Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jun 18, 2025 | 8 comments

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 62 years ago…

This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott Tipton and I are selecting comics that came out the week of June 18, 1963.

Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of June 11, 1987. 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 15 and June 21.)

Gov. George Wallace confronted by General Henry Graham

So, let’s set the scene: The battle over American civil rights was front and center. On June 19, President Kennedy sent to Congress what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964, enacted after his assassination. It was the most comprehensive civil rights legislation in the nation’s history, even though racists have been trying to undo its impact for the last 61 years.

Kennedy’s move came amid two flashpoints in the movement: On June 11, hateful Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace stood in the door of the University of Alabama to protest integration and blocked James Hood and Vivian Malone from enrolling as the first Black students at the university. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara federalized the Alabama National Guard and when Wallace was confronted by its commander, Brigadier Gen. Henry Graham, he stepped aside rather than be arrested. (As it happened, Hood and Malone had actually been admitted the day before.)

The following day, however, tensions worsened when Black civil rights activist Medgar Evers was shot and killed outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi, by Ku Klux Klan member Byron de La Beckwith, who managed to escape conviction for almost 31 years.

Vietnam was becoming more prominent in the U.S. consciousness, with headlines coming amid a crackdown against Buddhists in South Vietnam. Despite an agreement, on June 17, a crowd of about 2,000 was confronted by police who ringed a pagoda in Saigon. A riot broke out and police attacked the crowd with gunfire, tear gas, fire hoses and clubs, killing one and injuring dozens more.

Quang Duc sat still as he burned. Photo by Malcolm Browne.

What was called by the Associated Press “the most violent anti-Government outburst in South Vietnam in years,” was preceded six days earlier by the fatal self-immolation of a Buddist monk at a major intersection in the city. An AP journalist’s photographs brought international attention to the situation (and ultimately won him a Pulitzer).

It was a key event in the U.S. government’s turning against President Ngo Dinh Diem. Come November, the CIA backed a coup by a group of South Vietnam Army officers who opposed Diem’s handling of the Buddhist crisis — and the burgeoning threat of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong.

IN OTHER NEWS

— In the Space Race, Project Mercury was at its end and Project Gemini, featuring two-astronaut missions, was next. Meanwhile, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space, leaving the planet June 16 and returning June 19.

— On June 21, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, the Archbishop of Milan, was elected pope, succeeding the late Pope John XXIII. Montini took the name Pope Paul VI.

— On June 20, the Moscow–Washington hotline was authorized by a deal signed in Geneva. It wasn’t actually a red phone but a teleprinter.

— On June 21, Leonid Brezhnev, the ceremonial President of the Presidium of the Soviet Union, was appointed to a position in the Secretariat of the Soviet Communist Party that made him the leading contender to succeed Nikita Khrushchev. (Khrushchev was removed in the fall of ’64 and Brezhnev would indeed take over.)

— One June 17, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that state-mandated Bible reading in public schools was unconstitutional. Prayer in public schools had already been banned by the court.

Christine Keeler

— On June 17, the British House of Commons debated the spectacularly scandalous Profumo affair, 12 days after Secretary of State for War John Profumo, 48, was forced to admit that he’d lied when he denied his affair with model and showgirl Christine Keeler, who was less than half his age. The scandal was instrumental to the fall of the Conservative government in 1964.

How the West Was Won was the top box-office draw but that wouldn’t last for much longer: The four-plus-hour epic Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, which opened June 12, was poised to dominate the rest of the year. Other hits included Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, Hud, and The Nutty Professor. PT 109, starring Cliff Robertson as Kennedy, and the Ray Harryhausen spectacle Jason and the Argonauts both opened June 19.

The Beverly Hillbillies and Bonanza were big hits, but the end had come for seminal family sitcom Leave It to Beaver, which broadcast its final episode June 20, a clip show that finished a six-season, 234-episode run.

Japanese star Kyu Sakamoto’s Sukiyaki hit No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart, followed by Lesley Gore’s It’s My Party, at No. 2.

Andy Williams’ Days of Wine and Roses, the West Side Story movie soundtrack and Vaughn Meader’s comedic The First Family, were among the top albums. Barbra Streisand was a rising star with her first hit LP — The Barbra Streisand Album— already in stores and her follow-up coming in August.

Meanwhile, the career of a 22-year-old folk singer from Minnesota, who’d based himself in New York, was beginning to take off thanks to the album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, which had been released just weeks before and featured the songs Blowin’ in the Wind; A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall; Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright; and a personal favorite, Girl From the North Country.

But while Americans were aware of the headlines generated by the Profumo affair, very few were conscious of a pop phenomenon that was crystallizing in the United Kingdom: In May, an album called Please, Please Me by four cheeky lads named the Beatles hit No. 1 on the UK charts. Meanwhile, this month, a local London band, the Rolling Stones, were starting to make a name for themselves, releasing their first single, a Chuck Berry cover called Come On, the same day as their first television appearance.

Charlie Watts, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger and Brian Jones, outside Thank Your Lucky Stars

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Scott Tipton, contributor-at-large, 13th Dimension

Justice League of America #21, DC. The one that started it all! “Crisis on Earth-One!” gave us the first of so many summer team-ups between the Justice League and the Justice Society. A summer tradition that I still miss to this day.

Dan adds: Worth noting that as Crisis on Infinite Earths celebrates 40 years, I’ve gone full circle and come to believe that it was completely unnecessary. It actually holds up as a great story and I was super-excited about it back in the ’80s, but comics lost something when DC moved away from its original Multiverse. Reading the JLA-JSA team-ups was an absolute joy and a highlight of summertime. When those teams get together now, it may be fun, but it’s never like it was. I was also fortunate enough to have a copy of this in my collection when I was a kid and it didn’t cost me a mint. A superb candidate for a Facsimile Edition, wouldn’t you say?

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Bugs Bunny #90, Gold Key. It wasn’t often you’d see Petunia Pig, Henery Hawk and the Tasmanian Devil on the same cover.

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Tales of Suspense #45, Marvel. If you’d have asked me when I was a kid if Happy and Pepper would eventually be major players in multiple big-budget movies, I would have said “Who?” By the time I started reading comics, both had been relegated to the “Whatever Happened To…” files. A remarkable return to prominence.

Dan adds: This is one of those ’60s weeks when no Marvels came out. But they did earlier in the month and were still on the stands, so the judge (me) allows it. Even encourages it.

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The Amazing Spider-Man #4, Marvel. First appearance of the Sandman, one of the great original Ditko Spidey villains.

Dan adds: And here’s an excellent example of why Spidey — and Marvel — caught on like it did. The last two panels of the story, written by Stan Lee:

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Dan Greenfield, editor, 13th Dimension

Superman #163, DC. 62-YEAR-OLD SPOILER ALERT: Wonder Man is actually one of Superman’s robots converted by the Superman Revenge Squad in an attempt to destroy the Man of Steel. His real name is Ajax, so if he shows up in Gunn’s movie, you’ll know why. Also, the backup story is called “The Goofy Superman!” — and here’s how Fandom describes it: “After a Red Kryptonite exposure turns Clark Kent into a mental case, he is institutionalized. The Red K wears off, and he decides to teach a super-lesson to a cruel attendant in the asylum.”

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Fantastic Four #18, Marvel. The first appearance of the Super-Skrull!

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Sue and Sally Smith, Flying Nurses #53, Charlton. I don’t think I can call my comics collection complete without an issue of Sue and Sally Smith, Flying Nurses.

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Adventures of the Fly #27, Archie. Actually, I don’t think I can call my comics collection complete without any Archie superhero issues. I need to fix that toot sweet. And the Fly has always caught my eye, so…

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Life With Archie #22, Archie. Unlike Arch and ol’ Jug here, I wasn’t chased up the Eiffel Tower by gunmen when I went to Paris. But I did ride the elevator — which has windows — to the top and let me tell you, my fear of heights seriously kicked in. So I feel ya, guys.

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X, the Man with X-Ray Eyes #1, Gold Key. Rob Kelly did a great job with this one in a REEL RETRO CINEMA column. At the very least, it’ll make you want to see the movie for sure. Click here to check it out.

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MORE

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of June 11 — in 1987! Click here.

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of June 4 — in 1979! Click here.

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