Posted By Dan Greenfield on May 6, 2026 | 10 comments

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 49 years ago…

This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott and I are selecting comics that came out the week of May 6, 1977.

Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of April 29, 1986. 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 May 3 and May 9.)

So, let’s set the scene: Watergate dominated the nation’s political landscape for so much of the 1970s and on May 4, TV viewers heard Richard Nixon’s side of the story. The first of four installments of Nixon’s infamous sit-down with David Frost aired on syndicated television, drawing an audience of 45,000,000 — a record for a political interview.

CBS fought hard to get Nixon but as a credible news organization, refused to pay for the privilege. Instead, the pathologically venal Tricky Dick pocketed $600,000 from Frost’s production company. The four-part, weekly series was such a smash that the producers would come back in the fall with a fifth episode featuring material excised from the initial run.

New Yorkers were terrified to go out at night, thanks to a mysterious gunman who was targeting men and women around the city. Known as the .44 Caliber Killer, the serial fiend had last struck in mid-April, killing 20-year-old Alexander Esau and 18-year-old Valentina Suriani, who were shot in a car parked on a Hutchinson River Parkway service road in the Bronx. A handwritten letter was left by the bodies, and police initially kept a lid on it. But some of the contents leaked to the press, and now the public had a new, even more frightening name for the murderer: He called himself the Son of Sam.

The killer’s spree fit a city that was suffering through calamitous rot, poverty and filth. But there was no shortage of big personalities that wanted to run it anyway, including Democrats Ed Koch, Mario Cuomo and Bella Abzug, who each wanted to unseat Mayor Abe Beame. (Comparably few cared about the Republican side of things.)

Abzug would officially declare in June.

But that’s not to say the city wasn’t without its glamor — New York never is. In April, a new nightclub had opened in Midtown Manhattan that drew the glitterati from all over: Studio 54, on West 54th Street, immediately became synonymous with fame and decadence, a hedonistic beacon of the burgeoning disco scene. On May 2, Bianca Jagger helped cement the club’s reputation when she rode a horse on the dance floor at her birthday party.

* * *

On May 5, José “Joe” Campos Torres, a 23-year-old Mexican-American and U.S. Army veteran, was beaten and drowned by a gang of Houston cops after his arrest on disorderly conduct charges. Rather than take him in, six officers brought him to a spot behind a warehouse called “the Hole” and beat him so badly that by the time they did take him to the city jail, it refused to process him because his injuries were so brutal. The cops were ordered to take Torres to a hospital, but instead took him back to the Hole and pushed him off a wharf. His body was found three days later.

Torres

Two of the cops — Terry W. Denson and Stephen Orlando — were charged with murder. Three other officers were fired by the police chief, but no criminal charges were brought against them. A rookie who was present became a key witness for the prosecution. Later in the year Denson and Orlando were convicted of misdemeanor negligent homicide by an all-white jury. They were ultimately sentenced to one year’s probation and a one dollar fine. 

The feds took on the matter and Denson and Orlando, plus a third, Joseph Janish, were in 1978 convicted of depriving Torres of his civil rights, resulting in his death. They were sentenced to nine months each.

—

IN OTHER NEWS

— Secretariat may be the greatest racehorse the world has ever seen, but Seattle Slew was no slouch. On May 7, he won the Kentucky Derby en route to the Triple Crown.

— Movie star Joan Crawford’s health was failing. On May 6, she gave away her Shih Tzu because she was too weak to care for her. (She would die of a heart attack May 10 in her Manhattan apartment, at the age of 71.)

— The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was on tour in the Soviet Union — the first American rock group to be allowed to do so. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band! Their other claim to fame? Members backed up Steve Martin on “King Tut” on Saturday Night Live a year later.

Other than Seattle Slew, the story in sports was the New York Yankees, who on May 6 were tied for first in the American League East with the Milwaukee Brewers, but with a mere 14-10 record. To much ballyhoo — and much consternation — owner George Steinbrenner had signed swaggering slugger Reggie Jackson to a blockbuster contract in the off-season and team chemistry was poor.

Brash and boozy manager Billy Martin didn’t like Jackson but loved squabbling with Steinbrenner, who would always return the favor. Catcher Thurman Munson, the team captain, was also not a fan of Jackson’s, and the free agent superstar — who to be completely fair was just ahead of his time in terms of his flair for self-promotion — had difficulty finding allies in the clubhouse. The Bronx Zoo was in its early days, and things would get much worse — and crazier — before they would get better. (The Los Angeles Dodgers were 22-4 and 10 1/2 games in front in the National League West. They were happy as clams.)

The top film in the country was Annie Hall. Separating the art from the artist for just a moment, Annie Hall is Woody Allen’s masterpiece — a hilariously neurotic view of white, privileged New York — and a wonderful turn for co-star Diane Keaton, whose fashion in the film was trend-setting. Another hit was It’s Alive, a re-release of a 1974 horror flick that was aided by a new, effective ad campaign that scared the bejeezus out of me. (Similarly freaky horror flicks Audrey Rose and Demon Seed were also in theaters.)

Rocky had been out for months but was still drawing crowds, the Monty Python-connected Jabberwocky was developing a cult following, and director David Lynch’s feature-length debut Eraserhead was becoming a midnight hit in L.A. Francois Truffaut’s The Man Who Loved Women was lighting up art-house screens.

But that rumbling in the distance was the sound of an Imperial Star Destroyer about to obliterate box office records and radically alter the landscape of popular entertainment. The PR push for a movie called Star Wars put the hype in hyperspace.

The TV season was coming to a close and a rerun of Laverne & Shirley led the Nielsens. Top shows for the season included Happy Days, MASH, Six Million Dollar Man, One Day at a Time, Baretta, and Charlie’s Angels, which completed its first season May 4.

Broadway was still big news and this week marked the return of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical The King and I, which opened May 2 at the Uris Theater. The great Yul Brynner reprised the role he created in 1951 and it was a colorfully rousing production. My Mom took us to see it during its run and I loved it. We went to Benihana for dinner beforehand because we knew nothing of Thai food and Mom figured it was still Asian and a performance of its own, so…

Look, it was the ’70s.

The Eagles’ anthemic Hotel California was a massive hit. It felt like it was played every third song on AM radio but I loved it each time. Other big tunes included When I Need You, by Leo Sayer; Southern Nights, by Glen Campbell; and, Stevie Wonder’s ebullient Sir Duke, my personal favorite from his storied catalogue. (It also felt like it was played every third song on the radio — and I loved it even more.)

So many more to choose from: Don’t Leave Me This Way, by Thelma Houston; Couldn’t Get It Right, by the Climax Blues Band; I’m Your Boogie Man, by K.C. and the Sunshine Band; and, Lido Shuffle by Boz Skaggs.

Led Zeppelin, meanwhile, was on a break between legs of their biggest tour, and what would turn out to be their last in North America. (On April 30, they set a record for paid attendance at a music concert — 76,229 at the Pontiac Silverdome, otherwise the home of the NFL’s Detroit Lions.)

The album Hotel California and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours were trading stints atop the LP chart, with the former at No. 1 this week.

—

Dan Greenfield, editor, 13th Dimension

Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-51, DC. One of the single greatest releases ever published by DC. In the days before trades, this treasury edition reprinted the most important chapters of the original Ra’s al Ghul saga, by Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams, Irv Novick and Dick Giordano — Batman #232 and #242-244. But you know all this because I’ve mentioned this maybe 1,000,006 times over the years. An incredible, oversize collection with an incredible new cover by Adams. No wonder DC made it its first treasury Facsimile Edition.

—

Godzilla #1, Marvel. What made this series so much fun wasn’t that it was just Godzilla, it was Godzilla in the Marvel Universe. We get that sort of thing all the time now with both Marvel and DC, but it was a new and funky back then.

—

Justice League of America #145, DC. Smack in the middle of Steve Englehart’s well-regarded run. A prime candidate for a DC Finest edition.

—

Nova #12, Marvel. Look, no knock on Nova, but Marvel calling him and Spider-Man “Marvel’s two greatest heroes” is straight-up false advertising. I cannot believe anyone wrote that with a straight face.

—

Vampirella #61, Warren. Enrich Torres, man.

—

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

The Invaders #19, Marvel. Not often you see a jovial Hitler cover.

—

Iron Fist #14, Marvel. First appearance of Sabretooth!

—

Isis #6, DC. Isis only lasted eight issues, and all these years later, I’ve never seen a single one out in the world. Gotta look harder, I guess.

—

Marvel Two-in-One #30, Marvel. Spider-Woman looks so bizarre without hair.

—

MORE

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of April 29 — in 1986! Click here.

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of April 22 — in 1989! Click here.

—

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