Archie Sunday: It's Twins!

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Sheesh, Archie Comics, spoiler alert! By putting "It's twins!" on the cover, you are effectively removing any suspense this comic may have provided otherwise.

This is the third installment in the What If Archie Marries Veronica? storyline that has captured the hearts of dreamers everywhere.  It's been moving at a breakneck pace, with Archie proposing in the first issue, marrying her in the second issue, and becoming a father in the third. Where else can it go from here? We'll get to the (unsurprising) conclusion in a minute.

But first, let's break down a bit of this issue, which, much like the other two issues of this series, were riddled with unfunny jokes, confusing and overly-complicated scenarios, and fairly lousy art. And these, frankly, are not what I expect to find in an Archie comic.

We can start with the young couple telling Archie's parents that they are going to be grandparents soon. Mrs Andrews is thrilled, while Dad seems happy, but is also concerned about whether or not Archie is ready to responsibly raise a child (or two! Spoiler!). Archie says the right thing to his dad to reassure him:

Ok, maybe Archie's dad missed this piece of information somewhere, but Archie married Veronica Lodge, whose father is richer than God. I don't really think a college fund is necessary. Couldn't Archie just dump a million dollars in an account somewhere right now? Does he really need to save on a long-term plan?

Anyway, before the Andrews family can further discuss unnecessary plans, the ol' Riverdale gang busts through the door with some ridiculous promises:

Where the hell is Dilton? He could actually teach the kid something useful. "I'll train him to be sneaky"? Oh, Reggie. This is all you have to show for your life. I do like Jughead's shirt, though. And Moose's zigzag-front jacket.

Archie and Veronica head over to Daddy Lodge's house, where he sorta proves my point about the college fund thing.

Now here's the thing: with both parents the topic of university for the kid comes up, but there is nothing tying these two conversations together. I don't even think the writer realized what he did.

Off to prenatal classes!

Archie and Veronica get a psychotic nurse teaching the class:

To be fair to Archie, those were barely jokes at all.

Veronica comes down with a cold later on, so Jughead fills in for her at a future birthing class. I don't think it's necessary for him to wear the pillow. Or to do any of this:

When the big day finally does come, Archie is so flustered he leaves for the hospital without Veronica!

Veronica is so cool about it. I hope I'm that calm when my own baby drops. Too bad Archie counters Ron's coolness by uttering a very creepy sentence in the following panel.

WHAT. IS. PLAN. B, ARCHIE?!

They get to the hospital ok, and the family plus Jughead, who still looks kinda pregnant, gather in the waiting room. They spend a few panels trying to guess the gender of the baby, but of course the readers already know it's TWINS!

Finally they get to find out that the baby is TWO BABIES! And they are 2-years old!

Now, Veronica is very wealthy, so I assume she would have a pretty decent medical team working on this pregnancy. So I really can't believe that she didn't know she was having twins.

This issue ends with a bunch of melodramatic crap, including TWO FULL PANELS of Archie reading Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken in its entirety to his kids at bedtime. And then on Christmas night he goes for a walk and ends up at the forked road where he found himself  at the beginning of this series. He walks the ROAD NOT TAKEN and guess what:

I think we all saw this coming. I am looking forward to Veronica being a real bitch about this development. And then maybe it will be followed by ARCHIE MARRIES JUGHEAD!

Archie Sunday: Veronica's Got Rubber Band Banks in Her Pockets

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There's been a lot of talk about Archie's proposal to Veronica, and most people tend to fall on the pro-Betty side of the debate. And while we all know that pretty much everyone in Riverdale sucks, I think we should consider what it's like to hang out with Veronica. 

Take this little story, for example.

  

And Veronica throws a serious party.

That. Rules.

 

Is that...A WHOLE HAM?!?! AND A TURKEY? What a rad party.

Being friends with Veronica is basically like having T.I. as a pal. When they get married, Archie can have whatever he likes.

Archie Sunday: The Triple Threats of Riverdale

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It's been three years since the first Disney High School Musical movie was released. Three movies later the kids have all grown up, and are moving on to star in indie films or more mature Hollywood fare. The trend is over.

That means it's the perfect time for Archie Comics to jump on the bandwagon.

 

The Archie kids decide to put on a High School musical, because that's what kids do these days when they're not texting jpegs on their mp3-pods. The gang throws around some ideas of musicals they could blatantly rip-off, and we get to see Archie being his usual skeevy self.

 

"The Little Mermaid—topless! Or The Sound of Music—topless! Les Miserables—only, here's the catch—the girls are topless!"

Christ. You know while Archie's saying that, he's just unabashedly staring at Betty and Veronica's boobs, never looking away, even when they're like, "Hello? My eyes are up here!"

Chuck and Nancy suggest West Side Story, which would rule!

Nancy is like, "By putting on this musical, we could subtly examine the racial tension experienced by members of the Riverdale community, and create a dialogue about how..."

And the rest of the gang is like, "Nope!"

Instead they decide on a Grease-style musical, 'cause that's real current. Every twelve-year-old girl these days has a poster of John Travolta on her wall.

The whole gang pitches in, with the regular cast of jerks—Archie, Betty & Veronica and Jughead—doing the music and choreography and relegating the rest of the kids to the crappier jobs. Dilton does the lighting, even though it's been established that he's an accomplished musician and basically a hit-writing machine. But make the nerd do the technical work, right Riverdale douchebags?

Moose and Midge collaborate on costume-making, which is actually pretty adorable. They slave away in front of sewing machines while Archie sits around going "What rhymes with Jalopy? Girl with no toppy?"

Archie actually complements Moose and Midge's hard work, albeit while staring directly Midge's chest. He inevitably ruins the moment by yelling, "I LOVE BAZOOMS!" and then doing a cartwheel off the stage.

So, their musical blows. It's completely derivative, and the lyrics are brutal.

Plus, Archie is popping boners through the whole thing.

Zac Effron, he ain't.