If Winick has the kind of year in 2004 that he had in 2003, he'll be making a lot of "Best Writer" lists. With Caper #3, he's off to a good start, as what started out as an intriguing period crime piece has turned into a tale of brutality and intricate complexity with an increasing level of suspense that makes it impossible to put down. Winick and Dalrymple continue to evoke the period and the setting of the Jewish quarter of San Francisco, but at the same time there's a compelling human mystery that stands apart thanks to strong characterization and exquisite plotting.
Winick has done a terrific job of putting his characters through a wringer. The opening pages, showing the flashback of what happened to Myron's wife, are brutal and powerful, made all the more so by the narration taking place over them. These characters grew up with Boss Cohen as a sort of father figure, and the decisions they're forced to make here carry more weight because of the changes they're going to make in their lives. It's clear that Jake and Izzy have seen the darker side of their already dark business, and there's a somber feeling that Winick and Dalrymple bring across in those first few pages that set up their revenge as the only thing that can be done.
The structure of the story here is like a good revenge movie, where the heroes are definitely morally questionable if not outright villainous, and yet there's just no way not to sympathize with them. What Izzy and Jake wind up doing is constructing a scheme that causes any number of deaths, and Izzy takes care of some of them in a personal and brutal fashion, and yet the reader remains steadfast on the side of the protagonists. Their victims are criminals all, and their end goal is to destroy a man who we have seen to be driven by selfishness, lust and greed.
A good con game/crime story with a revenge theme is not easy to write, but it's not completely unique either. What makes Caper stand out is that Winick and Dalrymple also bring their setting to life so effectively, making it an important part of the tale. The story's setting is more than just the Yiddish that slips into the dialogue or the clothes that mark the gangsters as Jewish rather than Irish or Italian, as most criminal characters in this era usually are. The culture that these characters come from is intertwined with their actions, their thoughts and their dialogue, and it's more than just a "special effect" for the story.
Though Caper has two other stories, with different artists, including the legendary John Severin, it is the next issue that I'm looking forward to the most. Winick and Dalrymple have successfully drawn me into the world of Izzy and Jacob Weiss, and though next issue brings their part of this tale to a close, I find myself very curious about their fates and what's going to happen with the crime war that they're trying to touch off.
