Women in War

 As noted previously, many men's magazines, particularly the war themed ones, would frequently run stories featuring women doing brutal things to male oppressors.  Women in War, which published three issues at irregular intervals (and out of numerical order), between 1959 and 1964, appears to have been an attempt to launch an entire magazine around this theme.  The fact that all of the issues are marked as coming from 'Volume 2' implies that it might actually have been a continuation or spin off from an existing magazine.  This is Volume 2 No 1, from November 1963, which came some four years after Volume 2 No 4, published in January 1959 and was followed by Volume 2 No 2 in February 1964.  What happened to No 3 remains a mystery.  Interestingly, the 1959 issue varies the title slightly, hyphenating it Women-in-War and claims to be 'All True'.  The cover also embraces the woman-as-victim trope of many war pulps, with a prone woman who has clearly been severely thrashed with a riding crop by a Nazi officer, being rescued by a GI bursting through the door, Tommy gun blazing.

The other two covers, by contrast, put the women firmly in the role of aggressor, meting out violent punishment to men.  This cover, for instance, seems to illustrate the Cuban-set 'She Lived For Vengeance',judging from the uniforms, at least, with the women giving the guy a bloody good beating.  Whereas the 1959 issue had the emphasis on World War Two set stories, this one, going by the teasers on the cover, focuses on more contemporary conflicts.  The Korean War is represented by 'The Modest Mata Hari of Inchon', while 'The Suicide Saga of a Killer Doll' takes the Hungarian uprising as its background.  World War Two does get a look in with 'Revolt of the Love Slaves' and 'Blood for the Colonel's Daughter', so fans of Nazis and Japs getting humiliated by women wouldn't be disappointed.  Obviously, despite the title, Women in War was clearly still a male-orientated publication, aimed at titillating its audience with tales of scantily clad but fiery women (just waiting to be tamed by the right man) fighting beastly foreign perverts.  The fact that there were only three, widely spaced, issues published, however, would seem to indicate that there wasn't a big enough audience for this particular fetish.