Posted By Dan Greenfield on Feb 4, 2026 | 4 comments

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 61 years ago…

This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott and I are selecting comics that came out the week of Feb. 4, 1965.

Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of Jan. 28, 1960. Click here to check it out.

(Keep in mind that comics came out on multiple days, so these are the comics that went on sale between Feb. 1 and Feb. 7.)

And dig that banner by Walt Grogan — new for 2026! We’ve got four of them — one each for the Golden, Silver, Bronze and Modern Ages.

The Rev. Martin Luther King leads civil rights advocates and local Blacks in prayer after being arrested Feb. 1.

So, let’s set the scene: The civil rights movement was in the forefront as the Selma marches against voter suppression of Blacks continued. Locals had been protesting the actions of racist white authorities for years, but the Rev. Martin Luther King had joined the fray.

On Feb. 1, King and Ralph Abernathy led a protest march in the Alabama city and they were among 768 people arrested. Both King and Abernathy refused to be bonded out. Hardcore segregationist Sheriff Jim Clark charged them all with “parading without permit.” The next day, another 520 protesters were jailed, bringing the total to almost 1,300.

Malcolm X was also drawn to the city, speaking there Feb. 4, a day after he addressed students at Tuskeegee Institute, about 90 miles away. The 4th was something of a turning point, as Democratic President Lyndon Johnson made his first public statement backing the Selma campaign. Two days later, he said he would urge Congress to pass a voting rights bill.

As dramatic as it was, this was prologue: In March, the campaign expanded to marches from Selma to the state capital in Montgomery that led to brutality and bloodshed engineered by Clark, his deputies and local thugs and Klansmen called to action by the sheriff. (Malcolm X, meanwhile, would be assassinated in New York by members of the Nation of Islam before February was out.)

Elsewhere, on Feb. 7, racist businessman Lester Maddox closed his popular Pickrick Restaurant in Atlanta rather than serve Black customers. Maddox faulted the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, posting a sign on the Pickrick’s door that said he was “out of business, resulting from an act passed by the U.S. Congress, signed by President Johnson and inspired and supported by deadly and bloody Communism.” The next year, Maddox would be elected governor of Georgia.

While this was playing out, the U.S. was on the precipice of escalating the Vietnam War. President Johnson was persuaded by advisers McGeorge Bundy and Robert McNamara, as well as bold military actions by the South Vietnamese against the North, to go all in on the conflict. With general public opinion still in favor, the U.S. began regular bombing and strafing of North Vietnam. By early March, Operation Rolling Thunder would begin and the first American ground troops would arrive in the Southeast Asian nation.

IN OTHER NEWS

— The world was paying tribute to Sir Winston Churchill, who’d died Jan. 24, His state funeral was Jan. 30.

— Weird: On Feb. 2, a man named Lawrence Joseph Bader was spotted at a sporting goods show in Chicago, almost eight years after he had vanished from Akron, Ohio. He was declared legally dead in 1960, and his wife collected $40,000 in life insurance. Bader had become known in Omaha, Nebraska, as John Francis “Fritz” Johnson, had married again, and had become a sportscaster at TV station KETV. Though his true identity was verified, Johnson insisted he had no memory of being Bader.

A team of psychiatrists concluded that Johnson, who’d lost an eye thanks to a cancerous tumor, really had no recollection of his life before and that’d been suffering from amnesia for eight years. What caused the memory lapse was never determined: As Bader, he’d gotten into trouble with the IRS for tax evasion, and it’s possible he wanted to start his life over and filled the missing time with false memories, which is rare but not impossible. Or perhaps it was the tumor that caused it. Either way, he died in September 1966 after the tumor returned. Whether he really had amnesia or was just plain full of shit remains a mystery 60 years later.

— Princess Stephanie of Monaco, daughter of Prince Grace (aka Grace Kelly) and Prince Rainier III was born Feb. 1 in Monte Carlo. She was the youngest of three, after her sister Caroline and brother Albert II.

— On the same day, but thoroughly unrelated, ABC News named a new nightly anchor — 26-year-old Peter Jennings.

The No. 1 movie at the box office was what some consider the greatest 007 flick of them all — Goldfinger. Personally, I put it fourth behind Dr. No, You Only Live Twice and Thunderball, but hey, you can’t knock it. The Aston Martin DB5, however, remains the coolest car in all of pop culture history, behind only the Batmobile.

Other big hits included My Fair Lady; Mary Poppins; Zorba the Greek; the hagsploitation classic Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte, starring Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland; and Sex and the Single Girl, starring Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood. That said, theaters across the country were running trailers that ballyhooed the next great musical: The Sound of Music, which was to open March 2.

The top shows on TV included Bonanza, Gomer Pyle, The Fugitive, Gilligan’s Island, The Andy Griffith Show, Bewitched, The Lucy Show, Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color and The Red Skelton Show.

New to the airwaves was the musical variety series Hullabaloo, which premiered on NBC in January. The host this week was Paul Anka, and guests included Petula Clark, who sang Downtown; Marvin Gaye, who performed How Sweet It Is; Jay and the Americans; the Everly Brothers; Brenda Lee; and, Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers.

The Righteous Brothers’ You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ hit No. 1 on the singles chart. Among the other big tunes were Clark’s Downtown; Gaye’s How Sweet It Is; The Name Game, by Shirley Ellis; This Diamond Ring, by Gary Lewis & the Playboys; All Day and All of the Night, by the Kinks; and My Girl, by the Temptations. The Beatles’ single of the moment was I Feel Fine, while the Rolling Stones had Heart of Stone.

The Fab Four’s Beatles ’65, the North American version of Beatles For Sale, was in the middle of a nine-week run atop the album chart, while other big sellers included the soundtracks to Elvis Presley’s Roustabout; Mary Poppins; and Goldfinger.

Meanwhile, Ringo Starr was preparing to marry his girlfriend, Maureen Cox. They would wed Feb. 11.

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Wonder Woman #153, DC. Second issue of a two-issue experiment where DC gave Wonder Girl the big billing.

Y’know, everyone gives Bob Haney a hard time for misunderstanding who Wonder Girl was and including her in the Teen Titans when she was actually Wonder Woman as a teen. This issue alone — by writer/editor Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito — has both Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl on the cover, while the story inside says WG is WW as a teen, even though WW shows up in a few panels. Lay off the poor guy!

The Brave and the Bold #60, the first official TT appearance, which included Wonder Chick (sorry), came out only three months later, so I’d wager that Haney (or maybe his editor, George Kashdan) was poking through these issues when the choice was made to include her. Or something like that.

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The Atom #18, DC. Both stories of the Mighty Mite in this ish are by Gardner Fox, Gil Kane and Sid Greene. In the second one, the Atom has amnesia and thinks he’s a flea in a flea circus.

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The Phantom #11, Gold Key. The Phantom moved from quarterly to bimonthly with this ish boasting a groovy George Wilson cover.

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Felix the Cat #11, Dell. I loved Felix the Cat when it was on New York’s Channel 11 when I was a little kid.

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The Beverly Hillbillies #9, Dell. The Clampetts have a circus on their front lawn!

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MORE

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of January 14 — in 1985! Click here.

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of January 7 — in 1992! Click here.

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Comics sources: Mike’s Amazing World of Comics and the Grand Comics Database.