Posted By Dan Greenfield on May 22, 2024 | 3 comments

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 37 years ago…

This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott Tipton and I are selecting comics that came out the week of May 22, 1987.

Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of May 15, 1964. 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 May 19 and May 25.)

So, let’s set the scene:

Scandal! Remember when politicians who had extramarital affairs — or even alleged extramarital affairs — would see their presidential campaigns spiral down the drain? Gary Hart sure does! Hart, who was seen as the front-runner for the 1988 Democratic nomination, dropped out of the race earlier this month under intense pressure, thanks to the Miami Herald’s expose of his relationship with Donna Rice.

Hart and Rice have consistently denied they had a sexual relationship, and the former candidate even tried to revive his run later in the year, to no avail. (Side note: I was at a dinner party recently and we broke out the 1980s specialty Trivial Pursuit card set, because that’s just how we roll. I swear every other answer was “Gary Hart.” That’s how ubiquitous this scandal was.)

Scandal! Congress this month convened its hearings on the Iran-Contra Affair, the biggest black eye of the Reagan presidency. It’s not easy to boil it down to a pithy paragraph, but here’s the gist: Senior administration officials secretly facilitated the illegal sale of arms to Iran and planned to use proceeds to fund the Contras, an anti-Sandinista rebel group in Nicaragua. The scandal made household names of Lt. Col. Oliver North and his secretary, Fawn Hall.

Scandal! Corrupt televangelist Jim Bakker and his wildly colorful wife Tammy Faye were also all over the headlines, after Bakker was accused of raping a church secretary and covering it up with hush money. Bakker denied the rape but admitted to having sex with Jessica Hahn and his career imploded. Decades later, having served prison time for fraud, Bakker’s once again a televangelist, focusing on the End Times.

Not a great time to be a film buff. The top movie at the box office was the nowhere-near-as-good-as-the-original Beverly Hills Cop II, which, while a commercial success, didn’t really do it for the critics. There was also — drum-roll please — Ishtar, starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman, a purported comedy that became synonymous with Hollywood failure.

You had better luck at smaller theaters that were showing the bananas River’s Edge, starring an unhinged Crispin Glover and Dennis Hopper as Feck, a sort of proto-Frank Booth. Up-and-comer Keanu Reeves stole the movie with the immortal epithet “food eater!”:

The top two shows on television were The Cosby Show and Family Ties, which routinely alternated between No. 1 and No. 2. The other usual suspects were Growing Pains, Cheers and Who’s the Boss?

Can I tell you a secret? I’ve never gotten U2. I’ve liked a couple of their songs but… *shrug*? I’m not trying to start anything. Just pointing that out while mentioning that With or Without You was the best-selling single this week. The Joshua Tree, meanwhile, was the top album. (I did meet Bono once. He was nice. I also had a boss who pronounced his name “Bo-No,” as in, Sonny Bono.)

Hair metal was all the rage, with Bon Jovi, Poison and Whitesnake having LPs among the leaders. The No. 4 album, meanwhile, was the Beastie Boys’ debut License to Ill, which has unquestionably aged the best of them all.

NO! SLEEP! TILL BROOKLYN!

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Watchmen #11, DC. This is it. This is the climax — one of the most riveting issues of one of the greatest comic books of all time. I’m going under the assumption that you’ve read it, but just in case, even though it came out 37 years ago, I won’t spoil it. Suffice to say, our heroes uncover the evil mastermind’s plot and the shit hits the fan with a horrifying cliffhanger. Brilliant — and I don’t say that lightly.

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Swamp Thing #63, DC. Just as Watchmen was hitting its climax, Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing was in its final stretch, with art by Rick Veitch and Alfredo Alcala, and a cover by Steve Bissette and Sienkiewicz.

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Thor #382, Marvel. Sunset for another epochal run — the final issue of Walt Simonson’s Thor, the Thunder God’s 300th appearance in his own book. (He debuted decades earlier in Journey Into Mysytery #83, which was later renamed.) Simonson was just writing by this time, with Sal Buscema handling the interiors and Simonson doing covers.

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X-Factor #19, Marvel. Meanwhile, Simonson had jumped over to do the art for X-Factor, written by Louise Simonson.

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The New Teen Titans #34, DC. I never bought Raven’s white outfit. Who ever heard of a white raven? Turns out, there is such a thing. Nevertheless, by this time the series was running on fumes and had been for awhile.

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The Shadow #1, DC. One of the most highly regarded Shadow runs on the Modern Age, kicking off with Andy Helfer and Bill Sienkiewicz’s Shadows & Light.

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Star Blazers #2, Comico. Loved the show when I was a kid, discovering it in the wake of Battle of the Planets. I preferred the serialized, more mature Star Blazers, not understanding that BOTP was actually a recut, much less sophisticated version of the original Japanese Gatchaman, which is tremendous. My son and I are watching the whole Gatchaman series and when we’re done, I’d like to watch the original Japanese Space Battleship Yamato, the source for Star Blazers.

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Green Lantern Corps #215, DC Comics. Ladies love cool Salakk.

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Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #17, Marvel.  The “Book of the Dead” issues were at the same time very intriguing and a little creepy.

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Valkyrie #1, Eclipse. Beautiful art by Paul Gulacy here.

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Superman Annual #1, DC Comics. Titano’s post-Crisis return was rather short-lived, as I recall.

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Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #129, Marvel. I don’t know if it’s in this issue, but the cover appearance of crimelord the Foreigner here reminds me of one of my all-time favorite Spider-Man jokes. Upon being introduced to the Foreigner for the first time, Spidey shakes his hand and says “Gee, I have all your albums.”

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MORE

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of  May 15 — in 1964! Click here.

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of May 8 — in 1991! Click here.

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