In an era of larger-than-life gangsters, it’s not surprising that some of the earliest comic-book villains were modeled on hijackers, embezzlers, kidnappers, and bank robbers whose real-life counterparts were locked up on Alcatraz. In fact, a few featured real villains, including Al Capone (AZ-85) who made a cameo in a 1938 issue of Action’s “Superman” series. In 1948, Machine Gun Kelly, AZ- 117, was the hapless star of one of the issues in the “Crime Does Not Pay” series.

The world was a dangerous place, but in comic books, lawmen and superhero crime-fighters gave people hope for a future in which justice prevailed and the good guys always won. In life, of course, nothing is that simple. The federal prison system is just one example of an environment in which political expediency, fear, limited resources, and human frailties interact in unpredictable ways. Prisons are complex and volatile places, administered and occupied by people with conflicting agendas. Things get messy. This was as true during Alcatraz’s life as a federal penitentiary (1934–1963) as it is today.