Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 51 years ago…
This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott and I are selecting comics that came out the week of Sept. 2, 1975.
Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of Aug. 26, 1981. 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 Aug. 30 and Sept. 5.)
So, let’s set the scene: On the morning of Sept. 5, a 26-year-old woman in Sacramento, California, dressed herself in a red robe and headdress and armed herself with a Colt M1911 .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol, determined to confront President Gerald Ford about the plight of the California redwoods. As one does.
About 10 a.m., the woman, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a deeply devoted member of the Manson family, got to within three feet of the president as he walked through a crowd near the State Capitol, aimed at his chest, and pulled the trigger.
Aaaaaand, nothing happened. Fromme failed to slide a cartridge into the chamber, and was quickly subdued, pushed up against (ironically) a tree, and arrested. “Oh, shit, it didn’t go off; it didn’t go off,” Fromme said, according to the Secret Service agent who corralled her.
Fromme was one of Manson’s earliest and most fanatical followers, though she was not involved in 1969’s Tate-LaBianca murders. (She was evidently given her nickname by George Spahn, the owner of the dilapidated former movie ranch outside Los Angeles where the Family lived, because that was the sound she made when the addled, blind old dude ran his hand up her thigh.)
Even though the pistol didn’t fire, she was brought up on federal charges of attempting to assassinate the president. She claimed, “I was not determined to kill the guy” — Fromme later said she popped the cartridge from the chamber on purpose — but refused to cooperate with her own defense. When, however, the prosecutor recommended she receive heavy punishment because she was “full of hate and violence,” she showed off her aim by throwing an apple at him, hitting him in the face and knocking off his glasses.
Fromme would ultimately be sentenced to life in prison and serve 34 years before, remarkably, being released on parole. Though she has granted at least one interview, reporters attempting to approach her at her home in upstate New York, have generally been rebuffed in no uncertain terms. She’s 77 years old.
(That fall, she would be portrayed by Laraine Newman on the third episode of a new show called Saturday Night, in a sketch called “Dangerous but Inept.”)
IN OTHER NEWS
— On Sept. 1. the Concorde became the first airplane to cross the Atlantic four times on the same day, traveling twice between London to Gander, Newfoundland, and back.
— Unrelated, but on the same day, USAF Lieutenant General Daniel “Chappie” James became the first Black four-star general. He was was named the commander of NORAD.
— The Sinai Interim Agreement between Israel and Egypt was signed in Geneva on Sept. 4. Under the deal, a 25-kilometer-wide buffer zone was created in the Sinai, separating each nation’s armies. United Nations Emergency Force troops would patrol the zone.
Summer’s end was approaching but that didn’t stop people from flocking to the beach. Metaphorically speaking, anyway. Jaws remained a box-office leviathan, in the middle of a 14-week swim at the top. Other hits included the star-studded Shampoo led by Warren Beatty; The Return of the Pink Panther; Woody Allen’s Love and Death; Robert Altman’s Nashville; Rollerball; and The Other Side of the Mountain.
When you were a kid in the New York area (and elsewhere in the East), the last week of August sucked. Summer was coming to an end, even if it still had a few weeks left on the calendar, meaning a lot of back-to-school nonsense and anxious anticipation about what your teacher would be like. But to soften the blow there was the TV Guide Fall Preview — the best issue of the year, where you learned about all the cool new shows that were coming.
The 1975 issue was out this week and touted promising network shows like Welcome Back, Kotter; Starsky & Hutch, whose pilot ran back in the spring; the second Mary Tyler Moore Show spinoff, Phyllis; Ellery Queen (which I’d end up watching with my Mom), The Invisible Man, starring David McCallum, that also had a pilot that aired months earlier; Switch, starring Eddie Albert and Robert Wagner; and even Barbary Coast, starring William Shatner and Doug McClure, another one that aired a pilot in the spring.
Returning hits included All in the Family and its spinoffs Maude and The Jeffersons; Mary Tyler Moore and its more popular spinoff Rhoda; The Bob Newhart Show; Chico and the Man; Sanford and Son; and MASH.
A syndicated sci-fi show produced in the United Kingdom got an early start, with a Sept. 1 debut — Space: 1999, starring the husband-and-wife team of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. While never capturing the public’s imagination like Star Trek, the show had its own dedicated following and remains a cult favorite, with plenty of vintage merchandise out there for collectors who enjoyed the show.
Glen Campbell’s Rhinestone Cowboy led the singles chart and was played over, and over, and over again on the radio. Disco was coming more into vogue, with K.C. and the Sunshine Band’s Get Down Tonight at No. 3. At No. 6 was a new song by the washed-up Bee Gees: The infectious, driving Jive Talkin’ heralded a new sound for the band and presaged a popularity that the Brothers Gibb had never known.
David Bowie had a winner with Fame, at No. 7. Hit machine Elton John’s latest was the classic Someone Saved My Life Tonight, off the album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, one of the year’s most popular LPs.
Jefferson Starship’s Red Octopus — featuring the tuneful Miracles — spent this week atop the albums chart. LPs popular on the turntables were Led Zeppelin’s two-disc masterpiece Physical Graffiti; Fleetwood Mac’s self-titled album; the movie version of The Who’s Tommy; Wings’ Venus and Mars; Rod Stewart’s Atlantic Crossing; That’s the Way of the World, by Earth, Wind & Fire; and, the Eagles’ One of These Nights.
But that rumbling sound on Thunder Road was Bruce Springsteen’s LP Born to Run, released August 25. The disc, which was Springsteen’s third, quickly caught on and would become the defining record of his storied career. Just weeks shy of his 26th birthday, the troubadour from the Jersey Shore was on his way to superstardom, and by the fall would make the covers of both Time and Newsweek.
Wendy let me in, I wanna be your friend, I want to guard your dreams and visions…
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Dan Greenfield, editor, 13th Dimension
Man-Bat #1, DC. Man-Bat had cachet in the ’70s, so it’s not all that surprising that DC took a flyer on a Kirk Langstrom solo mag. But it only made it through two issues and suffered from a bizarre tonal shift between them: Issue #1 was by Gerry Conway, Steve Ditko and Al Milgrom and was all occulty and whatnot. Issue #2 was by Martin Pasko, Pablo Marcos, and Ricardo Villamonte, and was more your standard antihero vs. costumed villain tale, co-starring Z-Lister the Ten-Eyed Man (who at one time actually had potential). Man-Bat would fare much better as a back-up feature in Detective Comics and Batman Family.
Scott adds: Jim Aparo’s Man-Bat always looked particularly tortured.
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Archie’s Girls Betty and Veronica #239, Archie. By my count, there were 11 Archie titles out this week. That’s probably just shared a Sept. 1 publication date, but it doesn’t matter. My point is this: In addition to Betty and Veronica playing tennis here, they and/or the gang this week had two cookouts, went camping, went fishing (and cooked the catch), went boating, went to the beach, encountered a ghost pirate, braved a tiger, went cycling by the water, and visited Pop’s. Even with it being the last week before school, where the fuck did they find the time to do all that?
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Power Records PR-26: Star Trek — The Crier in Emptiness, Power Records. Ah, the infamous issue where Nichelle Nichols is colored pink on the cover and depicted as a Caucasian blonde woman inside, while Sulu was a Black man. Um… And get this: The cover was by some combination of Alan Weiss and Dick Giordano, while Alan Dean Foster wrote the story and the interior art was by John Buscema, Giordano and Terry Austin. Side note: This story was released six times in different formats by Power Records/Peter Pan.
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Planet of the Apes #14, Marvel. In addition to a continuing Escape From the Planet of the Apes adaptation, there’s a story by Doug Moench and Mike Ploog called “Up the Nose-Tube to Monkey-Trash.”
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Special Collector’s Edition Featuring Savage Fists of Kung Fu #1, Limited Collectors’ Edition C-40, and Limited Collectors’ Edition C-41, Marvel and DC. Three — count ’em — three treasury editions all out the same week! Some notes:
1) I don’t know why it was called Savage Fists of Kung Fu, when half the time it could be called Savage Foots of Kung Fu.
B) DC’s only foray into Dick Tracy!
3) Really a Justice League treasury more than a Super Friends issue. There are two reprint JLA stories from 1965 and 1968 (good ones, too!), but the rest is a Super Friends framing story by E. Nelson Bridwell that, as Scott rightly points out, features absolutely gorgeous art by Alex Toth. Toth also did a feature on animation, and the front and back covers — with Superman’s face on the front notoriously pasted over with Curt Swan and George Klein art.
Scott adds: LCE #C-41 is my favorite of all the DC treasury editions!
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8. Turok, Son of Stone #100, Gold Key. This is what I wrote last year in the September 1975 edition of BRONZE AGE BONANZA: “What?”
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Scott Tipton, contributor-at-large, 13th Dimension
Justice League of America #125, DC. A rare Two-Face appearance here in the pages of JLA.
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Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth #36, DC. Look at that. An Alligator Man drawn by Joe Kubert. Glorious.
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