War Against Crime

(E.C., 1948-1950)
™ and © William M. Gaines, Agent
Series continues as The Vault of Horror (E.C.) #12

Launched in the spring of 1948, War Against Crime was one of EC’s first crime comics. Before then, EC had been mostly known as a publisher of such innocuous titles as Picture Stories From American History.

Like most crime comics of its era, War Against Crime’s cover loudly proclaimed that the sordid tales it contained were “real stories from police records!” These stories were primarily about gangsters and gunsels who eventually got caught by the long arm of the law. Women played prominent roles in most of the stories, although usually either as the criminal mastermind themselves, or as the “no-good dame” whose own greed led to the doom of the mobster that she got her claws into.

In the latter part of this series, the stories became more inventive and took on a horror twist. With issue #12, the series changed names to become Vault of Horror (EC).

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