Edgar Hoover's FBI's Most Wanted List. While effective in some areas of his job, Hoover was a grandstanding publicity hound who puffed up his organization to levels beyond reality. Many of the FBI's accomplishments were admirable while others were illusionary. Too often, local officials would clear a case only to have the FBI come in a grab all the glory. One thing the Hoover did, beyond all doubt, was to put the names of the most prominent gangsters before the American people. And this was the era in which the buzz words were "Crime Doesn't Pay."
Crime Doesn't Pay was the theme of this comic book. Murder Incorporated was published by Fox and ran for 15 issues, from December 31, 1947 to December 10, 1949, featuring fictional biographies of well-known gangsters -- always with the message that Crime Doesn't Pay. (A second series apparently ran in 1950.)
Issue #12 covers three gangsters: the well-known Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd, and the lesser-known Johnny "Socks" Lazia, the supreme Kansas City, Missouri crime boss during the Prohibition Era. Lazia had been supported by that city's powerful Pendergast political machine until he orchestrated the notorious June 1944 Union Station massacre, which resulted in the deaths of five people, including four law officers. It's interesting to note that one of the shooters Lazia brought in for that massacre was Pretty Boy Floyd, although that wasn't mentioned in the issue's earlier story about Floyd, nor was it mentioned in the very brief mention of the massacre in the Lazia story -- and of course, the Pendergasts were not mentioned at all. Go figure. I'm not sure why the comic book gave Lazia the nickname "Socks" -- Lazia was best known as "Brother John."
Anyway, enjoy this issue.
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=90495&comicpage=&b=i
No comments:
Post a Comment