Posted By Dan Greenfield on Feb 26, 2025 | 9 comments

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 53 years ago…

This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott Tipton and I are selecting comics that came out the week of Feb. 26, 1972.

Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of Feb. 19, 1982. 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 Feb. 23 and March 1.)

President Richard Nixon shakes hands with Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai after Air Force One lands. Pat Nixon and Chinese officials look on.

So, let’s set the scene:

“There is an old Vulcan proverb: Only Nixon could go to China.” — Spock to Kirk, trying to get him to engage with the Klingons, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Stardate 9522.6

President Richard Nixon, whose rise to power in the 1950s was launched by his red-baiting, commie-hating machinations on the House Un-American Activities Committee, this week pulled off what would have been impossible for nearly anyone else: a visit to the People’s Republic of China, warming relations between the two superpowers after decades of suspicion and outright hostility.

The trip included meetings with Mao Zedong and Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, and led to Feb. 27’s Shanghai Communique, in which Zhou and Nixon agreed that normalization of relations was in the interest of both nations.

Mao and Nixon

The trip and its aftermath, which helped further drive a wedge between rivals China and the Soviet Union, was a masterstroke in foreign policy and remains the highlight of Nixon’s career in office. He’ll forever be remembered — and rightly so — for his resignation in disgrace 2 1/2 years later over the Watergate scandal. But there’s little question that his China trip inexorably altered geopolitics and weakened that stature of the USSR.

Not all was rosy, however: On Feb. 24, two Communist delegations walked out of Vietnam War peace talks, in protest of a recent surge in bombing by the United States. The bombings were in response to North Vietnamese military buildup deemed a threat to large areas of the South. (The talks resumed the next week.) And on Feb. 29, syndicated columnist Jack Anderson broke the story that he had evidence of a secret deal between the Nixon camp and ITT to settle the administration’s biggest antitrust case.

The White House’s subsequent investigation into the source of leaked info was one of the improper activities later cited by the Watergate Committee in its final report.

IN OTHER NEWS

The NASA plaque. Carl Sagan was deeply involved in its creation.

— Final preparations were being made for March 2’s launch of the Pioneer 10 space probe, attached to which was a small plaque that contained a message designed for any intelligent civilizations that might be out there. More than 10 years later, Pioneer became the first man-made object to leave the solar system. The last signal we got from it was in 2003.

— The Troubles were raging: Less than a month after Jan. 30’s Bloody Sunday, the Irish Republican Army on Feb. 22 blew up a bomb outside a mess hall at the headquarters of the 16th Parachute Brigade, in Aldershot, England. Seven people were killed — but none of them were soldiers. The dead included an Army chaplain and six waitresses.

— On Feb. 23, after nearly a year-and-a-half in prison on charges including conspiracy to murder, Black activist Angela Davis — whose incarceration had become a cause celebre — was released on bail. A white farmer posted most of the $102,500, with the help of a wealthy business owner. She was later acquitted — by a jury of 11 whites and one Latino.

— On Feb. 23, the Environmental Projection Agency — established by an executive order by Nixon, a Republican, two years earlier — published its initial regulations requiring unleaded gasoline to be made available at all gas stations.

Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show, starring Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepherd, led the American box office. Other hits included gritty crime classics Dirty Harry and The French Connection, while theater-goers could still see Sean Connery’s return as 007 in Diamonds Are Forever, the weakest entry in the actor’s official run. Cabaret, with Liza Minnelli, Michael York and Joel Gray, had just opened.

Meanwhile, a lot of hype was surrounding a film based on a best-selling Mafia epic by novelist Mario Puzo: The Godfather would have its New York premiere March 14.

All in the Family was an absolute powerhouse at No. 1 in the Nielsens. Other hits included The Flip Wilson Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Mod Squad, Sanford and Son, The FBI, Mannix and The Partridge Family.

Don McLean’s American Pie, inspired by the 1959 death of Buddy Holly and which had just spent four weeks at No. 1, was getting a ton of airplay and clocked in this week at No. 9 (though the same-named album was still in the lead slot).

The 8-minute, 42-second magnum opus is weirdly looked upon today as some sort of patriotic anthem when it’s anything but. McLean’s alternately wistful and angry lyrics, rife with cryptic symbolism and pop-culture references, a push-and-pull between religion and secular hero worship, are an indictment of the 1960s, with both the military-industrial complex and counterculture figures targets for bitter scorn.

American Pie is a song that has become musical wallpaper: It’s always there, still routinely popping up on the radio, inviting you to sing along with the catchy, deceptively upbeat refrain that belies the song’s heart of darkness.

Other hits included Without You by Nilsson (No. 1) off the No. 8 album Nilsson Schmilsson; Hurting Each Other by the Carpenters (No. 2); and Precious and Few, by Climax (No. 3).

The Billboard LP chart was very much of its era, with highlights including Carole King’s Music (No. 2); George Harrison’s live album The Concert for Bangla Desh (No. 3); the Rolling Stones’ all-time best greatest-hits compilation Hot Rocks (No. 5); the Faces’ A Nod Is as Good as a Wink… to a Blind Horse (No. 6), with the classic Stay With Me; and, Traffic’s The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (No. 7).

Oh, and Led Zeppelin IV (No. 9), which many still consider to be the greatest rock album ever recorded. (It’s certainly one of them, I agree.)

I think Stairway to Heaven has topped every listener countdown on every rock station in the United States for the last five decades.

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Dan Greenfield, editor, 13th Dimension

Batman From the ’30s to the ’70s, Crown Publishers. The granddaddy of all Batman compilation books, this hardcover was the Batbible for a generation of fans. I got mine somewhere around this time and it was integral to stoking my comic-book fire; most Batfans will tell you the same. Even though the book is largely black-and-white, you get a fantastic grounding in most things Caped Crusader, from the iconic cover to the superb selection of stories. It was later reprinted, but this is the first time it hit shelves. A pillar of any Batman library. Man, I love this book.

Scott adds: Everything I know about Batman I learned from this book. I read it so much as a kid it’s practically in liquid form.

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Adventure Comics #418, DC. Nobody drew Supergirl better than Bob Oksner, who did this issue’s cover — and who was just posthumously named an Eisner Hall of Famer. (He inked Jose Delbo on the interiors.)

But the far and away highlight of this ish is the first half of Denny O’Neil and Alex Toth’s classic Black Canary two-parter, featuring this fantastic sequence:

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Fantastic Four #122, Marvel. I’m pretty sure this was the first FF ish I ever got. I love the idea of Galactus going to Nathan’s after this.

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Tarzan #207, DC. Aka the first DC issue, in which Joe Kubert adapts the Lord of the Apes’ origin story by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

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Bobby Sherman #4 and David Cassidy #4, Charlton. Who ya got?

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The Partridge Family #10, Charlton. So, I guess Cassidy wins on points?

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Ghost Manor #5, Ghostly Haunts #25, Ghostly Tales #95, Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves #32, Charlton. Ditko horror four times over! Plus, he also did the cover for Haunted #6.

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Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica #197, Archie. The fashions. It’s a Dan DeCarlo cover, which means in all likelihood Josie DeCarlo was the hidden couturier here.

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

Detective Comics #422, DC. What a great Neal Adams cover.

Dan adds: It is a great cover by but it feels like a violation, doesn’t it? Especially when you learn that the creepy, shaking hand belongs to her father. Anyway, while the scene plays out quite differently inside, this is the issue where Batgirl finally tells the commissioner she’s his daughter. (He already knew.) It also sets up her run for Congress, which would play out over the next couple of issues. (Babs would win and leave for Washington and she’d only show up intermittently until Batman Family #1 in 1975.) I seem to remember getting this ish at the Collingwood Auction, a New Jersey flea market that’s still around.

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Action Comics #411, DC. I was always a sucker for Superman Fortress covers that involved the giant key.

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Star Trek #14, Gold Key. To be fair, that monster attack seems like it would be enough to make anyone mentally unfit to command the Enterprise.

Dan adds: Just think — 19 years later they’d save the Camp Khitomer peace talks.

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MORE

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of Feb. 19 — in 1982! Click here.

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of Feb. 12 — in 1971! Click here.

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