Posted By Dan Greenfield on Oct 21, 2026 | 8 comments

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 40 years ago…

This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott and I are selecting comics that came out the week of Oct. 21, 1986.

Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of Oct. 14, 1960. 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 Oct. 18 and Oct. 24.)

So, let’s set the scene: Nationally, the midterm elections were the dominant story, as Democrats hoped to strengthen their majority in the House and take Senate control back from the Republicans. With President Reagan in his second term, conventional wisdom held that the Dems would make gains but Reagan was still pretty popular, with a growing economy. (In a few weeks, the Democrats would indeed flip the Senate and tighten their hold on the House but it was still very much the Reagan ’80s.)

Otherwise, it was a fairly slow news cycle except for a bizarre and tragic accident in New York on October 22: WNBC Radio’s afternoon traffic helicopter crashed in the Hudson River live on the air, with popular reporter Jane Dornacker’s terrified final scream of “Hit the water! Hit the water! Hit the water!” heard by listeners of the popular AM station.

Dornacker, 39, was something of a character, with a career in San Francisco as an offbeat actress, comedian and rock musician, as well as a back-up singer and dancer for cult-favorite band the Tubes. She became a popular traffic reporter for KFRC in San Fran, and in the mornings would tell her daughter Naomi to get up and get to school over the air. She eventually moved to New York.

Oddly, Dornacker was in a WNBC helicopter crash in April 1986 but survived and swam to safety. It took her a month or two for her to steel herself and return to the air.

One of the most exciting World Series in baseball history was playing out: The New York Mets were in the Fall Classic for the first time since 1973 and the Boston Red Sox for the first time since 1975. The Mets were a raucous bunch led by Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter and Lenny Dykstra — perfect for a loud and boisterious 1980s New York.

The long-suffering Sox, on the other hand, were looking for their first World Series title since 1918 and by the end of the week, were a win away, with a 3-2 Series lead. The best-of-seven was set to resume October 25, with Game 6 at Shea Stadium in New York — and what would turn out to be a spectacularly fateful night.

The Aussie-out-of-water comedy Crocodile Dundee was in the middle of a nine-week run at No. 1 at the box office, with Stand by Me and Top Gun still bringing in audiences. Other hits included The Name of the Rose and Children of a Lesser God, while we subversive types had Jim Jarmusch’s Down by Law and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, starring Dennis Hopper in what would become his signature role as psychopath Frank Booth — one of the greatest screen villains ever.

The World Series was a ratings grabber, but the most popular scripted shows were the absolute juggernaut The Cosby Show; Murder, She Wrote, which my Mom loved; Growing Pains; Who’s the Boss?; and Moonlighting, which made a star of Bruce Willis and a bigger one of Cybill Shepherd.

There was another story developing in TV land, one with lasting impact: A new cast debuted this month on Saturday Night Live that would become one of the most celebrated in the show’s storied history: Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson and Kevin Nealon joined the cast, with only Nora Dunn, Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller and featured player A. Whitney Brown returning from the previous season.

Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors, off her hit album of the same name, was No. 1 on the singles chart, with Madonna’s True Blue, off her hit album of the same name, was at No. 13 this week. Actor Don Johnson’s deeply regrettable Heartbeat was No. 5.

The top-selling album belonged to Bon Jovi and their considerable hair’s Slippery When Wet, featuring You Give Love a Bad Name. The Top Gun soundtrack; Lionel Richie’s Dancing on the Ceiling; Fore! by Huey Lewis and the News; and Third Stage by Boston were other smash LPs.

And then there was Iggy Pop’s recently released Blah-Blah-Blah, his most commercially successful album. Iggy was a character who floated in the background of my rock knowledge at the time, but he stormed into my consciousness when he performed the album’s Real Wild Child (Wild One) on Late Night With David Letterman. The appearance is anachronistic for the purposes of this column — it’s from Feb. 16, 1987 — but I don’t mind breaking the rules, because if you’re going to listen to this song, then you need to see this absolute, bonkers, mad tour de force:

Gonna keep a-swingin’ baby, I’m a real wild child…

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Dan Greenfield, editor, 13th Dimension

Batman #404, DC. Having been completely blown away by The Dark Knight Returns, I was really set up for Batman: Year One, knowing it was going to reset the Batman mythos from the beginning. At the same time, I wasn’t really prepared for it because the idea of a reboot was so new that I had a hard time getting my head around the idea that, for example, Jim Gordon didn’t have a daughter named Barbara, or that Selina Kyle was… whatever she was. I was also frustrated at first blush that there was no Batman in Part 1 at all.

But I knew this was something different, something a cut above. What I didn’t recognize until it was all over was that this was the beginning of what just might be the best Batman story ever told.

Scott adds: This book absolutely jumped off the shelf at me. So stark and real, and quiet, almost, which is admittedly a weird thing to say about a comic book. My introduction to the work of David Mazzucchelli, and my realization that Frank Miller was more than an artist; he was a damn good writer as well.

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Detective Comics #570, DC. That weird netherworld where it was post-Crisis, but Detective Comics –– by Mike W. Barr, Alan Davis, and Paul Neary — still very much felt like pre-Crisis. This was one of the best Batruns of the 1980s. If only it had been longer.

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Action Comics #584, DC. What a time to be a DC fan. After a months-long layoff while John Byrne reset the world of the Man of Steel, Action Comics returned as a Superman team-up book. Naturally, the first installment guest-starred the publisher’s most popular team, the New Teen Titans.

NOTE from Dan: At this point I have to add a caveat here. Different sources list different publication dates for this week’s comics. So I’m not 100 percent sure that these all line up properly. But sometimes you just have to bend time and take your best shot. It’s quite possible there are books here that came out a few weeks apart, but it all works in the zeitgeist.

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Official Justice League of America Index #5, Independent Comics Group/Eclipse. I have no idea where the rights stand with these issues or the other series put out by ICG, but they would make great trade collections. This installment, with its Joe Staton cover, goes heavy on the Satellite Era, encapsulating Issues #131-167.

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Legends #3, DC. I read it and still don’t remember what happened or what the point was.

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Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters in 3-D #3, Eclipse. One of 1,000,006 parodies of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before it went mainstream.

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

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, DC. This was the hardcover copy of The Dark Knight Returns I first received, purchased from Comics and Comix, a cool little comic shop at Hilltop Mall in Richmond, California. If I recall, I pointed it out to my Mom, who promptly bought it and tucked it away until Christmas.

Dan: You may remember that DC released the book in hardcover and softcover, under its own bullet and through Warner Books. Just mentioning that because of my note under Action Comics, above.

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All-Star Squadron #65, DC. Toward the end of this run, while they were still figuring out how to make this series work in a post-Crisis universe, writer/editor Roy Thomas took the opportunity to do a series of flashback origin issues for most of the core Squadroneers. Good stuff.

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Airboy #8, Eclipse. Early issues of Airboy featured some wonderful pulp-style covers from folks like Dave Stevens, Paul Gulacy, and Flint Henry, whose work is seen here.

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