Archie, Vol. 4 (2017)

I remember when the issues from this volume were first coming out, even though I wasn’t reading Archie at the time.  Every issue of Jughead featured super-dramatic ads for Archie’s “Over the Edge” arc, announcing month by month which characters had been revealed to be “safe,” like an extra-angsty American Idol results show.  The high drama seemed silly when it was shouting at me in print ads, and now that I’ve read the volume, that first impression hasn’t changed much (premise spoilers.)

A lot of the characters are still trying to get back to normal after the events of the last volume.  Archie and Veronica are together again, but they don’t seem to click like they used to, a fact that worries Archie.  Meanwhile, Betty has worked on moving on, but both she and Archie still feel this pull that isn’t 100% platonic.  What really throws everyone’s lives off-kilter, though, is when an emotional Archie impulsively agrees to Reggie’s challenge to a drag race.  As those ads in Jughead used to tell me, One!  Of!  The!  Characters’!  Lives!  Will!  Be!  Changed!  Forever!

I like the first two issues quite a bit, before the sweeps-month-style threats on a soon-to-be-revealed character’s life start.  I enjoy the Archie/Veronica stuff, and Betty has some good scenes with a character I wouldn’t have expected.

There’s also some particularly good stories for Jughead here.  He gets enlisted by the Blossoms to do some sleuthing on their behalf, and he demonstrates his loyalty to Archie throughout some crazy scheming and especially-outrageous examples of his best pal’s clumsiness.  The latter includes another things I love:  Jughead-Veronica scenes.  In every modern incarnation I’ve encountered (Jughead, Riverdale, Archie,) the Jughead-Veronica relationship is the least-explored of the core four.  So while I inevitably enjoy Archie-Jughead and Betty-Jughead (or Betty/Jughead, for Riverdale,) I’m continually curious about Jughead-Veronica, so I’m glad we get more between them here.

As for the “Over the Edge” stuff… I mean, it’s basically what you expect.  It’s life-or-death drama with Archie characters, not in a cracked Riverdale way but in a way you’d expect from a more typical teen drama, maybe Dawson’s Creek or 90210.  The artwork is so self-importantly dramatic, with stark cover images of an unrevealed someone in a hospital bed and close-up panels of heartrate monitor lines.  It’s taking itself so seriously, and it is an unequivocably serious story, but it’s just so grave that I have a hard time taking it as such.  The fourth issue in the volume, in which we see all the characters who weren’t involved in the accident getting the unspecified shocking news and racing to the hospital, while conveniently leaving out who everyone’s worrying about until the final page, is especially in need of getting over itself.

To be fair, I do mostly enjoy the last issue, which features several of the characters having flashbacks involving the injured character.  My favorite?  Mr. Weatherbee, surprisingly.  Ever since Jughead #7-8, I’ve understood that there’s more to the “Bee” than meets the eye, and we get a little of that here.