Brace yourselves for the wildest, most entertaining Archie Comics event ever! It’s the moment all of us fantasized about but thought wouldn’t happen; the marriage of Veronica and Archie in Archie #600 and #601!
The plot of this six-part story starts out innocently enough-on the last night of high school, Archie takes a walk up Memory Lane and sees what could happen to him in the future. But the future ends up with him marrying Veronica. On the surface, this story is a huge, glossy, crazy event in the history of Archie Comics. But let’s analyze it, shall we?
THE GOOD
It’s about time Archie Comics got gutsy and made a couple canon after decades of waffling. It was even addressed in the #601 when Jughead says at Veronica and Archie’s wedding, “It seems like it’s taken 70 years for this day to finally arrive!”
The instances of timeliness in the story is almost unsettling and surprising as much as it is welcoming. Archie comic books usually have small indications that let readers know the characters are in the present day, but in these issues, there are more mentions of current pop-culture than I’ve ever seen! Here are the ones I caught:
*Rock Band
*Saks Fifth Avenue
*Tiffany’s
*OBAMA’S INAUGRATION!!! I didn’t expect this one to be listed at all.
*I also feel the restaurant Jughead and Betty eat at –Osteria Al Rösen-is a reference to something. I just don’t know what.
The writing in these two issues was very well handled, I think. Archie comics rarely deal with something as serious as growing up and lifetime milestones. But the writing for this story is fairly sophisticated. Sometimes, the story seems a bit rushed, as if a few more pages in both issues could’ve padded and thoroughly explained the story a bit better-but the parts that we do get are told fairly maturely. Sure, the writing gets a bit fluffy during #601-the actual wedding-but it is a wedding. What else can one expect from a story about a wedding? No writing is safe from the saccharine of a wedding, not even the script for Storm and Black Panther’s wedding.
In #601, Archie’s true feelings toward Betty are actually addressed. I don’t know why, but I thought the writer (Michael Uslan) wasn’t even going to address how Archie really felt about Betty all of these years. But in #601, the truth is actually stated! Aside from the wedding, this interlude will reaffirm the opinions Archie/Veronica fans had about Archie and Betty’s long-suffering relationship.
In #601, there are splash pages of the wedding! One picture even takes up two pages! I don’t remember this type of layout-which is done in Marvel and D.C. comic books all of the time-being done in other Archie magazines, so it’s almost like Archie has made another step into being on par with the big superhero comics.
THE BAD
The drawing doesn’t stay totally on model throughout the book. Veronica’s hair goes from straight to wavy between two panels, and many of the faces drawn look slightly wonky. In #600, the drawing is way more consistent. Also, the covers don’t match the scenes in the book; on the cover of #601, we see the scene where Archie proposes to Veronica, with Jughead and Betty peeking in. The clothes they are wearing on the cover aren’t the same as the clothes they are wearing inside the comic book. The same goes for #601; the cover depicts the Veronica and Archie’s wedding. But the bridesmaids dresses shown on the cover and in the book are different in both style and color.
In part of #600, the reader might get confused as to whether Archie, Veronica, Betty, and Jughead are in New York or Riverdale when Archie proposes. We know Betty goes to New York, and since Riverdale is based on a city in New Jersey, it’s safe to assume that they all drove to New York for a weekend or something-it’d be naturally feasible for them to do that. And references to 5th Avenue, Saks, and Tiffany’s-and that mysterious Osteria- seem to set the tone that the characters are outside of Riverdale. But the book never concretely tells us the setting. There are other writing glitches, like the dialogue between Veronica and Archie as they’re driving toward their honeymoon. These can be just jarring enough to snap you out of the story and think, “Huh? Did I miss a sentence?”
The clothes are a big issue for me. This is not just me being a girl- I’ve become a more mature Archie Comics reader, the clothes have stuck out for me like a sore thumb. It doesn’t matter how many times you refer to 21st century pop culture,even Obama’s inauguration; if the clothes look like they come from the 1980s world of Dynasty, it throws some things off.
I guess this isn’t terribly a bad thing, but the story is presented almost like a “what-if” story, since the Memory Lane Archie walks up has a fork in the road. Archie takes one of those forks, which has him marrying Veronica. Who knows if other fork in the road will be explored.
THE WEIRD
During the wedding shown in #601, the groomsmen and bridesmaids are walking down the aisle. My one “what?” moment during this scene was wondering why isn’t Chuck escorting Nancy down the aisle during the wedding. Instead, Reggie is escorting her. Why is Reggie escorting her? Are Chuck and Nancy still going out? Is she going out with Reggie, even though we see her dancing with Chuck at the reception? Why is she one of the “single women” vying for the bouquet!? Now that’s a story we need to read about.
In #600, there’s a page where Archie and Veronica’s friends are talking to each other about the bombshell decision Archie’s made. But why does the person whom I’m assuming is Raj have curly hair? Again, it’s one of those off-model instances that occur in #600, but this is just too off model.
And, the bridesmaids play into the cliche of having hideous dresses (this goes back to my ’80s comment).
THE UNEXPECTED
The most mind-blowing moment isn’t the fact that Veronica and Archie got married. You just have to read the end of #601 to see what is.
Overall, these two issues have been two of the most entertaining Archie books that I’ve read that aren’t one of the old ones from the digests. I am on pins and needles waiting for the third issue.
EDIT–This might be the shipper in me, but I feel that there just might be Jughead/Betty in the future. Jughead is mentioned by Betty as one of Betty’s best friends (even over Archie, apparently) and Jughead, like always, was the one trying to console Betty and defend her after Archie proposed. This, along with the fact that he was looking at her the whole time he escorted her down the aisle during the groomsmen/bridesmaids procession makes me think some mammoth-sized hints are going to be dropped next time around.
Let me guess….Veronica’s pregnant? XD
Please, I beg of you, though: Were there any moments in #601 that were Jughead/Betty-ish? I’ve heard rumors that since Archie’s marrying Veronica, they might hook up.
There were some moments, not enough to talk about in the review, though. But for me, I kept getting an overall feeling of Betty/Jughead, if that makes sense. Like, the one moment that happened in #601 was that Jughead escorted Betty down the aisle during the groomsmen/bridesmaid procession and he’s looking straight at her while mostly everyone else is drawn looking straight ahead. But mostly, the subplot was Betty getting over the fact that Archie and Veronica were getting married, not her and Archie. Hopefully in the next issue, we’ll get some better J/B moments that are actually mindblowing.
And you’re right…Veronica’s pregnant. The next issue is when we see what gender the baby’s gonna be. Crazy times, huh?
Jane–
I just updated my post with the instances I caught in #600 and #601. Hopefully this helps your J/B need.
Aw, thanks! You’re so nice!
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