I don’t know about you, but I’m not much in the mood to celebrate America this year, not even for a big occasion like the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Instead, I thought it would be neat to look back 50 years and see what our favorite superheroes were doing during the bicentennial in 1976, back when things might have seemed a little more cheerful as Americans clawed their way out of the muck of Vietnam, Watergate, and the energy crisis, among other things.
For those unaware, the cover date on older comics doesn’t reflect the date those comics were published. It reflects the date that retailers were supposed to take unsold copies off the shelves. According to Wikipedia, in 1976, the cover date was three months after the publication date. So, comics with a cover date of October 1976 are the ones that went on sale in July of that year and are the ones I’ll be looking at.
There doesn’t seem to have been a big effort to have our biggest heroes commemorate the occasion, except for the one hero you would naturally expect to do so. But there was still quite a lot going on!
English (US)