Wanted Comics #22

When a trio of small-time crooks—Big Jim Satori, Dandy Phil Kant, and John Maxwell, the Barber—stumble onto what they think is easy money, they discover the criminal underworld is far more dangerous and interconnected than they bargained for. As their ambitions grow and law enforcement closes in, the men find themselves caught between the street gangs they've wronged and federal agents with a plan to dismantle the smuggling operation from the inside. In this 1949 crime tale, every shortcut and broken deal leads them closer to a reckoning they can't escape.

In 1947 Akron, Ohio, James Boyd Guy's obsession with Eleanor turns violent when she marries Jay Algae instead—and Guy's threat to make him pay becomes all too real. After a brutal shooting leaves Algae wounded, Guy vanishes for months, only to resurface with a chilling phone call and another attempt on his rival's life. This crime spree sets off a manhunt that spans two continents and tests the limits of justice.

A small man with a towering grudge picks up a gun and discovers that size no longer matters—but when a ruthless crime boss named Big Jim Colosimo takes notice of Marty Garff's violent impulses, he puts the ambitious young killer to work in his gang war against rival Johnny Capella. As Marty proves himself with his trigger finger and grows drunk on newfound respect, he fails to realize that ambition and a big mouth are just as dangerous as any enemy's bullets.

Lloyd Sampsell dreams of easy money as a college student living on a meager allowance, and that dream sets him on a path toward armed robbery and a life of crime that spans decades. From his first bank heist in 1925 through partnerships formed and broken behind bars, Sampsell repeatedly finds himself at odds with the law—each time convinced that his next scheme will finally pay off. This hardened criminal's relentless pursuit of the big score eventually catches up with him in ways he never anticipated.

Four desperate convicts attempt a breakout from a Midwest penitentiary, but one of them—Mayo—has undergone a change of heart after writing an honest letter and grows conflicted about the escape. As the group makes their move toward the guard tower, Mayo's wavering resolve sets off a chain of events that will test whether a criminal can truly turn his life around.

A chemical lab owner haunted by a dark secret finds his past catching up with him when an unexpected visitor arrives at his door five years after a terrible crime. With guilt and fear closing in, Jeff Carnes must confront the consequences of the choices that have defined him, as someone from his past comes seeking reckoning. This 1949 crime tale explores how no criminal can truly outrun their own conscience.

A desperate criminal's night of violence at a Kentucky filling station sets off a chain of consequences that neither he nor his accomplices can escape. When Paul Wilson and his companions rob a traveling man in 1944, Wilson's brutal response to silence witnesses—and his companions' inability to live with their guilt—leads the law straight to him. Sentenced to life at the Kentucky State Reformatory, Wilson makes a break for freedom in 1945, and the manhunt that follows has stretched on for years, with the authorities determined to drag him back behind bars.