JUGHEAD #15 (May 2017) - How could I not like an issue of Jughead drawn by Derek Charm and featuring both Sabrina and Josie & the Pussycats as guest-stars? That pretty much sealed the deal for me in terms of whether I'd continue reading the title after the departure of former Jughead writer Ryan North, and despite my dislike of Mark Waid's writing on ARCHIE. So, Waid and co-writer Ian Flynn have me for at least one story-arc, now let's see if they can impress me. While the story's not as inherently funny as what preceded under North's authorship, Derek Charm does his level best to wring the most humor possible out of the script he's been given here, which in some ways is kind of a throwback to the general plot of "Jughead finds himself in an uncomfortable situation where he's being chased by girls". That would fit the general description of a number of classic Jughead stories.
I call shame, shame on the shoot-from-the-hip knee-jerk reactionary Twitterati lambasting Waid for what they perceived as a betrayal of the new Jughead's established asexual persona, based on nothing more than a snippet of plot outlined in the solicitation copy and THIS highly-exaggerated variant cover by Marguerite Savage, which leaves us with the impression that Jughead is now starring in one of those harem comedy mangas:
Nothing could be further from the case, and there's not a shred of evidence here to imply the least bit of waffling about Jughead previously-established orientation. The Ace-defenders simply pre-judged Waid's story. Based on their dislike of Ryan North leaving the title, or their dislike of Waid's work on ARCHIE, I don't know. I was leery myself of what to expect, but so far it seems to be turning out better than expected.
There are certainly nits to pick. Sabrina casts a spell using a magic wand? When has she ever needed any sort of appliances to apply her witchcraft? She's not a stage magician, and aside from some spellcraft books, physical objects imbued with mystic power have never played any sort of role in Sabrina stories. She enchants the Pussycats' instruments so that when they hear themselves play, they'll "become big fans of Jughead Jones", which in typical Sabrina-plot fashion, turns into a spell which makes them all fall madly in love with Jughead (even though they've never met him, and don't even know who he is). That's a little awkward. Waid & Flynn could certainly have come up with a better way of achieving the same effect. Any WHY is Sabrina casting this spell? To allow Jughead to attend the Pussycats' live show at the Lodge Ampitheater. Because he forgot his fully-punched "Chok'lit Tik'it" among the hamburger wrappers he left on his tray while hastily excusing himself (to avoid paying his tab) after a gorge-fest at Pop's, which he then peers in the window and sees Pop disposing of with the rest of his trash while cleaning up his table. He's too embarrassed to try to go back for it, because he'd then have to face Pop about settling his meal tab. Yet he's been eating tons of food at Pop's, and earlier Archie didn't give him his ticket for the concert because he figured that Jughead had eaten enough food at Pop's and punched enough Chok'lit Tik'its to "claim enough tickets (to the Pussycats' concert) for half of Riverdale". Which makes sense, given what we know about Jughead's appetite and his ability to run up a tab at Pop Tate's... so why would he be so concerned about this one ticket he left behind? Doesn't he have a half-dozen more? But apparently, he doesn't, so Sabrina tries to magic his problem away. And why is Jughead so hot to go to a Pussycats concert? Well, it's not for the girls or the music, it's for the arena's selection of junk foods that he considers rare delicacies. So couldn't Sabrina just have magicked up some of that same choice arena junk food? Or couldn't Jughead just have asked Veronica to get her father to give her a VIP pass for Jughead to the Lodge Ampitheather? I'm not sure if Mark Waid's version of Veronica is some kind of space alien or something. She doesn't even seem to be aware of such common colloquial expressions as "greasy spoon" and refers to this as "greasy fork" (based on her assertion that the specific utensil is irrelevant, since they'd all be equally as greasy. Really.) And how can the Pussycats fall madly in love with Jughead without even knowing who he is? So, yeah... plotting that makes some kind of sense is not the strong suit of this story. It's unclear how the duties broke down between Mark Waid and Ian Flynn, but I'm going to say that Waid didn't spend a great deal of time thinking the plot through. But who cares? It's got Derek Charm, and Sabrina and Melody and Valerie and Josie in it. I hope Waid spends some more time actually thinking about the plot in future issues, though.
I call shame, shame on the shoot-from-the-hip knee-jerk reactionary Twitterati lambasting Waid for what they perceived as a betrayal of the new Jughead's established asexual persona, based on nothing more than a snippet of plot outlined in the solicitation copy and THIS highly-exaggerated variant cover by Marguerite Savage, which leaves us with the impression that Jughead is now starring in one of those harem comedy mangas:
Nothing could be further from the case, and there's not a shred of evidence here to imply the least bit of waffling about Jughead previously-established orientation. The Ace-defenders simply pre-judged Waid's story. Based on their dislike of Ryan North leaving the title, or their dislike of Waid's work on ARCHIE, I don't know. I was leery myself of what to expect, but so far it seems to be turning out better than expected.
There are certainly nits to pick. Sabrina casts a spell using a magic wand? When has she ever needed any sort of appliances to apply her witchcraft? She's not a stage magician, and aside from some spellcraft books, physical objects imbued with mystic power have never played any sort of role in Sabrina stories. She enchants the Pussycats' instruments so that when they hear themselves play, they'll "become big fans of Jughead Jones", which in typical Sabrina-plot fashion, turns into a spell which makes them all fall madly in love with Jughead (even though they've never met him, and don't even know who he is). That's a little awkward. Waid & Flynn could certainly have come up with a better way of achieving the same effect. Any WHY is Sabrina casting this spell? To allow Jughead to attend the Pussycats' live show at the Lodge Ampitheater. Because he forgot his fully-punched "Chok'lit Tik'it" among the hamburger wrappers he left on his tray while hastily excusing himself (to avoid paying his tab) after a gorge-fest at Pop's, which he then peers in the window and sees Pop disposing of with the rest of his trash while cleaning up his table. He's too embarrassed to try to go back for it, because he'd then have to face Pop about settling his meal tab. Yet he's been eating tons of food at Pop's, and earlier Archie didn't give him his ticket for the concert because he figured that Jughead had eaten enough food at Pop's and punched enough Chok'lit Tik'its to "claim enough tickets (to the Pussycats' concert) for half of Riverdale". Which makes sense, given what we know about Jughead's appetite and his ability to run up a tab at Pop Tate's... so why would he be so concerned about this one ticket he left behind? Doesn't he have a half-dozen more? But apparently, he doesn't, so Sabrina tries to magic his problem away. And why is Jughead so hot to go to a Pussycats concert? Well, it's not for the girls or the music, it's for the arena's selection of junk foods that he considers rare delicacies. So couldn't Sabrina just have magicked up some of that same choice arena junk food? Or couldn't Jughead just have asked Veronica to get her father to give her a VIP pass for Jughead to the Lodge Ampitheather? I'm not sure if Mark Waid's version of Veronica is some kind of space alien or something. She doesn't even seem to be aware of such common colloquial expressions as "greasy spoon" and refers to this as "greasy fork" (based on her assertion that the specific utensil is irrelevant, since they'd all be equally as greasy. Really.) And how can the Pussycats fall madly in love with Jughead without even knowing who he is? So, yeah... plotting that makes some kind of sense is not the strong suit of this story. It's unclear how the duties broke down between Mark Waid and Ian Flynn, but I'm going to say that Waid didn't spend a great deal of time thinking the plot through. But who cares? It's got Derek Charm, and Sabrina and Melody and Valerie and Josie in it. I hope Waid spends some more time actually thinking about the plot in future issues, though.
You didn't see them near the end of the story? Zandor and Dorno welcomed the rest of the surviving Herculoids when they returned from Earth...
What's up with that image? When I copy the image address and open it in a new tab, the image is displayed in the landscape format. But when I paste the address in a post using [img] brackets, it displays in portrait mode. Weird.