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!
