Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jul 1, 2026 | 9 comments

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 50 years ago — the Bicentennial!

This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott and I are selecting comics that came out the week of July 1, 1976.

Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of June 24, 1952. 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 June 28 and July 4 — the Bicentennial!)

So, let’s set the scene: Well before the calendar turned to 1976, Americans were celebrating the nation’s 200th anniversary, but the months of hype, merchandising, and shot-in-the-arm patriotism in a post-Vietnam, post-Watergate world reached a fever pitch July 4, with a gigantic, coast-to-coast birthday party.

Everywhere you went, you saw red, white and blue, and, in true American fashion, companies put the Stars and Stripes — or at the very least the ubiquitous official Bicentennial logo — on everything they could.

The capper was the parade of tall ships through New York Harbor — which is happening again this year for the United States’ 250th — and I vividly remember watching on television President Gerald Ford ringing the Operation Sail ceremonial bell. Then as, day turned to night across the country, cities and towns were lit up by fireworks displays that somehow seemed bigger and louder than ever. (They certainly were in some places.)

We’d just moved to a small town in New Jersey called Highland Park, a lovely, walkable community, and I remember the Bicentennial and that summer in great detail. Even as a 9-year-old — or maybe especially because I was a 9-year-old — I was well aware that this was something special that would probably not be repeated in my lifetime. (So far, I’ve been right: America250 doesn’t even come close.)

“My most vivid memory of the Bicentennial was a family trip to Disneyland, where we saw ‘America Sings,’ Disneyland’s then-new Bicentennial audio-animatronic spectacular, having replaced the Carousel of Progress, which had departed for Orlando and its new home at Walt Disney World,” sez my RETRO HOT PICKS partner Scott Tipton, who grew up on the other side of the country in California. “Featuring dozens of animatronic animals singing the popular music of America’s history, it was 1970s Imagineering at its best.

The other major news event was playing out thousands of miles away in the African nation of Uganda, where “President for Life” Idi Amin — a high-caliber madman — was providing support to a group of murderous, anti-Israel terrorists who had hijacked a New York-bound Air France flight and brought it to Entebbe Airport. The standoff lasted for days until July 3 and 4, when the badass Israel Defense Forces Sayeret Matkal special forces unit mounted a daring, successful rescue of 102 remaining hostages held on the airplane.

Hostages return to Tel Aviv

All seven hijackers were killed, as well as dozens of Ugandan soldiers. Three hostages unfortunately didn’t make it, and the leader of the mission — Yonatan Netanyahu, older brother of the man who would become Israel’s prime minister — was killed in battle, the only Israeli military loss. The elaborate mission included an Amin impersonator, accompanied by fake bodyguards.

Amin was so enraged that the Israelis received help from neighboring Kenya, that he ordered his army to kill all Kenyans living in his country, leading to a body count of 245, with 3,000 fleeing the nation. Amin also ordered the murder of Dora Bloch, a 73-year-old woman and dual Israeli-British citizen who’d fallen ill during the siege and was hospitalized, thereby missing the rescue.

IN OTHER NEWS

— On July 2, North and South Vietnam officially merged, putting the ultimate exclamation point on the foolishness of the Vietnam War.

Pirates pitcher Dave Giusti

— Baseball’s National League was also celebrating its centennial, and a handful of teams — most notably the Pittburgh Pirates — began wearing 1800s-style pillbox hats to mark the event. Most of the teams that wore them — the Mets, Cardinals, Expos, Phillies, and defending World Series champion Reds — did so occasionally. Only the Pirates wore them for every game, and then continued the look for years to come.

— In Toronto, the CN Tower had just opened and was, at the time, the tallest free-standing structure in the world. It would remain so for 32 years.

— Chris Evert of the United States won the Wimbledon women’s singles championship July 2. The next day, Bjorn Borg of Sweden won the men’s title.

— It was a presidential election year and former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, had secured enough delegates heading into the July 12 national convention in New York. Ford, meanwhile, was facing a tough challenge from former California Gov. Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination.

One of the ’70s major horror films, The Omen, starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, and directed by Richard Donner, opened in late June and was the biggest box-office draw. It held the top slot for five weeks before giving way to a re-release of… The Exorcist. Other big hits included All the President’s Men; The Bad News Bears; The Missouri Breaks; Midway; Silent Movie; Logan’s Run; and The Outlaw Josey Wales. Grim fare such as Dog Day Afternoon, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Taxi Driver were all likely still around on second-run screens.

TV was in rerun season but a new show hit syndication in June that ended up helping to define the era — The Gong Show. (The most popular network shows at the time included All in the Family and its spinoff Maude; Happy Days and its spinoff Laverne & Shirley, which actually finished higher in the ratings for the season; The Six Million Dollar Man and its spinoff The Bionic Woman, which also finished higher in the ratings; The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and its spinoffs Phyllis and Rhoda, both of which finished higher; MASH; Sanford and Son; and One Day at a Time.

Chuck Barris, as if you needed me to tell you

The Bicentennial also provided a stage for some of the biggest names in rock: On the Fourth of July, Elton John played at Schaefer Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, the home of the New England Patriots; The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac shared a bill in Tampa; Elvis played Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top did Memphis. Paul McCartney and Wings were on the Wings Over America leg of their world tour but were on a break from the schedule.

(Not known to the public at the time, but on July 1, Tina Turner escaped from Ike Turner after he’d beaten her on the way to a Dallas hotel while they were on tour. After Ike fell asleep at the hotel, Tina made a break for it, with only 36 cents in her pocket and a Mobil credit card in her wallet. She sprinted across the highway in the dark, nearly getting hit by a truck, and made it to another hotel. She would file for divorce by the end of July.)

Wings’ Silly Love Songs was the No. 1 hit, with the Starland Vocal Band’s immortal Afternoon Delight coming in right behind. Other big tunes included Sara Smile, by Daryl Hall and John Oates; Captain and Tennille’s cover of Shop Around; the Andrea True Connection’s More, More, More; and, Get Up and Boogie (That’s Right) by Silver Convention. The Beatles — yes, the Beatles — also had a successful run with a re-release of the 10-year-old Got To Get You Into My Life, off the recently released compilation album Rock ‘n’ Roll Music.

Wings at the Speed of Sound was in the middle of a five-week run at the top of the LP chart, having taken over from the Rolling Stones’ Black and Blue. The two albums had been jockeying back and forth since April, with a two-week incursion by Led Zeppelin’s Presence. These titans of rock were joined by Bob Dylan’s Desire; the Eagles’ Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975); Fleetwood Mac’s self-titled record; and the album that came to define the year — Frampton Comes Alive!

Woke up this morning with a wine glass in my hand…

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Dan Greenfield, editor, 13th Dimension

Here’s a little peek behind the 13th Dimension curtain: As a general rule of thumb, we don’t do RETRO HOT PICKS on a 50-year cycle. The reason is that BRONZE AGE BONANZA does that every month. They’re significantly different features but they are sisters and I don’t want to be repetitive. But I couldn’t resist doing this week in 1976 because it was the Bicentennial and it wouldn’t have had quite the same resonance if we did it, say, in 2025 or 2027. So here we are.

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Action Comics #463, DC. Obscure, weirdo villain Karb-Brak, with his excellent purple-and-yellow ensemble and incredible red facial hair, sends Superman back to 1776, where he has amnesia and is living as Clark Kent. Bicentennial shenanigans ensue, and Superman helps make sure the Declaration of Independence gets signed.

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The Amazing World of DC Comics #12, DC. The series’ Issue #8 was all about the Legion and it was a smash. (It’s probably the most valuable issue of the title today.) Just goes to show how you how much times have changed. Anyway, DC went back to the well here.

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Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-48 and #C-49, DC. Two — count ’em, two — treasuries from DC at the same time! Again with the Legion! (Marvel’s Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles #1 was already out, by the by. While we’re on the subject, there were no Marvels released this week.)

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Archie Giant Series Magazine #249, Archie. Archie got the best part of the deal here.

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Plop! #23, DC. Plop! was nearing the end of the line. Only one more issue after this one.

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The Charlton Bullseye #5, The CPL Gang. The final issue of the fanzine that was also a prozine. I’m sure Paul Kupperberg loved it. That’s an Alex Toth cover there.

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Mad #185, EC. Mad had already skewered the Bicentennial some months earlier, in Issue #181, so now it was time for the year’s other big story.

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

Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes Vol. 1: Batman, Macmillan. This was checked out of my childhood library by me more times than I could count.

Dan adds: A seminal work with an extraordinary level of detail. It covers not only all the major Batman villains, allies, vehicles and weapons up to that point, it has entries on practically every one-off random gangster Batman faced. Even though it’s 50 years old, it’s still a must-have resource. Amazing.

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Detective Comics #463, DC. That does indeed look like a socko slugfest.

Dan adds: I’ll never understand why DC insisted on giving Black Spider essentially a Spider-Man mask and collar. It immediately made him derivative and took away any chance he’d have of being a legit adversary. He’s also a ripoff of the Punisher. He’s a vigilante who, unlike Batman, is eager to kill. (He has a thing about drug dealers.) Also: He has an orange-and-purple costume but is called Black Spider. Why? Presumably because he was a Black man and it was the ’70s. Anyway, I’ve long seen Black Spider as a character with potential unfulfilled.

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Shazam! #25, DC. I remember thinking, once Isis made her way to comic-book racks (and the Mego boxes), “OK, she counts now. I’ll watch the show.”

Dan adds: I actually liked Isis more than the Shazam! TV show!

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Secret Origins of the Super DC Heroes, Warner Books. Another frequent childhood library checkout, but this one I had to special-transfer from another library. This was the first place I ever read origin stories for Green Arrow, Atom and Plastic Man.

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MORE

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale the Week of June 24 — in 1952! Click here.

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale the Week of June 17 — in 1983! Click here.

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