Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 75 years ago… This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott and I are selecting comics that came out the week of May 20, 1951. Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of May 13, 1984. Click here to check it out. (Keep in mind that comics came out on multiple days, so these are the issues that went on sale between May 17 and May 23.) So, let’s set the scene: The U.S. government was feverishly looking to strengthen its weapons stock by amping up its nuclear arsenal, and in May 1951, scientists and military leaders were about to conclude tests — dubbed Operation Greenhouse — that would ultimately lead to the hydrogen bomb. The tests were held on islands of the Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific’s Marshall Islands, and on May 9, researchers had a breakthrough — the world’s first thermonuclear burn. It was the third of four tests, labeled “George,” and produced a yield of 225 kilotons. (One kiloton equals the energy release of roughly 1,000 tons of TNT. By comparison, the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki yielded 15 and 20 kilotons, respectively.) The tests began April 8 — as chronicled in the infamous photograph of military VIPs observing a detonation from the “Officer’s Beach Club Patio” like it was another day in paradise. (The U.S. would detonate the first hydrogen bomb about a year and half later, in November 1952.) Meanwhile, the Korean War was still raging, but Stateside, much of the debate surrounded President Truman’s inflammatory firing of popular Gen. Douglas MacArthur in April. Senate committee hearings on the dismissal — pushed by Republicans who wanted to go after Truman, a Democrat — began in early May. The move actually backfired when MacArthur’s extremist, warhawk views became more widely understood, and the general’s popularity began to wane. History showed Truman’s move to be exceptionally gutsy and contributed to a retrospective re-evaluation of his presidency as one marked by integrity, toughness and accountability. IN OTHER NEWS — On May 21, Manhattan’s 9th Street Art Exhibition — also known as the Ninth Street Show — began. It was the formal debut of abstract expressionism and was the first American art movement — the New York School — with global impact. Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning...