This week’s issues of Life With Archie will include the main character’s death. Archie, who has had a 73-year run as one of America’s favorite comic book teens, will bite it this week by taking a bullet for his gay best friend. His publisher said it could have ended in other ways, but “metaphorically, by saving Kevin, a new Riverdale is born.”
I haven’t read Archie in a long time but I don’t quite remember people being shot as something that happened very much.
I have no idea either. I assume the politics and contemporary culture seeped into this series, if not all of them, after a while.
That’s such a fast change in tone for the series that I suspect it will give readers whiplash.
Wikipedia says the original series ended in 1991, then “was revived in 2010, following the parallel universes of Archie’s married lives with both Betty and Veronica, combined with teen-magazine style features. Paul Kupperberg authors these new stories, based on a concept created by Michael Uslan. Since the makeover, the series has somewhat fallen under the genre of soap opera.”
“Somewhat”?