History Main / HistorysCrimeWave

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[[quoteright:299:[[ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/adventurecomics501.png]]]]

History's Crime Wave is when historical villains -- criminals or tyrants -- are used in a work of fiction. This may involve HistoricalVillainUpgrade. The villains don't have to be on Earth; they just have to be historical, though this can also extend to mythological villains.

Should not be confused with criminal organizations that really have survived throughout much of history, such as various incarnations of TheMafia.

See also JuryOfTheDamned, ArchivedArmy, and ArmyOfTheAges. HistoricalRapSheet is similar, but it need not involve real figures, and may instead attribute real ''events'' to ''fictional'' figures.
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!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* The TropeNamer is in ''ComicBook/AllStarComics'' #38 where the ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica investigate Gotham City murders claimed to be performed by historical villains. Though they turn out to be the disguises of an insane wax museum guard, he succeeds in killing every member in the issue except ComicBook/WonderWoman, who has to use the purple ray to bring them back to life. The villains are UsefulNotes/{{Nero}}, Goliath, Captain Kidd, Cesare Borgia, UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan and UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun.
* One version of the Lethal Legion, fought by the ''[[ComicBook/TheAvengers Avengers West Coast]]'', was made by the Demon Satannish resurrecting four dead criminals and giving them powers. They were
** Axe of Violence - A demonically-enhanced UsefulNotes/LizzieBorden with an axe replacing one hand.
** Coldsteel - A demonically enhanced UsefulNotes/JosefStalin now an 8 ft. giant with superhuman strength.
** Cyana - A demonically enhanced Lucrezia Borgia with poisoned claws.
** Zyklon - A demonically enhanced Heinrich Himmler who can belch deadly gas fumes from his mouth.
* In ''All-Select Comics'' #7, the sorcerer Terdu summons a group of villains from the past, whom he dubs the 'Men of Evil', to battle ComicBook/CaptainAmerica and Bucky. The Men of Evil were Captain Kidd, UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper, Frank and UsefulNotes/JesseJames, Literature/{{Bluebeard}}, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Horowitz Gyp-the-Blood]], and three gangsters (names unrevealed) who had died in the electric chair decades earlier.
* In "The Ghost Robbers of the Wax Museum!!" in ''ComicBook/BigBangComics'' #6, Knight Watchman's adversary and MasterOfDisguise Mr. Mask commits a series of robberies while adopting the identities of some of history's greatest villains: Jesse James, Blackbeard, Attila the Hun, Adolf Hitler, and Jack the Ripper.
* There is a comic by the Finnish comic artist Petri Hiltunen where a man brings a supply of weaponry to a group of outlaws who turn out to be the immortal revenants of various historical villains. Their leader plans to kill the man instead of paying, but the man tells him that's not going to work because he is Judas Iscariot, the man who betrayed Jesus, and thus also immortal. As the man is leaving, one of the revenants runs up to his leader to inform him that the man was lying. How does he know? [[ConfrontingYourImposter Because]] ''[[ConfrontingYourImposter he]]'' [[ConfrontingYourImposter is Judas Iscariot]].
* One time ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'' faced a crime wave committed by famous criminals out of history and literature. The ultimate culprit turned out to be the manager of a museum full of animatronics - the museum was going under, so he sent out the exhibits of criminals to bring in money for him. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to reprogram them to commit crimes other than what they historically did (A graverobber would only rob graves, etc), so his crimes weren't paying even before Dredd caught up with him.
* In ''ComicBook/KnightAndSquire'' #3, UsefulNotes/RichardIII is resurrected and he proceeds to resurrect England's other 'bad' kings: [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfNormandy William II]], [[UsefulNotes/KingJohnOfEngland John]], [[UsefulNotes/EdwardTheFirst Edward I]], and UsefulNotes/CharlesI. The monarchs are granted genetically enhanced superpowers and each leads a criminal army to take over a different part of the UK.
* ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes: In ''Adventure Comics'' #314, a villain called Alaktor recruits history's three greatest villains (UsefulNotes/{{Nero}}, UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, and ... [[UsefulNotes/JohnDillinger John]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Dillinger]]) to take on the Legion. Apparently Alaktor considers bank robbery to be equal to mass genocide.
* In one ''ComicBook/TheMightyThor'' comic he goes to the demon Mephisto's realm and encounters a group of villains.
* ''Leading Comics'' #3 has the ComicBook/{{Seven Soldiers of Victory}} working against Dr Doome (not Victor) who has used a time machine to summon up the Time Tyrants, UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat, Emperor UsefulNotes/{{Nero}}, UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte, UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan and UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun.
* ''Comicbook/{{Shazam}}'': Captain Marvel villain Ibac could be considered a type of this trope. Lucifer gave a crook the ability to turn into Ibac, with the powers of Ivan the Terrible, Borgia, UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun and UsefulNotes/{{Caligula}}. (Note that Ibac's name, like Shazam's, is an acronym of those four's first initials.) This doesn't explain how he gains enormous strength and durability, considering that logically he should only be about as strong as several men.
* Inverted in ''ComicBook/{{Supreme}}''; as a boy, Supreme was a member of the League of Infinity, which is comprised of heroes from history (some folkloric, some real, some made up by the comic). Uh, and they're all teenagers. Its eclectic membership includes Kid Achilles, a young Wild Bill Hickok, famed strategist Chu-Ko Liang, Mata Hari, mad scientist Wilhelm Reich, Aladdin, mutant caveman Giganthro, Witch Wench, the Germanic swordsman Siegfried, and team leader Zayla "Future Girl" Zarn. Their opposite number the League of Infamy presumably play this straight, but never make a full appearance.
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[[folder:Film]]
* A TomeOfEldritchLore brings Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Albert Fish, the Zodiac Killer, and UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper (or, more aptly, ''Jill'' the Ripper) back to life in ''Film/TheButchers''.
* In ''Film/DeadlyAdvice'', Jodie is advised by a collection of Britain's most notorious murderers: Major Herbert Armstrong, Kate Webster, Dr. Crippen, George Joseph Smith, and UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper.
* ''Film/NightAtTheMuseumBattleOfTheSmithsonian'' - The fictional Kahmenrah forms an "Axis of Evil" with Ivan the Terrible, Napoléon Bonaparte, and Al Capone, while also rejecting [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader]] and [[Series/SesameStreet Oscar the Grouch]].
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[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'' has a much larger number in the Inferno section, some known to us only through the poem. Oddly, it also includes some scattered mythological villains, like Antaeus.
* Possibly the oldest example is in ''Literature/TheOdyssey'' as Odysseus goes to the Underworld and sees mythological villains being punished for their crimes, like the trickster Sisyphus, the husband-murdering daughters of Danaë, and the cannibalistic Tantalus.
* ''Return to Groosham Grange'' has the waxworks of Hitler, a French Revolutionary and others brought to life from Madame Tussaud.
* In ''Literature/SorcererConjurerWizardWitch'', London suffers from a crime wave committed by the magically-animated waxworks from Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors. The felons thus unleashed are a mix of historical criminals like Dr Crippen and George Joseph Smith and fictional (but real in-universe) villains like Theatre/SweeneyTodd and [[Literature/TheWomanInWhite Sir Percival Glyde]]. Among other incidents, Crippen tries to poison the punch at a society party, Sweeney Todd cuts the throat of a famous entertainer, and Glyde attempts to menace a young lady only for her to demonstrate decisively that young ladies in the 20th century are more bold and enterprising than the fainting maidens of his day.
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[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/KamenRiderX'' has a variation, where the NebulousEvilOrganisation G.O.D. has the [[MonsterOfTheWeek Villan Monsters]], made by combining animal DNA with the DNA of historical figures. However, their list is all over the place: while it includes a few recognized villains like Al Capone, Genghis Khan, and Adolf Hitler (who resulted in the [[MemeticMutation memetic]] Starfish Hitler), it also includes figures who were more ambiguous (UsefulNotes/IshikawaGoemon, Geronimo), completely unremarkable ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Ogle Benjamin Ogle]]), and some who were just straight-up fictional (Dracula, Arsene Lupin).
* The "encores" in ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'' season 5 are historic villains revived by Astra. Mostly they reappear shortly after their death, and the Legends [[TimeTravel go to them]], but in "Mortal Khanbat" Genghis Khan spent centuries making his way out of his tomb and emerged in the 1990s, and in "The Great British Fake-Off", UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper, Bonnie and Clyde, [[UsefulNotes/MarcusJuniusBrutus Brutus]], UsefulNotes/HenryVIII and the pirate Black Caesar are all brought to 1910 by Lachesis.
* In the ''Series/LoisAndClark'' episode "That Old Gang of Mine", MadScientist Emil Hamilton creates [[CloningBlues clones]] of Al Capone, John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde to demonstrate that evil is not [[VillainousLineage hereditary]]. It doesn't work out that way. (There was a comic book storyline at around the same time that may have been the inspiration, but it used fictional gangsters.)
* ''Series/RedDwarf'':
** "Meltdown" has the crew encounter a "wax-droid" museum planet, where the wax-droids have become self-aware, and the "Good" and "Bad" characters have gone to war. The "Bad" characters include UsefulNotes/AlCapone, UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini, Hitler, Caligula, UsefulNotes/RasputinTheMadMonk, Richard the III, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking jazz musician]] [[TakeThat James Last]].
** In "Cured", the crew encounter a scientific base where Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Vlad the Impaler, and Messalina have been recreated through cloning and cured of 'evil'. (Lab notes reveal that UsefulNotes/RupertMurdoch proved resistant to the treatment.) However, it turns out the evildoers are [[spoiler:actually androids who were originally the medical staff of the base who have been reprogrammed to believe they are historical villains]].
* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'':
** There's an odd InUniverse example when the Excalbians create duplicates of various criminals who are "historical monsters" from the perspective of the ''Enterprise'' crew, with Genghis Khan the only real-world historical "villain," and set them against a group of Historical Heroes, of whom the only real-world counterpart is Abe Lincoln.
** Another episode offers an [[InvertedTrope Inversion]] in which another bunch of aliens create psychic images of the Earps and Doc Holliday, popularly remembered as the ''heroes'' of the OK Corral gunfight, and put Kirk and his landing party in the roles of the "villainous" Clantons and [=McLowrys=].
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[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* In ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', the Daemon Prince Doombreed is said to have once been a "warlord of ancient Terra" whose acts of brutality had impressed the WarGod Khorne so much that he granted him immortality. While his identity is ambiguous (UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan and UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler are two popular suggestions), the time period given makes it clear that he's a historical figure.
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[[folder:Video Game]]
* In the first part of ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'', the BigBad assigns the tasks of conquering the Singularities of Human History to various Heroic Spirits and past villains, including UsefulNotes/GillesDeRais, Romulus, [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Jason]], [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Makiri Zolgen]], and [[Myth/CelticMythology Queen Medb]].
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[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' has a Holodeck malfunction causing Amy and Kif to get attacked by UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper, UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun, the fictional [[Literature/SherlockHolmes Professor Moriarty]], and Evil Lincoln.
* The "House of Villains" episode of Disney's ''WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse'' could be considered this in-universe, since many of the Disney villains are either dead or presumed dead in their own continuities - unless, of course, you buy the AnimatedActors hypothesis.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** One ''WesternAnimation/TreehouseOfHorror'' had UsefulNotes/BillyTheKid reviving as a zombie to terrorize Springfield ([[PacifismBackfire which had gotten rid of all of its guns]], [[NiceJobBreakingItHero thanks to Lisa]]) and leading a gang of historical villains, including the most evil German in history -- Kaiser Wilhelm II!
** An earlier Halloween episode had Satan [[PlayingAgainstType (Flanders)]] put Homer on trial before his "JuryOfTheDamned": Benedict Arnold, Lizzie Borden, Richard Nixon [[note]] who, ironically, at the time would not die until several months later [[/note]], John Wilkes Booth, Blackbeard, John Dillinger...and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking the starting lineup of the 1976 Philadelphia Flyers]].
* In the ''WesternAnimation/SpiderMan1967'' series, a villain from an earlier episode, the Waxmaster Parafino, makes Wax Robots (?) of 'History's Greatest Villains. UsefulNotes/{{Blackbeard}}, UsefulNotes/JesseJames, and 'the Executioner of Paris' (?) are used, though waxworks of a masked man with a dagger, and a rich-looking man are seen.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TimeSquad'' featured a team of historical bad guys, including Black Bart and UsefulNotes/LizzieBorden.
* ''WesternAnimation/XiaolinShowdown''; In "The Sands of Time", Jack Spicer uses a time-travel Shen Gong Wu to assemble a team of history's villains to help him conquer the world; UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan, UsefulNotes/{{Blackbeard}}, Billy the Kid, [[OddNameOut and Mrs. Cornhaven, his old school teacher.]]
[[/folder]]
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[[quoteright:300:[[ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/adventurecomics501.png]]]]

* In the first part of ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'', the BigBad assign the tasks of conquering the Singularities of Human History to various Heroic Spirits and past villains, including UsefulNotes/GillesDeRais, Romulus, [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Jason]], [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Makiri Zolgen]], and [[Myth/CelticMythology Queen Medb]].

* ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes: In ''Adventure Comics'' #314, a villain called Alaktor recruits history's three greatest villains (UsefulNotes/{{Nero}}, UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, and ... John Dillinger) to take on the Legion. Apparently Alaktor considers bank robbery to be equal to mass genocide.

* In ''Film/DeadlyAdvice'', Jodie is advised by a collection of Britain's most notorious murderers: Major Herbert Armstrong, Kate Webster, Dr. Crippen, G.J. Smith, and UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper.

** An earlier Halloween episode had Satan [[PlayingAgainstType (Flanders)]] put Homer on trial before his "JuryOfTheDamned": Benedict Arnold, Lizzie Borden, Richard Nixon [[note]] who, ironically, at the time [[FunnyAneurysmMoment would not die until several months later]] [[/note]], John Wilkes Booth, Blackbeard, John Dillinger...and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking the starting lineup of the 1976 Philadelphia Flyers]].