Archie Comics released the first issue of their new magazine format title this week, Life with Archie. And the contents are so bizarre, it makes the likes of Peter Milligan’s Shade the Changing Man look downright prosaic.

That’s not a knock — the publisher has put out some impressively timely material as of late, releasing Jersey Shore and Twilight parodies, plus debuting gay character Kevin Keller this September. The Life with Archie magazine is the follow-up to the “Archie Marries Veronica” and “Archie Marries Betty” stories that started last fall, offering two stories an issue, one focusing on Archie’s life married to Veronica and, you guessed it, one focusing on Archie’s life married to Betty.

They’re both solid, written by Michael Uslan and penciled by Norm Breyfogle. But man, are they weird. Huge spoilers after the jump.

The presence of teen icons Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus and Taylor Lautner (none of which really have much to do with anything, other than a couple “who would you cast as x Archie character?” pages) on the cover suggest that Archie is aiming squarely for the Tiger Beat crowd with this title. There’s nothing in the book that is inappropriate for that audience, but there is a lot that would majorly bum them out. For instance:

1) In the future where Archie married Veronica, Jughead is angry with Archie because he works for Veronica’s dad (Mr. Lodge, natch), who is trying to put Pop Tate (who has promised Jughead his business when he steps down) out of business.

2) In that same future, Midge breaks up with Moose, essentially because she’s worried he may become abusive.

3) In the future where Archie married Betty, Veronica is crestfallen due to that decision, leading Mr. Lodge to offer Archie money to dump Betty and hook up with Veronica (really).

4) Miss Grundy is dying of an unknown illness (possibly in both futures).

I remember flipping through old Archie back issues at a convention a few years ago, and seeing one from the ’50s or ’60s with a bunch of characters standing around Jughead, apparently severely ill in a hospital bed. There was no gag or joke on the cover. At the time, that stuck me as really odd, since even though I’ve been reading Archie comics since I was a toddler, I never knew them to be anything but jokey — even “serious” things like Explorers of the Unknown were tongue-in-cheek. I guess this is a lot like that comic, except produced in 2010, with Disney Channel stars on the cover and lines of dialogue I never expected to read, like “I include Jughead now on all business matters.”

Life with Archie does remind me of one thing — the 1990 Christopher Rich-starred TV movie Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again, which was one of the greatest disappointments of my life up to that point (in fairness, I was 6). There was months and months of anticipation of live-action Archie, driven by ads in the comics and spots on TV, and then the actual thing was relentlessly depressing. Instead of being a troublemaker, Reggie was actually evil. As was Mr. Lodge. Jughead was a huge loser. The love triangle between Archie, Betty and Veronica became totally creepy. And so on.

Life with Archie isn’t nearly that bad, even if it is similarly bleak — there’s still the feeling that there’s a light at the end of this tunnel. But like I said, it’s definitely weird. And not just because of how grim it is, or Moose’s decision to run for mayor of Riverdale, inspired by his new blind yoga instructor girlfriend (really). It’s the puzzling, Hypertime-esque subplot that seems determined to make every Archie story in history “count.”

In the Bettyverse, Archie runs into a grown-up version of “Little Ambrose,” a character who appeared pretty much exclusively in the old Little Archie comics. In those comics, it wasn’t uncommon for Little Archie and the gang to meet up with monsters or aliens, because, y’know, they were Little Archie comics and not generally meant to be taken too seriously. Apparently the regulars at the diner Ambrose (now a balding crank) works at think that he’s crazy, since he’s always talking about hanging out with Martians and pirates.

This all has something to do with Archie’s resident science nerd, Dilton — all grown up with a beard — exploring parallel universes. It’s not really clear yet. So not only are both of these alternate futures happening in “canon,” so is everything else in Archie history — the early comics from the ’40s and ’50s, the “Man from R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E.” spy parody stories, even the recent “realistic look” stories. They’re all somehow tying together here. Seems daringly high-concept, if not entirely unnecessary, given the only continuity these comics have ever really adhered to is that Archie can’t settle on a girlfriend.

As someone who has read hundreds if not thousands of Archie Comics over the years, it’s definitely cool to see something new done with the characters. I’m definitely on board for whatever’s next. Just these alternate future stories would be enough, but if they want to do some sort of Grant Morrison-esque headtrip along with it, more power to them. But it is still really, really weird.

EDIT: Here is the Jughead-in-hospital comic I mentioned. Clearly, this series is following in the tradition of the original Life With Archie.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 30th, 2010 at 9:01 pm and is filed under News & Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.