Archie To Meet His Grisly End

For a second, I thought it was a headline from The Onion.

Beloved comic book character and permanent high school ginger Archie will meet his end by getting shot while saving his best friend. From the drawings I saw, I seriously had to do a double take. I mean, Archie was the safest of safe, bland comics I could ever recall. He literally made Sesame Street look like N.W.A.

But, for me anyway, seeing Archie bleeding out from a bullet wound, looking a lot like Mr. Orange from “Reservoir Dogs” was literally a moment I felt my brain suddenly broke. It was too much.

My initial reaction after was, “Did Frank Miller get hired to do a gritty, film noir take on the Riverdale gang?” I mean, he did turn Batman into a psychotic freak in “Dark Knight Returns.” And it seems like something he would do if given the reins of this series.

I know for the past couple years, this comic has gone into social commentary. A lot of comics do. They always have. But, I always figured Archie would retire in some boring story line I would never have any interest in. Now, he takes a bullet in the gut for his friend, making this dopey kid who hung out with a guy who sported a king’s crown and ate nothing but cheese burgers named “Jughead” into some action hero.

And the following book features how his friends have reacted to his horrific death a year later. Yeah, as if his violent death wasn’t enough, they are treading in darker territory with that. This was not a complex, dark comic series. It was the “Saved By The Bell” of comics.

Seriously, this is “Archie.” The safest comic books in the history of everything. Now has gone dark and gritty. I seriously had to do more research to make sure this was not some joke.

This is not a joke. Wow.

Yeah, that’s pretty messed up.