Posted By Dan Greenfield on Dec 10, 2025 | 9 comments

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 45 years ago…

This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott and I are selecting comics that came out the week of Dec. 10, 1980.

Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of Dec. 3, 1989. Click here to check it out.

(Keep in mind that comics came out on multiple days, so these are the comics that went on sale between Dec. 7. and Dec. 13.)

So, let’s set the scene: John Lennon, the former Beatle and one of the most prominent countercultural forces in the world, was shot dead the night of Dec. 8 as he was coming home to the Dakota apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Lennon, 40, and his wife, Yoko Ono, had gotten out of a limo and were walking toward the building’s entrance when a lunatic named Mark David Chapman shot him four times in the back. Just hours earlier, Lennon had autographed for Chapman a copy of his recently released album Double Fantasy. 

The response to Lennon’s death was immense and immediate, with crowds forming outside the Dakota and Roosevelt Hospital, where the ex-Beatle was pronounced dead. As the news spread, fans around the world gathered publicly and privately in a widespread outpouring of grief. Lennon was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, N.Y., the day aftter he was killed. Ono said there would be no funeral and instead asked for 10 minutes of silence globally on Dec. 14. In addition to other events that day, 225,000 people gathered at the Naumberg Bandshell in Central Park, and 30,000 people assembled in Lennon’s hometown of Liverpool.

Chapman’s motives were muddled and ultimately unimportant and pointless. He was a profoundly mentally ill man, who now sits behind bars in an upstate Dutchess County prison, where he’s visited by his wife, Gloria, who has stood by him for the 45 years since the slaying. He’s been denied parole 14 times, most recently this year. He’s 70 years old.

Sales of Double Fantasy and other Lennon and Beatles music skyrocketed. Both the album and the upbeat — but bittersweet in retrospect — single (Just Like) Starting Over topped the charts in the US and the UK after the murder. Imagine, from 1971, hit No. 1 in the UK in January 1981 and Happy Xmas (War Is Over), also from 1971, peaked at No. 2. Imagine was succeeded at the top of the UK chart by Woman, the second single from Double Fantasy.

At this point, I feel compelled to write something more artful than a dry recitation of the facts, but I’m having a hard time coming up with the words, simply because I don’t know what is left to be said that hasn’t already been articulated by so many. I suppose I can just recall the immediate impact John Lennon’s death had on me.

I was laying in bed listening to Monday Night Football — my favorite team, the Miami Dolphins, were playing the New England Patriots — on the radio because it was a school night. The game was interrupted by a siren and a bulletin with the news. I sat up bolt upright with uncomprehending ears. We were a Beatles house and this hit hard; at 13, I was already well versed in their music and history.

The last photo of John Lennon, signing a copy of Double Fantasy for Mark David Chapman, who stands at the right. The picture was taken about 5 p.m. Chapman shot Lennon shortly before 11 p.m., when John and Yoko returned home.

In the immediate aftermath, I wanted to know everything there was to know about what happened, and couldn’t stop talking about it. I was like this weird middle-school town crier, giving updates to my friends and classmates. Perhaps it was my nascent journalistic tendencies, or maybe I selfishly felt like a know-it-all. Whatever it was, I was driven to be a part of what was going on. It meant so much to me and that was how I reacted.

John Lennon’s death was so… big, and to this day, in some ways, I still find that I’m not able to completely absorb it.

IN OTHER NEWS

Zep’s final concert, July 7, 1980

— Want to hear something crazy? Before now, I never put 2 and 2 together, and realized that just four days earlier, Led Zeppelin officially broke up — another seismic event in rock. About two and a half months earlier, drummer John Bonham died at the age of 32, having choked on his own vomit following a day of spectacularly self-destructive drinking. Authorities found he’d done about 40 shots of vodka over a 24-hour period.

— Side note: On the punk scene, Darby Crash (born Jan Paul Beahm), co-founder of the Germs, died Dec. 7 of an intentional heroin overdose, at 22.

— Meanwhile, the world was aghast at the news from the week before that four American missionaries were raped and murdered by an El Salvadoran death squad. Jean Donovan, a lay missionary, and three Roman Catholic nuns –Maura Clarke, Ita Ford, and Dorothy Kazel — were killed Dec. 2.

— On Dec. 11, the legislation that created the Superfund to clean up toxic sites, was signed into law by outgoing President Carter, who’d been walloped by Ronald Reagan in November’s elections.

— Berke Breathed’s Bloom County debuted as a nationally syndicated comic strip Dec. 8.

— On Dec. 7. a Pan Am 747 landed in Beijing, launching commercial air service between the U.S. and communist China.

Flash Gordon was the box-office champ for just this week, and was quickly supplanted by the new Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor comedy Stir Crazy, directed by Sidney Poitier. Goldie Hawn’s hilarious Private Benjamin was also in the mix. Popeye had a boffo cast and pedigree — starring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall, written by Jules Feiffer and directed by Robert Altman — but it seemed like everyone hated it.

The choice was Martin Scorsese’s searing Raging Bull, starring Robert De Niro in one of his (many) signature roles.

Oh, and Superman II premiered — in Australia, more than six months before it would come to the U.S.

Dallas was the biggest show on TV — only weeks earlier, we found out “Who shot J.R.?” Other hits included 60 Minutes, MASH, Circus of the Stars, The Dukes of Hazzard, The Love Boat and House Calls. Immediately jumping his car onto the leader board was Magnum, P.I., which debuted Dec. 11 and made an instant star of Tom Selleck. (He made my Mom swoon.)

Three new shows were also making waves — Too Close for Comfort, starring Ted Knight; Barbara Mandrell & the Mandrell Sisters; and Bosom Buddies, starring a charming young scene-stealer named Tom Hanks, Peter Scolari and the indispensable Holland Taylor.

Bravo, a new cable network whose highbrow programming was fashioned after public television, launched this month. One of the first shows was a tribute to composer Aaron Copland, who was never a Real Housewife.

One of the biggest stories in television, however, was the near collapse of Saturday Night Live, in its sixth season. Gone was Lorne Michaels and the original cast, and critics savaged the new line-up. The only two to make it out of the season intact? Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy, who joined the show at the age of 19 and had his first speaking part Dec. 6.

(Just Like) Starting Over was at No. 4, with Kenny Rogers’ Lady in the No. 1 position, Leo Sayers’ More Than I Can Say at No. 2, and Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust at No. 3. Barbra Streisand had two top hits at the same time — Woman in Love (No. 8) and Guilty, with Barry Gibb (No. 9)

Kenny Rogers’ Greatest Hits was the best-selling LP, with Double Fantasy, Streisand’s Guilty, Queen’s The Game, and Bruce Springsteen’s The River in the mix. (The single Hungry Heart was at No. 7). The Stones’ Emotional Rescue, their campiest, most self-parodying album up to that time, had come out earlier in the year but was still moving units.

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Dan Greenfield, editor, 13th Dimension

Batman #333, DC. Despite all the craziness going on, this was a prime comic-book reading period for me, and I was all over The Lazarus Affair — a four-part Batman vs. Ra’s al Ghul epic, featuring Robin, Catwoman, Talia and King Faraday, by Marv Wolfman, Irv Novick and Don Newton, with memorable covers by Jim Aparo. One of the great Bronze Age Batman multi-parters, with all the Bondian trappings required of the best Batman-Ra’s showdowns. I think it’s only been reprinted once, unfortunately. One of my favorites.

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The New Teen Titans #5, DC. Pop quiz, hot shot! Who pencilled the interiors this issue? Curt Swan! Getting great Batman and The New Teen Titans at the same time was everything. Like I said, peak comics reading period.

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Justice League of America #188, DC. I was an on-and-off reader of JLA but this cover always caught my eye. I wonder why.

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Wonder Woman #277, DC. I didn’t follow Wonder Woman. I picked these issues up because of the Huntress, by Paul Levitz, Joe Staton and Steve Mitchell.

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Micronauts #27, Marvel. I didn’t read Micronauts either, but maybe I would have if I’d seen this awesome Pat Broderick cover.

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

Captain America #255, Marvel. This Stern/Byrne retelling of Cap’s origin has been reprinted no less than fourteen times. It’s that good.

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Superman #357, DC. I really had no idea Vartox showed up so much in the ’70s and ’80s.

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DC Comics Presents #31, DC. Robin, get down from there. Seriously.

Dan: Not only was he in The New Teen Titans, you got Robin hanging around with Superman, which was always fun.

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Best of DC #10, DC. Great super-villains cover here by Ross Andru.

Dan adds: Ah, the digests. If only these old eyes could still read them! First time we got the Penguin’s origin, too. Amazing when you think about it.

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MORE

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of December 3 — in 1989! Click here.

— RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale The Week of November 26 — in 1981! Click here.

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