Posted By Dan Greenfield on Aug 13, 2025 | 7 comments

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

Scott Tipton’s exploring the Final Frontier right now, so I’m solo.

This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, I’m selecting comics that came out the week of Aug. 13, 1977.

Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of Aug. 6, 1945. 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 Aug. 10 and Aug. 16.)

So, let’s set the scene: The week began with the arrest of one of America’s most notorious killers and ended with the death of the greatest rock and roll star of them all.

Elvis Presley, who redefined popular music around the world in the 1950s, influenced and inspired an entire generation of rockers who proliferated through the 1960s, and who in the 1970s became known for his outsize, jumpsuited Las Vegas performances, on August 16 was found unresponsive on his Graceland bathroom floor by his fiancee Ginger Alden. He was pronounced dead at 3:30 p.m. at a Memphis hospital. (Where was I when I found out? On the living room couch watching Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado on Channel 13 with my Mom. My sister came in with the news. Weird, right?)

The outpouring was immense: President Carter issued a statement that said Presley “permanently changed the face of American popular culture” — which was both the truth and a vast understatement at the same time. Thousands visited Graceland to view his open casket. His funeral was held at the mansion two days after his death, with about 80,000 people lining the procession route to the cemetery, where he was buried next to his beloved mother, Gladys.

Because of the grotesque, self-serving machinations of his manager, Col. Tom Parker, Elvis never got to perform abroad (other than Canada in 1957). Nevertheless, he was one of the biggest stars in the history of the world. He was the King. And he still is.

The city of New York and its environs could wipe some of the sweat off its heated summer brow: About a year and a half after he began his reign of terror as the serial fiend known alternately as the Son of Sam and the .44 Caliber Killer, David Berkowitz on Aug. 10, was arrested as he left his apartment in Yonkers, N.Y., just north of the Bronx.

“Well, you got me,” the madman told cops. Investigators found a .45-caliber Thompson sub-machine gun, 180 rounds of ammunition, and a letter suggesting that he planned to shoot up a disco in the Hamptons, on Long Island. (“Sam,” he told cops, was his neighbor Sam Carr, whose demon-possessed black Lab told him to kill.)

Not that it’s a contest, but compared to other monsters, Berkowitz’s body count was relatively low: six dead, 11 wounded. But his taunting, creepy letters to the police and the press at a time when frenzied media capital New York City was crumbling in on itself made him a national symbol of urban decay. Hell, I was afraid to walk my dog at night in suburban New Jersey.

Between these two landmark events, NASA was preparing a new way to reach the Final Frontier. The space shuttle Enterprise — named after the ship on Star Trek — made its first free flight on the morning of Aug. 12. It rode piggyback on a Boeing 747 and separated at 27,000 feet over California’s Mojave Desert. It landed at Edwards Air Force Base. (Less than a year before, Gene Roddenberry and most of the cast attended the Enterprise’s dedication.)

Though it was planned for orbital travel, the Enterprise never made it to space. Instead, that honor would go to the Columbia in 1981.

IN OTHER NEWS

The Cosmos’ Giorgio Chinaglia

— On Aug. 10, the U.S. and Panama reached a deal to transfer ownership of the Panama Canal from the Americans to the Panamanian government.

— On Aug. 16, a judge ruled that Renee Richards could compete at the upcoming U.S. Open tennis tournament. Richards had transitioned from male to female in 1975 and her tennis career was deeply controversial. (She was beaten in the first round of the singles tourney by Wimbledon champ Virginia Wade. She and a partner, however, reached the finals in the women’s doubles bracket.)

— There was a brief shining moment when it seemed like soccer might kick its way into the American consciousness as one of the four major sports. The Pele-led Cosmos, who were very popular where I grew up, beat the Fort Lauderdale Strikers in the North American Soccer League on Aug. 14, before a Giants Stadium crowd of 77,691 — the largest to see a soccer match in the U.S. up to that date. The game is more popular now in the States than ever, but it’s still not in the top tier of spectator sports.

— A day before he turned 24, a wrestler named Terry Bollea made his professional debut Aug. 10 in Fort Myers, Fla. By the end of the ’70s he would adopt the ring name Hulk Hogan.

I could not get enough of magazines like this, which came out Aug. 9.

At the age of 10, there were only two movies that mattered to me: Star Wars and The Spy Who Loved Me. Both dominated my summer (along with the Yankees’ quest for their first World Series championship since 1962, and their first in my lifetime). Other flicks included Jaws hangovers The Deep and Orca, as well as the diametrically opposed Suspiria and The Rescuers.

How bad was it when it was rerun season and there were only three networks? The top TV program was a showing of the completely forgettable 1968 comedy Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell on NBC. Otherwise, it was repeats of Charlie’s Angels, Laverne & Shirley, Happy Days and Barnaby Jones.

Disco was it: Andy Gibb’s I Just Want to Be Your Everything topped the Billboard 100, with the Emotions’ euphoric Best of My Love at No. 3. The girls I knew swooned over Shaun Cassidy’s cover of Da Doo Ron Ron (No. 12), while Fleetwood Mac’s Don’t Stop (No. 13) — off the epochal No. 1 album Rumours — was on the radio all the time . Down at No. 16 was Heart’s killer rocker Barracuda.

CSN by Crosby, Stills & Nash was the No. 2 album, followed by Barbra Streisand’s Streisand Superman (No.3), Peter Frampton’s I’m in You (No. 4), and Kiss’ Love Gun (No. 5).

You gonna burn, burn, burn, burn, burn to the wick, ooh, barracuda, oh yeah

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Star Wars #5, Marvel. The fifth part of the six-issue adaptation begins with Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie and the droids escaping the Death Star and ends with Luke and the other X-wing pilots headed toward their destinies. I didn’t get the original issues but I read this in the treasuries over and over and over and over and over and over…

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Teen Titans #51, DC. Titans West! Issues #50-52, by Bob Rozakis and Don Heck, were by far the highlight of the first Teen Titans revival. You got Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Speedy, Aqualad, Harlequin, Guardian, Bumblebee, Lilith, Gnarrk, Hawk and Dove, Beast Boy — even the original Bat-Girl and Golden Eagle! So much fun.

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Superman #317, DC. One of Neal Adams’ most memorable covers of the 1970s.

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The Amazing Spider-Man #174, Marvel. Do you miss the Punisher’s original outfit as much as I do?

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Mad #194, EC. Oh, and let’s not forget that Rocky was also very prominent in the zeitgeist.

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Captain America #215, Marvel. Paraphrasing what I said two weeks ago about Captain America #299: You will always get me with a floating heads cover, especially when it’s a character I really like. Nicely done, Gil Kane and Joe Sinnott.

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Red Sonja #6, Marvel. Frank Thorne goes to town.

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Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter #18, DC. The final issue — and the first appearance of the Bronze Tiger in costume. Gotta tell you, I didn’t realize this series made it all the way to Issue #18.

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Super Friends #8, DC. E. Nelson Bridwell, Ramona Fradon, Bob Smith and Red Tornado’s striped pants! I wasn’t a regular buyer of Super Friends in 1977, pretty much because I didn’t consider them “real” stories. Kids can be so stupid. This ish featured not only the Wonder Twins’ second appearance — I never realized they actually showed up in the comic before they first appeared on TV — but also the debuts of Rising Sun, Jack O’Lantern, Tuatara, Bushmaster and Thunderlord, who later became part of the Global Guardians.

NOTE: If you want more late-’70s cool, check out Walt Grogan’s piece on the TOP 13 DC COMICS LOGOS OF 1977.