Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 77 years ago… This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott and I are selecting comics that came out the week of Sept. 30, 1949. Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of Sept. 23, 1975. 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 Sept. 27 and Oct. 3) So, let’s set the scene: World War II ended four years earlier but Americans were more terrified than ever upon the news that the Soviet Union had the bomb and that the Communists had officially taken China under Mao Zedong — all within a week. On Sept. 23, President Truman released a brief statement that the US had “evidence that within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the U.S.S.R.” Two days later, the Russians confirmed it via the state “news” organ TASS in wording that can only be described as Orwellian: “Despite the existence in this country of an atomic weapon, this country adopts and intends to adopt in the future its former position in favor of prohibition of the atomic weapon.” As this was playing out, the Communists were taking charge in China at the end of a decades-long revolutionary civil war, with the nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek on the run. On Sept. 30, Mao was elected chairman of the new Central Government and on Oct. 1, he proclaimed the People’s Republic of China at the Tiananmen Gate in Beijing, and unveiled the nation’s new flag. (The First of October is celebrated as China’s National Day.) The Soviets recognized the People’s Republic the next day and ended relations with Chiang’s government. The drastic shift in the geopolitical landscape completely rewrote the rules of diplomatic engagement around the world. In the United States, Communism continued to be seen as a monolithic movement that had to be stopped at all costs, underscoring a catastrophic failure to recognize that the hearts and minds of individual nations were rooted in those countries’ history and sense of identity. Such thinking soon led to McCarthyism and, eventually, Vietnam. IN OTHER NEWS  — There was still some good news for the West: On Sept. 30, the Berlin Airlift was officially ended after more than 275,000 flights that...