Posted By Dan Greenfield on Dec 11, 2024 | 8 comments

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 48 years ago…

This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott Tipton and I are selecting comics that came out the week of Dec. 11, 1976.

Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of Dec. 4, 1969. 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 Dec. 8 and Dec. 14.)

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So, let’s set the scene: We were a nation in transition. Republican President Gerald Ford, excoriated for pardoning the disgraced and corrupt Richard Nixon in 1974, lost the Bicentennial year election and Democrat Jimmy Carter was planning his administration in anticipation of his January 1977 inauguration. On Dec. 13, Carter’s election was confirmed by the Electoral College.

The war was over but Vietnam was still a nation in strife: On Dec. 14, the congress of the ruling Vietnamese Workers Party — quickly to be renamed the Vietnamese Communist Party — opened in Hanoi. Le Duan, the party head and de facto leader of the nation, gave a six-hour (!) address, outlining plans to reach out to the West and rebuild the now-unified country, in part by forcing the relocation of 1 million South Vietnamese from Saigon into “economic zones.”

In the aftermath of the war, under Duan’s administration, there were no mass executions as feared, but up to 300,000 South Vietnamese were sent to reeducation camps, where people were starved, tortured, and forced into hard labor. Nearly 2 million South Vietnamese fled the country after the war ended.

The top movie in the country was Carrie, whose television commercial scarred me for life. Cinemas offered a fairly diverse selection of popular films: Rocky, a sleeper hit on its way to becoming an Oscar-winning box office champ and pop culture phenomenon; the frighteningly prescient Network, which coined the catchphrase, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more!”; and Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson in the remake A Star Is Born.

There was also the Richard Pryor-Gene Wilder comedy Silver Streak and the sniper-at-a-football-game thriller Two-Minute Warning, starring Charlton Heston and a solid cast of well-known character actors, including John Cassavetes, Martin Balsam, David Janssen and Gena Rowlands. Millions, meanwhile, put off going to the dentist after seeing Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man. (“Is it safe?”)

Meanwhile, all I cared about was the new King Kong movie that was coming out on Dec. 17. (I saw it with a friend who was surprised Kong died at the end; he thought he’d walk off into the sunset like he did in Japanese films.)

Bob Hope’s Christmas Comedy Special on NBC — featuring John Wayne, Johnny Carson, Neil Sedaka, Dyan Cannon, Lola Falana, Kate Jackson and Miss America Dorothy Benham — led the Nielsens. As was tradition, Hope announced the members of the 1976 AP All-America Football Team, which included running backs Tony Dorsett and Ricky Bell. Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Charlie’s Angels, Six Million Dollar Man and MASH were all big hits.

Tony Dorsett

On Dec. 12, actor Jack Cassidy, ex-husband of Shirley Jones and the father of David Cassidy and Shaun Cassidy, died in a fire at his home in West Hollywood after falling asleep while smoking.

Rod Stewart’s No. 1 hit Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright) was the soundtrack to every bouncing, shag-carpeted-back-of-the-van in America. Other hits included the fantastic The Rubberband Man by the Spinners at No. 2; the really strange ballad Muskrat Love, by Captain & Tennille (No. 4); and the catchy, falsetto-soaked You Make Me Feel Like Dancing by Leo Sayer (No. 6).

But it wasn’t all groovy hits and dorky tunes: The Sex Pistols were crashing their way into the public consciousness. Their debut single Anarchy in the U.K. was released in England in November and they shocked Brits earlier in December by spouting profanity on live television. The tabloids had a field day and the Pistols exploded.

Meanwhile, Stevie Wonder’s masterpiece Songs In the Key of Life topped the LP chart, followed by Stewart’s A Night On the Town. Led Zep’s The Song Remains the Same soundtrack was at No. 5. But there were two new releases that demanded Christmas dollars, as well — the triple live album Wings Over America, and a disc that would prove to be one of the defining records of the decade and one of the best-selling records of all time: the Eagles’ Hotel California.

You can feel it all over, you can feel it all over people…

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Dan Greenfield, editor, 13th Dimension

House of Mystery #251 and Superman Family #182, DC. The dawn of Dollar Comics! Jenette Kahn, with input from Neal Adams, pioneered the Dollar Comic and this week the first two hit the stands! This also marked Adams’ return to DC as a cover artist — inking Curt Swan on Superman Family #251 and pencilling and inking House of Mystery #251 (based in part on an unpublished earlier version by Jose-Luis Garcia-Lopez and Bernie Wrightson).

Dollar Comics were one among the sharpest Kahn innovations, giving readers great entertainment and a great bargain, to boot. There’s a reason the format is revered to this day. Not just that, SF #182 gave us our pal Paul Kupperberg’s first DC story — a “World of Krypton” tale pencilled by Marshall Rogers and inked by Frank Springer.

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Justice League of America #140, DC. Steve Englehart’s “Giant” run on JLA is widely admired, though I believe it’s only been reprinted once in its entirety. A strong candidate for a DC Finest edition, wouldn’t you say?

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Logan’s Run #3, Marvel. Loved the movie. I should track down these issues because I’ve never read them. And, hey, art by George Perez and Klaus Janson! (That’s a Perez/Tom Palmer cover.)

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Planet of the Apes #29, Marvel. The final issue! Dig the cover by Malcolm McNeill.

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Batman #285, DC. Dr. Tzin-Tzin always intrigued me even though by today’s standards, he’s horribly out of place. His best story was, by far, 1970’s Detective Comics #408 (“The House That Haunted Batman!) by Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Neal Adams and Dick Giordano. This one, the conclusion of a two-parter by David V. Reed, Romeo Tanghal and Frank Springer, doesn’t come close. Kind of a neat Jim Aparo cover, though. This was a pretty fallow period for the Darknight Detective.

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

The Amazing Spider-Man #166, Marvel. My favorite Spidey comic of all time. Stegron the Dinosaur Man versus the Lizard. At Christmas. “It’s a holiday holocaust!”

Dan adds: This came out the week before, but it’s Scott’s favorite Spidey comic of all time! We can’t deny him that! Besides, it was still on sale! Merry Christmas, Scott!

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The Avengers #157, Marvel. Dane Whitman’s petrified body comes to life and opens up a can of whoopass on the Avengers. And check out that Jack Kirby cover!

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The Champions #12, Marvel. For a series that got off to something of a wobbly start, The Champions was firing on all cylinders a year later, with scripts by Bill Mantlo and art by John Byrne. (That’s a Dave Cockrum cover.) Too bad it got cancelled only five months later.

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The Defenders #45, Marvel. The female Defenders (including Red Guardian, a minor character I always liked) must battle their mind-controlled male teammates, held under sway by the Red Rajah! And it’s another Kirby cover!

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MORE

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of Dec. 4 — in 1969! Click here.

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of Nov. 27 — in 1958! Click here.

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