THRILLING CRIME CASES #46 (OCTOBER 1951)

The cover of this issue shows three motorcycle policemen overtaking a speeding car.  At the top of the overpass are two more policemen, one firing a rifle and hitting the top of the car.  Two of the motorcycle cops have their weapons drawn; one of them, holding his gun two-handed (!) while speeding down the highway, fires his weapon, hitting one bad guy's gun hand while calling out, "Pull over!!  Or the next shot will be for keeps!!"  The policemen on the overpass are saying, "Got here just in time!" (that's the cop firing the rifle) and "Those hoods don't stand a chance!" (that's his ever-observant partner).  The wounded bad guy is saying, "Owww!!  They hit me!  H-how did they get to us so fast?"

How, indeed?

The answer lies in a printed box on the cover:  "MODERN COMMUNICATIONS HAVE PROVEN THE DOWNFALL OF THE CRIMINAL.  IT IS RELATIVELY IMPOSSIBLE TO ELUDE THE DRAGNET SPREAD BY THE POLICE IN THIS MANNER.  ANOTHER...LESSON OF THE LAW!!"

To hit the point home, the cover also bears the comic book's motto:  "THE LAW WILL WIN"  Ah, the optimistic Fifties...

Thrilling Crime Cases appears to have been a reprint title from Star Publications, at least inn the case of this issue.  Two of the three stories have been traced back to Guns Against Gangsters (v2 #1) and Murder Incorporated (#13).

We start off with ""State Prison Slaughter" (based on a true crime case, natch!).  Danny Daniels is sent to the state prison for a 26-year stretch.  During a prison riot, Danny and two of his friends manage to capture over a dozen guards.  Danny kills one to send a message to the warden, threatening to keep killing guard until his demands are met.  Danny keeps killing guards while attempts to stop him fail until finally, Danny is left with just three bullets.  (I won't even bother with a spoiler alert here.)  In the last panel, we pivot to a woman reading a newspaper:  "Danny Daniels!  He was a bad character!  Well, maybe that's the way they all start...small crimes at first...then..."

In "The Deadly Game," Officer Greg "The Gunmaster" Gayle is headed to the North Woods Big Game club to lecture on guns, bringing a few guns with his as examples.  Before he can get to his train, though, he spots a suspected member of a gang that has been plaguing the city with their daring rooftop robberies.  He follows the suspect to an abandoned skyscraper due for demolition but is captured before he can notify the police.  The leader of the gang "kills" Greg with his own gun, not knowing that Greg had loaded the gun with blanks for his lecture demonstration.  Off goes the gang to pull their biggest and most daring robbery ever, blithely unaware that the Gunmaster is alive to foil their evil machinations.  Unlike the two stories bookending it, we are not told that this tale is based on a true crime story.  I found two things of interest in this story.  First, Greg's boss is named Captain Glumm and he is.  Second, the artist who drew the story made Greg look like a Dick Tracy villain. 

Finally, we go to the turn of the last century for "Crime of Terror."  Gus, Harvey, and Peter were violent, heartless criminals whose "terrorization of Chicago set a horror record which only the gangsters of the Prohibition Era could equal!!"  After a string of vicious robberies, the three are caught and sent to prison.  When they have served their time, the three immediately go on a robbery-murder spree, killing three people in three different robberies the same day.  As their crimes continue and escalate, police are desperate to find the "terror trio" who leave no witnesses behind.  They get their lucky break when Gus is captured in a barroom brawl.  To protect themselves, Pete and Harvey unsuccessfully try to kill Gus before he can talk, marking the beginning of the end for thee cold-blooded killers.

This issue also has a one-page puzzle story (hint:  it's the cop's neer-do-well brother!) and the de rigueur two-page text story to skirt postal regulations.

And then there are the ads, so glorious in their cheesiness.  Miss Lee-Fashions offers two special dresses (up to size 48):  Style #313 -- Sorceress and Style # 645 -- Cinderella   I honestly can't decide which is more hideous.  Sorceress has cheap applique discs attached to the sleeves and circling the hem of the the dress, and it will "please him with your teasing torrid shoulders seductively showing through chic slit sleeves."*  Cinderella has imported chantilly lace!  Its "exquisitely sheer filmy marquisette helplessly caresses bare shoulders -- mysteriously veils the whispering lace of the provocatively curve-clinging bodice, the star-pointed skirt of shivering rayon taffeta."  Be still, my beating heart! 

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* For your next party/drinking game, have everyone say "chic slit sleeves" ten times fast.