Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jun 12, 2024 | 6 comments

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 49 years ago…

This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott Tipton and I are selecting comics that came out the week of June 12, 1975.

Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of June 5, 1960. Click here to check it out.

(Keep in mind that comics came out on multiple days, so these are technically the comics that went on sale between June 9 and June 15.)

So, let’s set the scene: President Ford, who’d assumed office the previous summer when Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace, was preparing to run for the 1976 Republican nomination. But his public image had taken a savage beating this month when on June 1, he slipped and fell on stairs leading from Air Force One in Salzburg, Austria. Fair or not, the imagery made him appear the clumsy fool, a notion that would stick with him for the rest of his time in office.

This week, the administration suffered another black eye when the Rockefeller Commission, headed by Ford’s VP Nelson Rockefeller, released its report on CIA abuses. It was widely criticized as a whitewash, and decades later, evidence surfaced that indeed it was. Two congressional committees’ findings were more damning. Overall, there were revelations of foreign assassination plots, surveillance of antiwar and civil rights activists, hundreds of thousands of illegal files on Americans, and clandestine drug experiments.

Against all odds, soccer was trying to get a foothold in the U.S. and on June 10, Brazilian superstar Pele signed a contract with the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League that made him the highest paid pro athlete in the world: $4,700,000 for the 1975, 1976, and 1977 seasons. Pele made his debut five days later, scoring a goal in a 2-2 draw against the Dallas Tornado. The game was televised live in the U.S. and 10 other countries. Still, it would take decades for a stable soccer league to take hold — and become widely popular — in North America.

The top movies in theaters included the star-studded satire Shampoo, starring Warren Beatty in one of his most famous roles; the Charles Bronson actioner Breakout; The Return of the Pink Panther, which revived the comedy series and Peter Sellers’ career; Robert Altman’s newly released Nashville; and, one of the funniest movies of all time — Monty Python and the Holy Grail, by far my fave of all Python projects.

But the movie everyone was talking about hadn’t even come out yet, thanks to a massive marketing blitz: Jaws was due June 20 and became the first modern blockbuster.

It was rerun season and the week’s Nielsen leader was MASH, whose fans were still reeling from March’s death of Col. Henry Blake. Otherwise, it was the era of the ’70s cop/detective show, with top performers including Baretta, Police Woman, Hawaii Five-O, The Rockford Files, S.W.A.T., Cannon and Barnaby Jones. Big comedies included All in the Family, Good Times and Maude, a Norman Lear three-fer.

The more things change… The Rolling Stones had just launched the Tour of the Americas ’75 and along for the ride was guitarist Ronnie Wood of Faces. Mick Taylor had left the band in December and Wood participated in recording sessions earlier in 1975. (He would officially become a member of the band in 1976.) This week, the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World played St. Paul, Minnesota; Boston, Cleveland and Buffalo. The set was longer than on previous tours but included hits such as Honky Tonk Women, Get Off of My Cloud, Gimme Shelter, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Tumbling Dice, It’s Only Rock ’n Roll, Heartbreaker, Wild Horses, Midnight Rambler, Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Sympathy for the Devil — all of which have been part of the band’s current Hackney Diamonds tour. (I saw them last month and they were incredible.)

The Billboard 100 leader was one of my favorite sweet pop songs, America’s Sister Golden Hair, followed by the ridiculously ubiquitous Love Will Keep Us Together by The Captain and Tennille. Other hits included When Will I Be Loved, by Linda Ronstadt (No. 3); Thank God I’m a Country Boy, by John Denver (No. 8); and Elton John’s Philadelphia Freedom (No. 9).

Elton’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, featuring Someone Saved My Life Tonight, was the best-selling album. The soundtrack to the Who’s movie Tommy was third on the list.

It’s four o’clock in the morning, damn it, listen to me good: I’m sleeping with myself tonight…

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Dan Greenfield, editor, 13th Dimension

X-Men #94, Marvel. This seminal, groundbreaking issue was completely off my radar when I was 8 years old in 1975. Some years later, however, I was educated about the significance of it — and the X-Men’s massive popularity — when I saw it as a wall book at the comics kiosk I used to frequent at the US 1 Flea Market in New Brunswick, N.J., which thankfully has its own Facebook page.

Scott adds: Though I didn’t read it until a decade later, this was when the All-New, All-Different X-Men unexpectedly got serious.

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Planet of the Apes #11, Marvel. Features the finale of Doug Moench and Alfredo Alcala’s Beneath the Planet of the Apes adaptation, later reprinted (and shortened) in the standard-size color series Adventures on the Planet of the Apes #11. Groovy Gray Morrow cover.

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Justice League of America #122, DC. Marty Pasko, Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin bring you a very Silver Age-y “untold story” that explains how the League decided to share their secret identities with one another. The big bad was Dr. Light, a fun villain who was forever ruined by Brad Meltzer.

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Batman #267, DC. It’s fashionable to knock the Jack Schiff late-’50s/early-’60s era of Goofy Batman, but the mid-’70s in many ways was the Caped Crusader’s most fallow period. Forgettable stories — I barely remember this one — with professional but not terribly inspired art. Dick Giordano’s inks hold this issue together — no surprise there. (He did the cover, by the way.)

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Savage Combat Tales #3, Atlas/Seaboard. The final issue of the Sgt. Fury ripoff. Atlas, which had opened its doors as a revenge play by Martin Goodman just a year earlier, was already running on fumes. Nevertheless, this ish featured the talents of Archie Goodwin, Al McWilliams, Jack Sparling and Rich Buckler. Wouldn’t it be fun if some enterprising publisher were to collect the entire Atlas/Seaboard run? I’d read that.

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Scott Tipton, columnist, 13th Dimension

Superboy #211, DC. The Mike Grell run on Legion seemed so adult to me when I was a kid. It just seemed so much more serious than everything else.

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Marvel Two-in-One #11, Marvel. Another reason I loved Marvel Two-in-One: They would go for some really deep cuts for co-stars for Ben Grimm.

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The Amazing Spider-Man #148, Marvel. If you had asked me when I was little who Spider-Man’s arch-enemy was, I would have responded without a second thought, “the Jackal.” That’s how big an impact this storyline had on me. No one was scarier than the Jackal.

Dan adds: The original Clone Saga! The one that led to the one that everyone hates! This was good though. And I agree with Scott: The Jackal was a nasty piece of business and nobody’s drawn him better than Ross Andru.

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MORE

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of June 5 — in 1960! Click here.

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of May 22 — in 1987! Click here.

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Primary comics sources: Mike’s Amazing World of Comics, the Grand Comics Database.