Posted By Dan Greenfield on May 28, 2025 | 10 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 May 28, 1977.

Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of May 21, 1974. 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 May 25 and May 31.)

So, let’s set the scene: Star Waaaaaars! Nothing but STAR WAAAAAARRRRRS! The movie that changed Hollywood and popular culture forever opened May 25. Wherever it was playing, there were lines around the block. Wherever it was playing, movie-goers fell in love, whether you were a kid, a teenager or a grown-up.

I’ve long had a Mandela effect-style memory that I saw the movie on opening night, which I swore was a Friday. (I’ve written about what that night was like.) But the movie from a galaxy far, far away opened on a Wednesday. Then I figured it out: Star Wars was only released in 32 theaters across the United States — and the one where I saw it, in Menlo Park, N.J. wasn’t one of them. I’m not sure how long it was until it hit that theater, but I did see it that local opening Friday night — and again, two days later, on Sunday.

For those of us of a certain age, there was Before Star Wars and After Star Wars. The demarcation line was that strong.

Original program

He was out of power for almost three years, and Democrat Jimmy Carter was in the White House, but Richard Nixon just would not go away. This month, the famous (or infamous, of you prefer) Frost/Nixon interviews ran weekly in May in four parts in syndication (a fifth episode, including more material, would run in the fall). Part 4 was broadcast May 26, but Americans were repulsed by Nixon’s assertion the week before that “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” Which of, course, is a deeply un-American position. (Coincidentally, on May 23, the US Supreme Court refused to hear the appeals of three of the president’s men — Watergate criminals H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and John Mitchell.)

Nixon was never impeached but a Gallup poll conducted after the interviews aired showed that 75 percent thought he deserved no further role in public life.

New York City, which was already beset by an array of financial problems and a degraded urban landscape, had found itself further unsettled by the emergence of a serial killer who used a .44 caliber handgun. The papers, especially The New York Post and its rival the New York Daily News gave blanket coverage to the attacks but the hysteria hadn’t even hit its peak.

On May 30, News columnist Jimmy Breslin received a letter from someone claiming to be the shooter. The News gave the letter to the police and 10 days later published a redacted version. This was little more than a month after police found a note where the murderer identified himself by the same name.

The letter was signed, “Son of Sam.”

IN OTHER NEWS

— But the thing about New York is that the horrible often comes alongside the amazing: A self-styled “Human Fly,” George Willig, on May 26 scaled Tower 2 of the World Trade Center, reaching 1,350 feet in 3 1/2 hours, setting the record for highest climb up the side of a building. When Willig reached the top, cops were there to congratulate him and ask him for autographs. Then they arrested him.

— Racehorse Seattle Slew was the talk of the nation, just five years after Secretariat destroyed the field in all three Triple Crown races. Seattle Slew had by this time won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. Only the Belmont awaited.

— On May 29, A.J. Foyt won the Indianapolis 500, becoming the first driver to win the race four times. It had been 10 years since his last victory.

— The Beatles had broken up more than seven years earlier, but they were still in the news. The live album The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl, cobbled together from performances in 1964 and 1965 and beset by subpar sound quality, was at No. 5 on the Billboard LP chart. And on May 31, Beatlemania opened at the Winter Garden Theatre. It ran for 920 performances. My recollection is that my 14-year-old sister, who’d become a complete Beatlemaniac by this time, saw the original cast with her friend Nina Kessin.

— Also big on Broadway was May’s revival of The King and I, starring Yul Brynner, who reprised his signature role, which he first played on the Great White Way in 1951. My Mom took us to see it and I loved it.

Besides the Star Wars juggernaut, other big films in theaters included Annie Hall, Woody Allen’s best; and Burt Reynolds’ Smokey and the Bandit, co-starring Sally Field and Jackie Gleason. The star-studded disaster flick Airport ’77 was still flying around, as well.

Laverne & Shirley, Quincy, Charlie’s Angels, What’s Happening!!, Barney Miller, Happy Days and The Carol Burnett Show were among the most popular TV programs of the time. On May 25, the one-season The Brady Bunch Hour, a misbegotten variety show, aired for the last time. The show starred the original cast, except Eve Plumb, who wanted to do it but couldn’t make the time commitment. She was replaced by Geri Reischl, who forevermore became known as “Fake Jan.”

One of my absolute favorite songs of the 1970s, Stevie Wonder’s ebullient Sir Duke, was in a three-week run atop the Billboard 100. The song, which knocked me out every time it was on the radio, came from his magnum opus album Songs in the Key of Life, which was at No. 8 on the LP chart.

The very-much-of-its-time When I Need You, by Leo Sayer, was at No. 2; I’m Your Boogie Man by KC and the Sunshine Band, was at No. 3; Dreams, by Fleetwood Mac, off the band’s epochal, No. 1 album Rumours, was at No. 4; Got to Give It Up Pt. 1, by Marvin Gaye, was at No. 5; Bill Conti’s ubiquitous Rocky theme, Gonna Fly Now, was No. 6, and Couldn’t Get It Right, by Climax Blues Band, was at No. 7.

The Eagles’ classic Hotel California was at No. 2 on the album chart; the Rocky soundtrack was at No. 4; and Boston’s self-titled debut album was at No. 9.

But that clutching of pearls and rending of garments that you heard from across the Atlantic, was the Sex Pistols’ May 27 release of God Save the Queen during Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee, ahead of their one and only album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols.

No future, no future, no future for you…

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Dan Greenfield, editor, 13th Dimension

Detective Comics #471, DC. An outright classic, milestone issue. It’s the first teaming of writer Steve Englehart, penciller Marshall Rogers and inker Terry Austin, and features the return of Professor Hugo Strange, who’d been on the shelf since 1940. The first two issues of Englehart’s run, with art by Walt Simonson and Allen Milgrom, were solid, but things went into the stratosphere once Rogers and Austin came aboard. A tremendous issue whose legacy is felt to this day.

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Super-Team Family #12, DC. I liked what DC did here — put together a four-issue Atom story, featuring different team-ups. It was a quest to save Jean Loring, DC’s favorite punching bag, who had once again had a nervous breakdown. Team-up books don’t last as ongoings anymore but this is a groovy concept going all the way back to Zatanna’s Quest in the 1960s.

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Green Lantern #96, DC. Just some Denny O’Neil and Mike Grell (inked by Vince Colletta) GL/GA for you.

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Laugh #317, Archie. Oh, poor Betty. She’s usually so good at everything!

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Godzilla #2, Marvel. One Space Needle for dinner, please.

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Marvel Treasury Edition #15, Marvel. Mostly reprint collection behind a nifty John Buscema/Ernie Chan cover. Interiors included new and old material from a Who’s Who of Hyborians: Barry Windsor-Smith, Roy Thomas, Gil Kane, Neal Adams, Marie Severin, Esteban Maroto, Dick Giordano, Frank Thorne, Alfredo Alcala, Rick Hoberg, and more.

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Showcase #94, DC. The debut of the New Doom Patrol, written by our pal Paul Kupperberg! So we’ve invited Paul to stop by this week…

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Paul Kupperberg, columnist, 13th Dimension

Showcase #94, DC. The original Doom Patrol, created by Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani, was an outlier for the typical DC superhero of the 1960s. Arnold was the one DC writer who understood what Stan Lee was doing, making The Doom Patrol the most Marvel-like series in tone published by the Distinguished Competition. The Chief, Robotman, Negative Man, and Elasti-Girl were some of the best realized heroes in a universe of mostly one-note characters.

The fact that I was still a rookie writer learning my way around a page didn’t stop me from leaping at the chance to write the story that resurrected the Doom Patrol in Showcase #94. Editor Paul Levitz was a friend who knew what a fan I was of both the heroes and the venerable try-out title in which it was to appear, and let me take my shot at reviving and revamping the team nine years after they had heroically sacrificed themselves to save the lives of a town full of strangers.

In retrospect, I don’t think I did the Doom Patrol any favors with that original run beyond bringing them back from the dead (and getting to work for the first time with artist Joe Staton), but the fact that they’re still around 50 years later, through what seems like countless revivals and revamps, means at least I didn’t do any permanent damage.

Scott adds: This Jim Aparo cover legit scared me when I was a kid.

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

The Human Fly #1, Marvel. “The wildest super-hero ever – because he’s real!” Well, real-ish, anyway.

Dan adds: Such timing! Except this Human Fly was based on stuntman Rick Rojatt, and not daredevil George Willig.

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Wonder Woman #234, DC. Great cover from Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez here.

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Super Friends #6, DC Comics. I’m still waiting for the return of Menagerie Man.

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MORE

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of May 21 — in 1974! Click here.

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

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