Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Archie Andrews?

We've seen a lot of front-line action with Archie comics lately. First of all, they introduced Kevin Keller, their first openly gay character, then they set him up to get married, and the next thing you knew, every comic book publisher in America seemed to want to get on the gay bandwagon, with the added benefit of capes and superpowers. Then there's the whole Archie marries Veronica business, while also marrying Betty, giving something for Team Lodge versus Team Cooper to chew on. (I'm not quite sure if any of this is meant to be an actual teen marriage; it seems to center more on Future Archie, the one with a job and a receding hairline. It's also, I think, hypothetical, like the "imaginary tales" from the old Superman days when they would imagine what would happen if Supe married Lois. Then, of course, he did marry Lois, for real, so to speak. And then he wasn't married to Lois, but that's another comic altogether.) And on the real-life side, the scions of the Archie founders are locked in a bizarre legal battle to control the empire, which seems about as out of character for the brand as, well, Archie zombies.

It ain't easy being Archie.

But then again, from the looks of things, it never was. ToplessRobot.com is running The 25 Most Awesomely Melodramatic Archie Comics Covers, which makes you think that maybe you've got Archie all wrong, and it really is the cutting edge of drama in America, gay marriage isn't close to being controversial in Riverdale, and there's no reason why Archie can't be married to both Veronica and Betty simultaneously, even if they're all still in middle school. Hell, even Little Archie is close to the edge in some of these.
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As I said, it ain't easy being Archie.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a good number of those issues. I collected Archie comics for years and years; I probably have well over 2500 issues. Have I ever told you that?

Anonymous said...

Surprisingly, this page left off the cover of ARCHIE MEETS THE PUNISHER. Really. That exists.