The people at Archie Comics just don’t give a damn. They unleashed a zombie apocalypse in Riverdale last year, in which two female supporting characters sort of came out of the closet. Now the publisher is killing off their main character. RIP Archie.
Archie Andrews dies a tragic, heroic death in this July’s Life With Archie #36. A press release from Archie Comics says:
The iconic comic book character, beloved by millions around the globe for over 70 years, will sacrifice himself heroically while saving the life of a friend in the pages of July’s LIFE WITH ARCHIE #36, the final issue in the flash-forward series, which spotlights Archie’s adventures after high school and college.
Originally, Life With Archie ran from 1958-1991 and featured longer stories than the other series featuring the happy-go-lucky redhead. The current volume of Life With Archie started in 2010, with the hook that it would focus on two versions of Archie’s life as an adult, one where he marries Betty and the other where he’s Veronica’s husband. So, this flash-forward title isn’t the main Archie book. There will be other Archie comics once the titular character passes on in this one, as this quote from publisher/co-CEO Jon Goldwater seems to hint:
“Archie Andrews will die in the future storyline presented in LIFE WITH ARCHIE. This is something we thought about for a long time and it really is the perfect way to cap off this acclaimed story — it also gave us the opportunity to really think about how we’d handle Archie’s death. This is what we felt really represented the character, saving the life of a dear friend and showing the world what he stands for.”
A meaningful death in a grounded, fictional universe can be a great story. Let’s just hope no superhero-style resurrections are in the offing.
Comments
11 responses to “They’re Killing Off Archie In July”
Who the hell is Archie?
Archie died on the way back to his home planet.
I honestly did not realise anyone still cared about Archie. But obviously they do.
I love the cover variant that looks like Life magazine. Really cool art style.
I haven’t read an Archie since I was like 8 but this seems really interesting.
Not that I’ll read it or anything.
I had absolutely no idea Archie was still going. I assumed it had died at least a decade or two ago.
Archie was always my hero. If a socially stupid ginger like him could have two babes fighting over him, maybe there was hope for the rest of us.
(In the interest of fairness, I too am a socially stupid ginger)
Is Archie like Marvel and DC? When someone ‘dies’ they come back to life a year later?
Or is dead dead?
I don’t read Archie but from what I gather this is a flash forward series set after he leaves school, so they don’t have to bring him back to continue the normal series because in the normal series he’s not dead yet.
Going from the article, there also seems to be two flash forward timelines, and he only dies in one of them. Seems completely non-canon to me.
I had a hunch Doomsday would win.