Teenage Dreams

Cover to Archie #606 © 2010 Archie. Pencils, Inks, Colors: Dan Parent.

You may have seen the news reports a few months back that Archie, the World’s Oldest Teenager, was — after nearly 70 years of flirting, dating, and relatively chaste farcical girl-chasing in general, among other misadventures — going to choose between rivals and best friends Betty and Veronica. In a six-part storyline that began in Archie #600, he and Veronica would marry.


Cover and opening story pages of Archie #600 © 2009 Archie. Script: Michael Uslan. Pencils:
Stan Goldberg. Inks: Bob Smith. Letters: Jack Morelli. Colors: Rosario Peña / Glenn Whitmore. [enlarge]

This was to be no shotgun wedding, of course, and in fact would take place after the characters graduated college. Which I’d think would be the first, biggest hint that it probably wasn’t going to redefine the entire Archie “Universe”; the gang has never made it out of high school save for the occasional non-continuity tale.

Archie Comic Publications has been taking some new approaches to the stories it
tells with the Archie stars, as I wrote back in March. It’s also been exploiting its library of properties, to use a coldly commercial term, reviving long-dormant concepts in new stories and teaming with other publishers for archival reprint projects. But over decades of expanding the Archie franchise through a myriad of creative iterations, from the beloved Little Archie to the faddish Man from RIVERDALE to the underrated Jughead’s Time Police — not to mention spinoffs like Josie and Sabrina — the status quo of the core Archie comics has remained inviolable, save for updates in clothes, language, and the multiculturalism of the supporting cast.

When I heard about the project earlier this year, it was clear that there would be weddings in the plural. Young Mr. Andrews would marry both Veronica and Betty in separate chapters of an imaginary tale marking the milestone 600th issue of Archie (the flagship title, not to be confused with Archie & Friends, Archie Double Digest, and the dozen more series featuring Archie’s pals ’n’ gals, including Archie’s Pals ’n’ Gals). Whether intentional or not, however, ACP’s early press releases led to the media at large picking up only on the proposal to Veronica in the storyline’s first chapter, leading to talk-show segments and newspaper articles echoing the cries of everyone in fictional Riverdale, USA: What about Betty?


Panels from Archie #601 © 2009 Archie. Script: Michael Uslan. Pencils: Stan Goldberg.
Inks: Bob Smith. Letters: Jack Morelli. Colors: Glenn Whitmore.

Michael Uslan, longtime comics fan/historian and film producer, began the storyline
in poetic fashion, having Archie find two roads diverged in a yellow wood — just like the narrator of Robert Frost’s popular 1915 poem “The Road Not Taken”. The first few pages of Part One have Archie, Betty, Veronica, Reggie, and Jughead playing their last concert together as The Archies before graduation from Riverdale High, so (pardon the geekism) we’re already in extracanonical waters. Later that evening, with the next stage of his life weighing on him, Archie takes a stroll and reaches Memory Lane; having walked down it plenty of times before, he goes the other way and, upon choosing a path at the road’s fateful divergence, emerges wearing a State U jacket and pondering what the future holds now that he’s graduating from college. “Stop the presses!” reads a caption. “By walking up Memory Lane, has Archie walked into his own future?”


Cover and opening story pages of Archie #603 © 2009 Archie. Script: Michael Uslan. Pencils:
Stan Goldberg. Inks: Bob Smith. Letters: Jack Morelli. Colors: Rosario Peña / Glenn Whitmore.[enlarge]

Like Batton Lash, writer of 2008’s five-part “Freshman Year” storyline, Uslan has peppered “Archie Marries Veronica” with in-jokes obvious and esoteric. When Archie gets to Memory Lane, the sign for the cross-street is just visible enough for the cognoscenti to infer that it says Red Circle, a publishing imprint once used by ACP for adventure titles; storefronts at the intersection likewise reference Archie history. Lyrics from the theme of the group’s Saturday-morning cartoon are used as dialogue, “Sugar Sugar” is the couple’s wedding theme, and Veronica wants Katy Keene to train her bridesmaids in etiquette. I think we even glimpse a grown-up Little Ambrose.

There are the needlessly goofy stand-ins for actual trademarks typical of Archie
stories (Veronica’s engagement ring comes from Spiffany’s, Jughead likes the burgers
at McDaniel’s), but overall Uslan does an admirable job of balancing the traditional Archie tone with touching moments of true emotion and a feeling of change. Given that polls generally favor Betty over Veronica by a wide margin, Archie’s pre-wedding talk with Betty in Part Two is especially sweet. It’s also nice to see members of the gang take real jobs in the real New York City after they all attend the same generic State University, and in a bonus for the continuity wonks out there plot details strongly suggest that Riverdale is located close to NYC — perhaps even in the Bronx, site of one of several genuine Riverdales, not far from the Mamaroneck offices of Archie Comic Publications. The overriding ingredient that’s kept the Archie line successful, however, is the light comedy that induces pre-teen readers to fantasize in relative innocence about what lies ahead.

Archie stalwart Stan Goldberg has penciled the storyline, with veterans Bob Smith,
Jack Morelli, and Glenn Whitmore rounding out the creative team as inker, letterer, and colorist, under the guidance of editor Victor Gorelick. Goldberg is a gentleman and living legend whom I’ve had the privilege of interviewing, and it’s astounding that anyone can pack so much visual information into so many panels per page with such an invitingly casual texture, let alone keep the artwork fresh for himself and his audience after so long. Looking at some of the intermittently off-the-mark faces in the issues published to date, though, I suspect the inevitabilities of age have led to a loss of precision in Goldberg’s work, Smith unwilling or unable to bring the characters back on-model.


Panels from Archie #606 © 2010 Archie. Script: Michael Uslan. Pencils: Stan Goldberg.
Inks: Bob Smith. Letters: Jack Morelli. Colors: Glenn Whitmore.

Having chosen one of the roads diverged in Archie #600, proposed to Veronica, and married her in #601, Archie leaves his growing family at the end of #602 for a walk in the snow — to find himself back on Memory Lane. In comics shops today, November 25th, and on newsstands two weeks later is Archie #603; as the calendar rewinds from a Christmas Eve yet to come back to Graduation Day once more, “Archie Marries Veronica” gives way to “Archie Marries Betty”. These adventures conclude in #605 early next year, with an epilogue just announced for #606. [Update: The Archie Wedding, a softcover collection of all seven parts with bonus material has since been released.]

Archie logos & characters TM/® and images courtesy Archie Comic Publications.


Related: March with Archie • Kids Meet • Swap Things •
Rounds of the Night Table • Betty’s Here; Veronica, Too