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Mar 10 2024 11:04pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Catnapped!" from Betty and Veronica: Friends Forever: Sleepover: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/03/10/comics-catnapped/

Mar 03 2024 2:17pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Winners and Losers" from Betty and Veronica #103: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/03/03/comics-winners-losers/

Mar 03 2024 2:17pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Winners

Feb 25 2024 6:02pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Girl of His Dreams" from Betty and Veronica #101: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/02/25/comics-girl-of-his-dreams/

Feb 22 2024 5:46pm
Tuxedo Mark: Huh, and apparently World of Betty and Veronica Digest isn't canceled; it just went on a long hiatus: https://archiecomics.com/new-archie-comics-coming-in-may-2024/

Feb 22 2024 5:35pm
Tuxedo Mark: Archie Comics is starting to do $4.99 floppies: https://archiecomics.com/archie-horror-unleashes-apocalyptic-thrills-in-judgment-day/

Feb 17 2024 3:19pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "The Big Victory" from Betty and Veronica #99: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/02/17/comics-the-big-victory/

Feb 04 2024 4:25pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Makeover for a Moose" from Betty and Veronica Jumbo Comics Digest #321: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/02/04/comics-makeover-for-a-moose/

Jan 27 2024 5:44pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "Love is a Football Field!" from Archie Jumbo Comics Digest #347: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/01/27/comics-love-is-a-football-field/

Jan 25 2024 4:30pm
Tuxedo Mark: My review of "One Shot Worth a Million" from World of Archie Jumbo Comics Digest #136: https://riverdalereviewed.wordpress.com/2024/01/25/comics-one-shot-worth-a-million/

What comics have you been reading?

Started by irishmoxie, March 30, 2016, 10:49:35 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

BettyReggie

I read
Deadly Class - Noise Noise Noise - Volume #1
Menage A 3- Volume #1
The Best Of Archie Comics starring Betty & Veronica - Volume #2


DeCarlo Rules

#1426
ARCHIE 3000! #2 (Jul 1989)
JUGHEAD #4 (Feb 1988)
JUGHEAD'S DINER (1990) #5, 7
DILTON'S STRANGE SCIENCE (1989-90) #2, #4
VERONICA (1989) #2, 3, 4, 5
ARCHIE'S T.V. LAUGH-OUT #77
(Jul 1980)
LAUGH (Vol. 2, 1988-90) #3, 6, 12, 16, 19 - You know, I never really cared for the first volume of LAUGH. While you can undoubtedly find some issues in the run that contain some notable stories, there was never anything that stood out as a regular feature to distinguish that title -- just a mostly-bland hodge-podge of run-of-the-mill stories featuring Archie and the gang. Same goes for PEP, except for issues from a few years in the 1960s, where you could find some Josie, The Fly, Fly-Girl, or Jaguar stories. On the other hand, I always loved ARCHIE'S T.V. LAUGH-OUT (and pick them up whenever I can find them) because it consistently featured both Sabrina and Josie stories. It finally dawned on me after reading enough issues that the second volume of LAUGH was really more of a continuation of T.V. LAUGH-OUT (even though that title had ended its run an entire year earlier, and Volume 1 of LAUGH had then picked up a few Sabrina stories in some issues during the interim) than it was of the first volume of LAUGH, because LAUGH Vol. 2 consistently featured both Sabrina and Josie stories, just as T.V. LAUGH-OUT had. The T.V. LAUGH-OUT title had launched in 1969 when The Archies, Sabrina, and Josie were all starring in animated series on television, but the name of the comic, having been originally inspired as a take-off on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, must have seemed really dated by 1986 when it was cancelled.  The other consistent feature in every issue of LAUGH Volume 2 (never an ongoing feature in any other title) is "The Mighty Archie Art Players". This feature had appeared sporadically in a few random issues of other titles (the earliest I could find is in REGGIE AND ME #68, Jan. 1974), and was really just a way of grouping all those random Archie stories which took place in other times and places under one heading, with a slight skew towards literary or film parodies. Some similar concepts like Archie 1 (the gang as prehistoric cave-people), Archie the Barbarian, or Starship Rivdale had made strings of appearances elsewhere (in LIFE WITH ARCHIE or EVERYTHING'S ARCHIE) before, as well. But in The Mighty Archie Art Players we never really see any framing device to the stories where our "players" appear out of character and/or behind the scenes as actors, so they could all have been stand-alone stories appearing randomly in different titles, rather than a "series" connected by nothing more than a loose concept. Still, some of these are kind of fun. Volume 2 of LAUGH had a fairly short run of only 29 issues, so I'm going to see how many of this run I can manage to collect. They seem a lot less scarce than older issues of JOSIE or SABRINA, or even T.V. LAUGH-OUT.

BETTY AND ME #111, 112, 153, 162, 170, 176
BETTY'S DIARY #3
(Aug 1986)
BETTY AND VERONICA SPECTACULAR (Archie Giant Series) #559 (Jun 1986), #575 (Oct 1987)
Archie's Girls BETTY AND VERONICA (1950) #290, 296, 299 (1980); #343, 344 (1986)
BETTY AND VERONICA (1987) #23 (Sep 1989)

BETTY AND VERONICA JUMBO COMICS DIGEST #263 - Good issue. Notable stories include 1990s Sabrina by DeCarlo, classic 1960s Doyle/DeCarlo BETTY AND ME stories, Part 1 (of 5) of the reader-voted "And The Winner Is..." where Cheryl appears on the TV dating game show Lonely Hearts Club (no appearance by the band, too bad), and weirdly, two different Dan Parent stories where Veronica attempts to go from home to school (one just a normal school day, the second for the prom) in the private Lodge helicopter. [Spoilers: she doesn't make it.] Too bad this issue arrived in the mail two weeks late.


FLEX ARMSTRONG & THE FLEX FIGHTERS #1-3 (of 3)
KILL OR BE KILLED #19 (of 20)
SAVAGE DRAGON #234
RICK & MORTY #38
VAMPIRONICA #2
- I have to admit I liked the second issue better than the first. There was a lot less action, but a lot more story, and somewhat intelligently scripted, in addition to being well-drawn, by the Smallwoods. As much as I have a natural resistance to the idea of totally reinventing the Archie characters in this genre, I would probably have to admit that this could be the best of the Archie Horror titles so far. It even manages to be a better female vampire heroine story than the last couple of attempts by Dynamite at presenting Vampirella in a series. If it manages to to actually ship on a regular, consistent basis this could become one of ACP's best selling, and longest-running titles.

JUDGE DREDD: UNDER SIEGE #1
INFINITY COUNTDOWN: CAPTAIN MARVEL #1
(one-shot)
MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #6
LOCKJAW #4
(of 4)

DOOMSDAY CLOCK #5 (of 12)
JUSTICE LEAGUE: NO JUSTICE #4 (of 4) - It was really odd reading these two titles (both of which supposedly take place in the 'mainstream' DC universe) back to back, because it really highlights the contrast. The two titles just don't feel like they take place in the same universe, despite them featuring a lot of the same DC characters. I mean, yes, it's obvious that if they were taking place in the same universe, the two stories couldn't be taking place concurrent to each other -- one would have to begin and end prior to the other. Yet because of the nature of the backstory connections and what No Justice leads immediately into, it feels like it's more part of the current DC mainstream universe (three new ongoing JUSTICE LEAGUE series will spin off the events of NO JUSTICE). It seemed to start off great from a conceptual POV, with the introduction of a big cosmic menace to the whole universe, which can only be defeated by disassembling the all of the current DC hero teams, and dividing them up again into four new Justice League teams with key supervillains as part of the line-ups -- all overseen with the help of Brainiac, the only one smart enough to figure things out, and how to defeat the big cosmic threat.  And of course, there's immediate chaos among the heroes and conflict over the "but can we trust him?" factor. The first three issues of No Justice were all a build-up in tension, whereas the last one just seems like the threat was resolved far too easily -- a real deus ex machina ending. We are assured by the characters in the story, however, that the universe has been irrevocably changed and will never be the same after these events. It didn't feel too convincing to me. By where it left off at the end of issue #3, it seems like the plot/storyline hadn't even quite reached the half-point of development, and it felt like the series should have taken its time to play things out over at least 6 issues, if not 8 or 12. Events were set into motion by something (the breaking of the Source Wall) which occurred in the earlier event series METAL (which I didn't read past the first couple of issues because it was so convoluted). I blame Scott Snyder, who masterminded both METAL and this (although DC employed other writers to actually script from Snyder's plot). I didn't care for Snyder's take on Batman, and I don't care for the idea of DC making him the 'architect' of its universe.

DOOMSDAY CLOCK, on the other hand, is a sequel to WATCHMEN (1986), DC's most-reprinted graphic novel collection, and is written by Geoff Johns. For a number of years prior to the 2011 New 52 DC reboot, Johns had been the mastermind behind revitalizing a number of DC's character franchises that had gone fallow, including JSA/Justice Society of America, Hawkman, Teen Titans, Green Lantern (with GL: Rebirth), Flash (beginning with FLASH: Rebirth, that brought back the dead-since-CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS Barry Allen Flash), Superman (with SUPERMAN: SECRET ORIGIN and a run in ACTION COMICS), Booster Gold (in collaboration with BG's creator, Dan Jurgens), and the CRISIS sequel INFINTE CRISIS, as well as the line-wide GL-centric big event series DARKEST NIGHT and its sequel BRIGHTEST DAY. Despite also being the writer of the execrable (but best-selling) editorially-concocted FLASHPOINT, which destroyed the remnants of the old DCU and led into the New 52 reboot, Johns was then promoted to the position of DC's Chief Creative Officer, and given the flagship New 52 JUSTICE LEAGUE to insure a strong backbone series for the N52 relaunch -- but since giving it up the writing on JL last year, it's not surprising that last year's relaunch/refresh (but not a reBOOT, per se) of DC's main universe was rolled out under the REBIRTH banner for all their main universe titles. Johns wrote the introductory one-shot REBIRTH issue, which hinted at the arrival in the mainstream DCU of survivors from the WATCHMEN universe, and followed up last year with a four-part crossover in BATMAN and FLASH tying together plot threads from FLASHPOINT with both WATCHMEN and the general scheme of the current state of reality across the DC Multiverse. Which brings us to DOOMSDAY CLOCK, with a handful of Watchmen refugees (Ozymandias, Dr. Manhattan, Nite-Owl, Rorschach, and The Comedian, as well as a few minor characters) appearing to shake things up in the regular DCU. It feels carefully written, and evocative of the general tone and style of the original WATCHMEN, but somehow seems at odds with the general feel of DC's current line. Things here, as in WATCHMEN, are handled in more of a real-world way, with the rise of a populist backlash to superheroes in general, according to a belief in what is called "The Superman Theory", a conspiracy claim that the vast numbers of superheroes (in the U.S., particularly) is attributable to the fact that most superheroes are, in fact, products of a secret government plan to create a metahuman army, stimulating metagene-positive individuals by exposure to various traumatic conditions in order to activate their latent superpowers. All well and good, but it really doesn't seem to fit with the general ethos of the DCU. Why would the public suddenly become suspicious and hostile towards superheroes after years of them being around? The lesson to be learned from the orignal WATCHMEN is that too much grim and gritty reality undermines the basic fantasy element necessary for the suspension of disbelief that allows an entire fantastic genre of superheroes to exist in ongoing monthly adventures; if there is change in the DCU, it is mostly of the illusory sort -- i.e., the changes are temporary and reversible, according to the whims of editors, writers, and consumer reactions. In the Watchmen universe, designed to adhere more closely to the real world as its basic premise, consequences of actions and the impact on the status quo is permanent and irreversible. Dead is dead, if you saw the body buried. In the DCU, Superman, Batman, Robin, Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman, and Wonder Woman have all died at least once (and in some cases, multiple times) but are still around, and none the worse for wear, still ready to do their jobs of selling more comic book stories every month, even if they sometimes got a temporary time-out to be replaced by someone else carrying the names and wearing the costumes. Since we know that, unlike the original Watchmen, the DCU characters must go on and on in monthly adventures, after the conclusion of this series, rather than being irrevocably altered by the impact of events in this self-contained storyline, one might wonder what exactly is the point of the plot, here? Well, to sell comic books, obviously -- but can there ever be any really satisfying conclusion to this story? One wonders, too, where are the original Charlton Comics characters (owned by DC Comics since 1985) on whom the Watchmen were based -- Captain Atom (Dr. Manhattan), The Blue Beetle (Nite-Owl), The Question (Rorschach), Peacemaker (The Comedian), and Thunderbolt (Ozymandias)? While they have kept a relatively low profile in the DCU since 1985 as second-string heroes, it would be fascinating to see them by comparison and contrast to their darker/more realist counterparts from Watchmen. Little things about the DCU just seem kind of "off" in DOOMSDAY CLOCK, like the former villainess Killer Frost (as recent as a couple of months ago, now a member of the Justice League of America) making an appearance, looking totally different (in fact, her appearance in DOOMSDAY CLOCK goes back to her original look created for FIRESTORM in the 1980s, while her current DCU appearance is quite a bit altered since then). Batman is wearing the yellow-circled bat-emblem on his costume that he hasn't worn in years now. Superman already has his red shorts back, even before Brian Michael Bendis arrived at DC to restore them in the new MAN OF STEEL miniseries. None of that will matter to the many readers who'll be reading this story in a later collected edition -- readers who've read Watchmen but are not regular followers of the current DC line. And perhaps the series was designed to be so, as opposed to seamlessly blending with the current stream of DC's mainstream universe reality.

Manga:
  SAINT SEIYA: SAINTIA SHO VOL 02 [tankobon Pb] - This is another manga which is a cosmic/mythological science-fantasy action saga (a spinoff of the popular 1980s/90s Shonen Jump series Saint Seiya, known in translation as KNIGHTS OF THE ZODIAC) in the general vein of Jack Kirby's THOR or THE NEW GODS, or Jim Starlin's various cosmic superhero sagas with Thanos. The goddess Athena has been reborn on earth after many centuries, and is beginning her process of 'awakening' in the body of a young Japanese woman, in anticipation of the coming Galaxian Wars. The evil Eris, goddess of discord, has also been similarly reborn into the body of an earthwoman and is awakening to her full power. Athena is dedicated to preserving justice, and devoted to protecting mankind from the machinations of the gods, and so a cadre of guardian-warriors have been recruited to wear special metallic 'cloth', a kind of body armor capable of reconfiguring itself independently of its user, and become Athena's "Saints", her personal bodyguards until she awakens fully to her powers, and afterwards her private army to defeat the evil being sown among humans on earth by Eris and her confederates. Saints must develop their innate 'cosmo' which is a kind of psychically-deployed means of transmuting matter and energy, in order to wear the sacred cloths based on various zodiacal signs, and best serve Athena in her battle to protect humanity from destruction.

BettyReggie

I read
Betty & Veronica Vixens Hunted Part #1. I didn't like it. The art is terrible. I'm not going buy the rest of the series.
I also read
Betty & Veronica Friends Forever At The Movies #1
The Archies #7-  Final Curtain - Staples cover

BettyReggie

I read each of these books for 12 minutes each
The Best Of Archie Comics - Betty & Veronica- Book #2
Menage A 3- Volume #1
The Nameless City

DeCarlo Rules


SUPER-SONS/DYNOMUTT #1 (one-shot)
AQUAMAN/JABBERJAW #1 (one-shot)
FLASH/SPEED BUGGY #1 (one-shot)
BLACK LIGHTNING/HONG KONG PHOOEY #1 (one-shot)

Manga:
  Go Nagai's DEVILMAN: THE CLASSIC COLLECTION VOL 01 HC
  Shintaro Kago's SUPER-DIMENSIONAL LOVE GUN TP (short stories)
  Baron Yoshimoto's THE TROUBLEMAKERS TP (short stories)

DeCarlo Rules

#1430
WEEK OF 06-06-18 (so far):
True Believers: ANT-MAN & THE WASP: THE BIRTH OF GIANT-MAN #1 [reprints Tales To Astonish #35 & 49]

ANT-MAN & THE WASP: LIVING LEGENDS #1 - The story turned out to be a sequel to Tales To Astonish #49! Pretty good old-school superhero one-shot.
-- Well, they gotta push Ant-Man & Wasp, 'cause they got a movie out now. The original Ant-Man (Hank Pym) & Wasp have long been among my favorite characters in the Marvel U, so it's nice to see them getting some attention, after decades of relative neglect. Even if most of it is focused on Scott Lang (Ant-Man II), who I also like, although not as much as Pym. Pym's history has taken so many twists and turns, and he wound up creating new heroes left and right. First he became Ant-Man; then he turned his girlfriend into the Wasp. Then he became GIAnt-Man, and then after getting stuck at 12' tall, changed his name to Goliath. Then he regained control of his size, and then he went a little split-personality and became the (normal-sized) superhero Yellowjacket. But then he couldn't decide which superhero identity he wanted, and became Ant-Man again... and then Goliath again. Along the way, he kept passing along his old identities and powers to other characters: for a while, Hawkeye became the new Goliath, and then Hank Pym's old lab partner Bill Foster became Black Goliath. Then Scott Lang became the second Ant-Man, and then Rita DeMara became the second Yellowjacket. When the original Wasp was thought dead after Secret Invasion, Hank Pym himself took on the Wasp identity to honor his dead wife's memory, and even teamed up with a third Ant-Man. And now it seems like Hank Pym is the one currently thought dead (yeah, like that'll ever last), and it was discovered that Pym has a Russian daughter by his previous marriage (his former wife was killed by "Commies"... it was a Cold War thing, you had to be there), and she (Nadia Pym) has become the new Wasp, who teams up with Scott Lang (Ant-Man II; it seems like the third one retired) in the following Mark Waid-written miniseries:

ANT-MAN & THE WASP #1 (of 5) - It was okay. Art was acceptable, nothing really special though. Hard to know where Waid is going with this story of Scott Lang (A-M 2) and Nadia Pym (Wasp 2). There wasn't really anything wrong with the story, about the two accidentally getting stuck in the Microverse (or one of the microverses, there seem to be several), but I guess I'll just have to see how it plays out, since it's only five issues. If I like it at the end, I'll buy the trade paperback as a keeper.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #703 - The penultimate issue of Waid's last arc on the series. At first I was overjoyed, having loved his previous run on Cap, plus his more recent, very long run on DAREDEVIL which ended a few years back. The first arc, which pitted Cap against the familiar Spider-Man foe Kraven the Hunter, was great. And then it all got weird in the second arc, with Captain American thrust into some dystopian future U.S. The third arc is similar to the second, but this time it's a seeming utopia, instead. Only... Captain America isn't IN the story. It supposedly about his future descendents, and there's no one in the future running around in a Captain America costume. The triumphant return of Waid just doesn't FEEL like a Cap story, so it's a kind of q big letdown after the first arc.

DOCTOR STRANGE #1 - Dr. Strange... without his magic. In outer space. Don't know what Waid's thinking on this one, but it seems like he's grasping at straws in an attempt to find something never done with the character before.

INFINITY COUNTDOWN #4 (of 5) - Okay, I'm KINDA following this with vagueish interest, because it involves a few of my long-time favorite 'cosmic' Marvel heroes. Probably a good idea that they left Thanos OUT of this one.

IMMORTAL HULK #1 - NO. Sorry, I'm done. They just can't stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Just leave it alone.

B & V FRIENDS JUMBO COMICS DIGEST #263 - Good stuff. Josie stories always welcome. I know I had mpre stuff to say about the stories, but now I've waited too long to write this, and thinking about some other comics I read just crowded it out of my head. Maybe if I have time, I'll flip through it again and revisit those thoughts.

WONDER WOMAN ANNUAL #2 - Okay. I've only got a couple more issues to go on the current WW story arc. then I'll drop it.

MAN OF STEEL #1 & 2 (of 6) - 2 out of 6 was all I needed to make a decision. At least it was a quick read. With the usual trademarked Bendis plot-hook gimmicks. I'll bail out before I start and save myself the frustration later.

DC NATION #1 - I had a rant about DC's recent line-wide shakeup all ready in my head, but now I'm too tired. I'll save it for next week or something.

FIGHTING AMERICAN: THE TIES THAT BIND #4 (of 4)
XERXES: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF DARIUS #3 (of 5)
DOCTOR STAR & THE KINGDOM OF LOST TOMORROWS #4 (of 4)
SHEENA #9
KONG OF SKULL ISLAND 2018 SPECIAL #1

Still have a bunch of manga tankobon and some Ant-Man trade pb collections in my stack for later.

BettyReggie


DeCarlo Rules

#1432
06-13-18:
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #793-800
MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE ANNUAL #1
TITANS SPECIAL #1
WONDER WOMAN #48
FLASH #48
HAWKMAN #1
PLASTIC MAN #1 (of 6)
KICK-ASS #5
WORLD OF TANKS: CITADEL #2 (of 5)
STELLAR #1
RED SONJA/TARZAN #2

THE CARNEYS #1
- Awesome find! I loved it! May do a more detailed review later, time permitting.
CHERYL BLOSSOM #27 - Cheryl is trapped in a hedge maze with Veronica! One of the fairly rare stories where it's just the two of them, without Betty or Archie. Cheryl and Jason crash a Halloween party wearing the same costumes as Veronica and Archie (oh yeah, it's NOT a coincidence).
ARCHIE & FRIENDS #11 - Chuck gets a pet iguana, but Nancy is NOT thrilled. Sabrina has problems taking care of Cleara's invisible dog.
LIFE WITH ARCHIE #281
JUGHEAD #53, 137
VERONICA #20, 21, 45, 70
- What was up with that weird "Whimsical Rich Girl" period (as it says over the cover logo masthead of #20 & 21) where the word "whimsy" is referred to often in dialogue, and oddball characters like Sassy Thrasher, Aerobic Liz, and New Age Crystal show up?
BETTY AND ME #119, 199, 200
BETTY #3, 59, 86
BETTY AND VERONICA SPECTACULAR #44
- Another one of those "Archie's Angels" stories. I've lost track of how many of these there are... at least four, I think, counting the one(s) from the 1970s. The most often reprinted one is that story "Melvin's Angels" from AGB&V #277 (Jan. 1979). That's the one where B&V go to investigate a health spa and really get worked over by the head masseuse, the muscle-y Olga (only to discover that Melvin sent them to the wrong spa by mistake). Then there's this one from B&V Spec 44, inspired by the movie remake of the old TV series, which was followed up by a direct sequel in B&V Spec 59 (in #44, Brigette Reilly is the 3rd "Angel"... in #59, she's replaced by a much more logical candidate for 3rd Angel... Ginger Lopez). I could swear that there's at least one more of these that had Tomoko Yoshida (or was it Kumi Tamura?) as the 3rd Angel. I also kind of vaguely recall another older story (not connected to the one-shot "Melvin's Angels") that parodied the original TV series.

...and on top of all those, I still have another 10 issues of BETTY AND VERONICA (from both series) that I haven't read yet! Conditions on these were mostly VG to Fine+, so not bad. Can't believe I found a copy of THE CARNEYS at last! All these for 50 cents each.

BettyReggie

I read
Riverdale #9
The Archies #3
Your Pal Archie #2
Archie #21

DeCarlo Rules

Manga:
  Go Nagai's DEVILMAN VS HADES VOL 01 (of 3 tankobon) by Team Moon
  ASTRA: LOST IN SPACE VOL 03 (of 5 tankobon) by Kenta Shinohara
  Shotaro Ishinomori's KIKAIKER 02[CODE: ZERO TWO] VOLS 3-7 (of 7 tankobon) by Meimu
  CAPTAIN HARLOCK: THE CLASSIC COLLECTION VOL O1 HC by Leiji Matsumoto

DeCarlo Rules

#1435
ARCHIE'S SUPERTEENS VS CRUSADERS #1 (of 2) - Originally I was really disappointed to discover that Archie & friends would not be drawn in the traditional style. That aside, the artwork is some of the best I've seen on the characters since everything went "New Riverdale", and more importantly, the story has the saving grace of humor on its side. I guess I have to not think too much about stuff like Jughead carrying around an issue of MIGHTY CRUSADERS #1 from 1966 and handling it casually (it's not even bagged or boarded) like it was this week's issue or something (yet I know the story is taking place in the present time, because there are references to cell phones and videogames). The Crusaders, for their part, appear pretty much as they did back in 1966, costumes and all. I still think the story would have been funnier if they'd contrasted the styles of artwork between the Superteens (cartoon-style) and the Crusaders (adventure-style), but it looks like they went for a middle-ground modern (but still slightly retro) art style, which worked okay for what is was... all in all, taking into consideration what I've seen of the art styles in other recent Archie comics, I'd have to say things could have turned out a lot worse on the art front, so I was generally pretty happy with it. Ian Flynn's story is lighthearted, with some tongue-in-cheek dialogue, which seemed like a reasonable compromise. (I shudder to think of what it might have been like a couple of years ago when they were so editorially enamored with the whole "Dark Circle" approach.)

If I had one gripe about this, it's that it was all over with so fast. It seemed like the story had barely gotten started, when all of a sudden I'd reached the last page and "TO BE CONTINUED", leaving me hanging and frustrated until issue #2. Seeing as how it was only a 2-issue series, it would have been a lot more satisfying to see this as a double-sized one-shot special. I'm guessing those decisions all involve the marketing department, and questions like "How many variant covers can we squeeze out of this thing?". Not that I can really blame them, as variant covers seem to be the only thing keeping the floppy comic format afloat for ACP. I guess that neatly solved my dilemma of whether to file this with my Archie's Superteens comics or my Mighty Crusaders comics (they're in 2 different boxes), since I've now got 2 different covers and I can file one copy in each different box.

And there's a full page ad in the back of this comic for the upcoming ARCHIE 1941 series. Which I'm just going to pass on, unless when it comes out someone can convince me is actually funny.

DeCarlo Rules

#1436
Archie's Girls BETTY AND VERONICA #305, 310, 345
BETTY AND VERONICA (1987) #47, 56, 59, 61, 63, 72, 80, 104
CHERRY'S JUBILEE #1, 3, & 4 (of 4)
CHERRY DELUXE #1 (one-shot)
JUGHEAD #119 (Aug 1999)
FUTURE QUEST PRESENTS: THE HERCULOIDS #11 (of 12)
BATMAN: SINS OF THE FATHER #5 (of 6)
ANT-MAN AND THE WASP #2 (of 5)
CAPTAIN AMERICA #704
TONY STARK IRON MAN #1
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #801
AVENGERS #3
CABLE #158
THE BEEF #5
(of 5)
HIT-GIRL #5
MOONSHINE #11
(of 12)
KAIJUMAX SEASON 4 #1 (of 6)
TANK GIRL ALL-STARS #1 (of 4)
RICK & MORTY PRESENTS: KROMBOPULOUS MICHAEL #1 (one-shot)
GIDEON FALLS #4
EVIL, INC. AFTER DARK VOL 1: LIVE FAST, THWART HARD TP
THE RED HOOK VOL 01: NEW BROOKLYN TP by Dean Haspiel
DISNEY MASTERS VOL 02: DONALD DUCK & UNCLE SCROOGE'S MONEY ROCKET HC


BettyReggie

I read
Archie 1000 Page Shindig
Archie's Christmas Stocking
The Best Of Archie Comics - Volume #3

BettyReggie

I read
Vampironica #2
Betty & Veronica Vixens Hunted #7
Saga #52

DeCarlo Rules

BETTY AND VERONICA JUMBO COMICS DIGEST #264
WONDER WOMAN: EARTH ONE OGN HC
ROM & THE MICRONAUTS #1-5
(of 5)
Marvel Masterworks: ANT-MAN/GIANT-MAN HC VOL 1-3 (of 3)
AVENGERS: THE MANY FACES OF HENRY PYM TP
Marvel Universe ANT-MAN DIGEST TP
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