and only contains two stories, both of which feature Delia:
- Wrong Turn (23 pages)
- Wrong Track (3 pages)
The two stories take place on the same night, with the second taking place minutes after the first.
Wrong Turn is the first story, in which a man named Phil has just killed his wife. He drives aimlessly in the rain, eventually finding Delia unconscious on a dirt road. He picks her up, and she tells him that she must have got struck by lightning. He offers to take her to the hospital, but she refuses. She asks if he is married, and he says that he is not. She takes him to the pits, and they make love. In the middle of it, he confesses that he is, in fact, married.
She starts choking him and calls him by the name of Eddie. She claims he has a trunk-load of stolen jewels he plans to sell in Sacred Oaks, violating an exclusivity agreement with the Wallenquist Organization. He explains that he is a used car salesman named Phil, and she understands. Eddie was supposed to be driving a similar Studebaker, and looked very similar. She sticks the heel of her shoe in his eye socket, killing him. She meets up with the Colonel and Gordo at the entrance to the pits. They check the trunk of Phil's car and find his wife with six bullets in her belly. They throw him in as well and Gordo pushes the car into the pits. Delia explains that she has a train to catch.
Wrong Track is the second story, which picks up soon after. Eddie is riding the train. His internal monologue explains that he had a flat tire. Delia hits on him, and they make love near the back of the train.
When they're done, she snaps his neck and throws him off the train. Leaving the rear of the train, the Colonel waits for her. "Delia-- do you plan to make love to each and every one of them?" he asks. Her response is "Only the ones I like."
[edit] Just Another Saturday Night
Just Another Saturday Night was first published in Sin City #1/2 (August 1997), a limited mail-in comic available only through a special offer in Wizard (magazine) #73. It was later reprinted in a mass-market edition as Just Another Saturday Night (October 1998).
It is the story of what Marv was up to on the night John Hartigan met back up with Nancy (from That Yellow Bastard). Marv regains consciousness on a highway overlooking the Projects, surrounded by dead young guys, unable to remember how he got there. He lights one of the dead guys' cigarettes and thinks back; since it is Saturday, he deduces he must have been at Kadie's watching Nancy dance...
Marv was rather depressed after seeing Nancy leave with Hartigan, as he'd always had an unrequited crush on her, so the barkeep gives him a bottle to drown his sorrow with. He gets drunk and steps outside, only to find some preppy college kids trying to burn drunks and winos to death. He immediately kills one of them and chases the rest to The Projects, where along the way he destroys a police patrol car and hijacks another vehicle. At the Projects, Marv instructs his former neighbors via hand-signals to attack the kids, and they do so by firing arrows at them. After questioning the last surviving kid about him being called 'Bernini boy', (it was the name of the brand of coat he was wearing,) he slits his throat. This done, he muses, "And one fine coat it is. Somebody must've spent a fortune on it. I wonder who?" But he cannot seem to remember where he got the coat or gloves.
[edit] Family Values
Family Values was first published in (October 1997) and was the fifth "yarn" in Frank Miller's series. Unlike the previous four stories, Family Values was released as a 128-page graphic novel rather than in serialized issues that would later be collected in a trade paperback volume.
Dwight is on a mission from Gail to dig up information about a recent mob hit at a small diner. After being hit on by a female cop, (who he manages to get rid of by pretending to be a bisexual masochist,) he goes into a bar near where the hit happened and tries to charm one of the local drinkers there named Peggy.
Dwight also spots Fat Man and Little Boy, which makes his job easier later on. As Dwight keeps charming Peggy, she realizes he's not interested in any company that night and only looking for information behind the recent hit. It's revealed that Bruno, the target, was killed by Vito; one of Don Magliozzi's nephews and also one of his hitmen. This was done in retaliation on Don Magliozzi's part as Bruno killed his beloved niece years ago. Going against his family's treaty with mob boss Wallenquist, he orders Vito to kill Bruno, who is on Wallenquist's payroll, immediately. Afterwards, everyone's nervous about what Wallenquist will do and if there will be a mob war in retaliation. With that information, Dwight leaves the bar and is confronted by Vito and some other hitmen who came when Fat Man and Little Boy alerted them someone was digging around for information.
Dwight is kidnapped by them, but is more interested in Vito's car and constantly refers to it as his just as soon as he kills all of them. No one believes him as they drive toward the Projects. Unknown to them except for Dwight is that Miho was following Dwight for protection. On the way, Vito tells his side of the story as to how he killed every living thing he saw, including a stray dog. Dwight is satisfied with this and orders Miho to maker her appearance. She kills Spinelli, one of the goons, and they park in a hilltop rest area, overlooking the Projects. There, Miho toys with one of the hitmen as Dwight tells Vito to kill the other hitman; Vito's own brother Lucca. After Miho and Dwight are through, they head straight to Sacred Oaks to confront Don Magliozzi, driven by Vito.
Miho cuts through the guards and Dwight makes his appearance. He tells the Don he is going to die along with Vito for the accidentical death of Carmen, one of the Old Town girls. Dwight tells them Vito shouldn't have shot at the stray dog, since the angles were in a straight line to where Carmen was calling for a ride when Vito shot her. Carmen's lesbian lover, Daisy, arrives as Dwight walks away from the Don and his associates. Daisy guns them down as Dwight remarks there's going to be a mob war because of this, but that neither he nor the girls of Old Town will have cause to worry about it. Finally, he takes possession of Vito's car and drives off into the night.
[edit] Hell and Back (a Sin City Love Story)
Hell and Back (a Sin City Love Story) was first published in (July 1999–April 2000)
Hell and Back is the longest of the Sin City stories, spanning 9 issues. It tells the story of Wallace, an artist/war hero/short order cook who saves a suicidal woman named Esther. She likes his art and they go out for a drink. They are ambushed by two men, who drug Wallace and kidnap Esther.
Apparently, The Colonel and Liebowitz are a part of this conspiracy. Wallace spends the night in the drunk tank, after being dragged out of the gutter by two of Basin City's (notoriously corrupt) police officers, Manson and Bundy, and upon his release seeks out Esther. He is crossed once again by a squad of police officers after he tells Commissioner Liebowitz he plans to find Esther alone if need be, and proceeds to dispatch them with humiliating ease, leaving them bound, naked and without money. After locating Esther's home via his landlady, (she'd taken her address,) he finds her apartment occupied by Delia, who claims to be Esther's roommate.
Wallace and Delia are attacked by the Colonel's new manservant, Manute, but they escape after Wallace beats him in hand-to-hand combat and throws him out of the window (a reference to a similar scene from A Dame To Kill For). Then a sniper attacks from a nearby window, whom Wallace takes out out by shooting him through the scope of his rifle, similar to a scene from Robocop 2 (Also written by Miller). All the while, Delia tries unsuccessfully to seduce him, even trying to fellate him as they are pursued by two more assassins in a Mustang, which Wallace also disposes of.
Afterwards, Wallace meets up with an old war buddy referred to only as Captain. He borrows an old Chevrolet Nomad known as 'The Heap' from him and Wallace and Delia turn in for the night at the Last Hope Motel (a reference to Nancy Callahan's car and the place where she and John Hartigan hide in That Yellow Bastard).
Wallace handcuffs her to the bed for what she believes is foreplay, when he reveals that he knows she cannot be Esther's roommate, since Esther's clothes would have the smell of Delia's cigarettes on them. Just then, Wallace is drugged by a sniper for the second time. He wakes at the Santa Yolanda Tar Pits, where Delia, Gordo, and a drug wizard named Maxine are preparing to abandon his car in the pits. Maxine gives him a huge dose of something strange and Wallace goes on a trip.
A large portion of the comic, wherein he finds himself hallucinating, is then done in full color, similar to Miller's work on Ronin and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns saga, (all colored by Lynn Varley, his wife). After a surreal sequence involving a crashing fighter jet, trash-talking cherubs and dinosaurs, the car hits a tree. He discovers a young girl dead in the trunk, intended to frame him, and, since he can only perceive the girl as a battered Raggedy Ann doll, he declares that 'just this once, I'm grateful for the drugs'. The police show up, as does Captain, who kills the police. Captain explains he'd have gotten there sooner if it wasn't for snipers establishing a perimeter. They torture the one remaining sniper, (ala Dwight in The Big Fat Kill,) and find out where Delia, Gordo, and Maxine were heading and pursue them. During this sequence the Captain morphs into various pop culture icons, including King Leonidas from Frank Miller's 300, Lone Wolf and Cub, an ED-209 droid from the Robocop movies, Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, Captain America, Dirty Harry, John Rambo, Martha Washington from Give Me Liberty, Hagar the Horrible and even Hellboy.
They shoot past Delia, Maxine and Gordo at a gas station where they were refilling the Humvee they were driving. As they begin driving again, Wallace and Captain ambush them, with Captain disabling the Hummer with a rocket launcher. As they move in, Gordo mortally wounds Captain as Wallace shoots Gordo in the face. At gunpoint, Wallace makes Maxine bring him out of his hallucination hell. As she does, he shoots her in the head and shoots Delia through the gut when he suffers a panic attack. After blacking out for a few seconds, Wallace finds himself back in a black and white 'normal' world, Maxine dead and Delia wounded. Paralysed from the waist down, and genuinely fearful, she begs him to have mercy on her, and as a last act of chivalry Wallace does so by shooting her in the back of her head ('She never sees what hits her.') . He then carries Captain's body back to the Heap and drives away.
He meets up with another war buddy named Jerry, the Captain's lover. They burn Captain's body in a funeral pyre, where afterwards they work trying to flush the rest of the drugs out of Wallace's system. Mariah, another female mercenary working for the Colonel, is assigned to Delia's task in her stead. The Colonel is killing anyone linking Wallace to him, starting with the doctor who kidnapped Esther. He even has Mariah break Liebowitz's son's arm after luring him away from his high school. He then threatens Liebowitz's family even further, putting the Commissioner in a moral quandry.
Wallace confronts Liebowitz in his apartment and tries to get him to join his side. Wallace discovers that the real scheme the Colonel is operating is a slave trafficking and organ harvesting ring of which Liebowitz was (intentionally or otherwise) unaware of. Wallace explains how he launched a one-man assault on the factory, first infiltrating the complex, cutting a swathe of stealthy death through the roster of guards and discovering several atrocities going on there. He was then confronted by Mariah and the Colonel as well as many, many armed guards. Wallace managed to escape the factory alive but without saving anyone, much to his own chagrin.
At this point, the phone rings in Liebowitz's apartment. It's The Colonel, telling Wallace where Esther is: she is at the Roark family farm, long since abandoned at this point. The deal is simple: Wallace's silence for Esther's safe return. When Wallace finds her, an enemy helicopter arrives and opens fire, Wallace shielding Esther with his body. However, Wallace is one step ahead: Jerry, who was up on a hill with heavy ordanance, blasts the chopper out of the sky with a rocket launcher; Wallace, who was wearing a Kevlar vest, survived the choppers machinegun fire miraculously. Wallace takes Esther to the hospital and he and Jerry prepare to make a second assault on the Colonel's base of operations, when a flood of people are brought in on stretchers.
By this time, the police have launched a massive raid on the Colonel's factory, where the Colonel is captured. The Colonel threatens Liebowitz, who in return shoots him in the head for hurting his son and tells his underlings to 'make a missing person outta the fucker'. Wallenquist lets it all be square, against the wishes of Mariah, (who somehow escaped the factory raid,) seeing no profit in revenge. He seeks no revenge on Wallace or Liebowitz.
Weeks later, Wallace and Esther leave town. He asks her why she wanted to jump and she responds "I was lonely". They drive away towards a better life away from Sin City.
[edit] Booze, Broads, & Bullets
Booze, Broads, & Bullets is a compilation of stories from the Sin City series of comic books by Frank Miller. It reprints all the short stories, in the following order:
- Just Another Saturday Night (from Sin City #1/2 and also reprinted in Just Another Saturday Night)
- Fat Man and Little Boy (from Lost, Lonely, & Lethal)
- The Customer is Always Right (from The Babe Wore Red and Other Stories)
- Silent Night (from Silent Night)
- And Behind Door Number Three? (from The Babe Wore Red and Other Stories)
- Blue Eyes (from Lost, Lonely, & Lethal)
- Rats (from Lost, Lonely, & Lethal)
- Daddy's Little Girl (from A Decade of Dark Horse #1 and also reprinted in Tales to Offend #1)
- Wrong Turn (from Sex and Violence)
- Wrong Track (from Sex and Violence)
- The Babe Wore Red (from The Babe Wore Red and Other Stories)
[edit] New stories
Frank Miller has confirmed that he is working on new Sin City storylines for the upcoming movies. The following have been mentioned:
- Nancy after Hartigan's death. Miller says this will show "a whole new side of Nancy." This story has been confirmed as one of the main stories for the planned movie Sin City 2. Miller has now confirmed that he will also produce a graphic novel of this story.
- Frank Miller has also confirmed a future graphic novel detailing Jack Rafferty's police career up to his death.
- Miller has also confirmed a graphic novel detailing John Hartigan's past as well, and explaining his scar.
Although there has been much fan speculation on specifics (as well as how many stories Miller will publish in total), few details have been verified thus far.
| Sin City | |
|---|---|
| Yarns | The Hard Goodbye | A Dame to Kill For | The Babe Wore Red and Other Stories | Silent Night | The Big Fat Kill | That Yellow Bastard | Daddy's Little Girl | Lost, Lonely, & Lethal | Sex & Violence | Just Another Saturday Night | Family Values | Hell and Back (a Sin City Love Story) | Booze, Broads, & Bullets |
| Films | Sin City | Sin City 2 (in production) | Sin City 3: Hell and Back (in production) |
| Characters | Marv | Jack Rafferty | Nancy Callahan | John Hartigan | Dwight McCarthy | Wallace | Miho | Kevin | Cardinal Roark | Ava Lord | Junior/That Yellow Bastard | Senator Roark | List of characters from Sin City |
| People | Frank Miller | Robert Rodriguez |
