As long as I can remember, gangster movies have more than captured the public imagination. Organized crime has always been part of the fabric that makes America. It has made its way into every city in every state. So, it was only natural, that films would want to give audiences a look behind what makes them who they are. The ones everyone usually talks about, like Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano, were children of immigrants and became criminals out of necessity.

The onscreen depictions of these famous men usually give us a skewed view of who they really were. It ends up being a romanticized version of these figures. Only a few show them as they really were, like the HBO film Lansky, which had Richard Dreyfuss playing the notorious mobster. It showed his rise as a gangster to his eventual exile to Israel. In the debut issue of The Verdict, we meet one such crime boss, who has been betrayed by everyone he knows, as he awaits his fate in court.

WE are taken to a courthouse in Newark, New Jersey, where a news anchor is presorting from the front steps, on the trial of Bernard” Dutch” James, one of the city’s most notorious criminals. As his case is being tried, he reminisces of his come-up, as he was merely a stickup kid, who runs multiple hustles including working at a local pizzeria. Everything changes one night, when someone holds up the pizzeria, and where Dutch becomes the hero, that night, killing the assailant and earning the owner’s trust. This where he gets pulled into the inner circle, one which leads him right to the top. By issue’s end, Dutch proves to be more than your typical mobster, showing he is more brains than brute force.

Overall, an engaging story that more than titillates the attention of the reader, it exudes cool in doing so. The story by Kwame Teague is smart and action-packed. The art by the creative team is gorgeous. Altogether, a story that adds its engaging villain to an already prestigious rogues gallery.

Story: Kwame Teague
Art: Michael Lee Harris, Josh Jensen, and Anthony Mathenia
Story: 9.0 Art: 9.0 Overall: 9.0 Recommendation: Buy