‘Riverdale’: CW Proves Archie Comics Aren’t For Kids Anymore
The Riverdale CW series recently announced shows an Archie Comics that most familiar with the comics of old will hardly recognize.
The place is the same, and so are the characters; but there are dark rumblings afoot. Mysterious deaths, teacher-student affairs, sexualized love triangles — pretty much everything the comic books were not.
The comics were always safe and innocuous. Parents knew when they picked up a Double Digest and handed it off to their youngsters, there wouldn’t be anything they would have to explain with Full House-style family chats.
However, over the last few years, the company has moved into more mature subject matter. They broke ground with Kevin, the first openly gay Riverdale resident.
Interestingly enough, Kevin was left out of the extended synopsis for Riverdale (see below).
Then, they pushed forward into a storyline that would end with the death of Archie Andrews himself. There was also a crossover with Predator, a more adult-oriented horror series in which zombies invade the beloved town, and then two alternate timelines that envision what life would have been like had Archie married Betty and Veronica.
Finally, Archie relaunched with a more realistic and mature readers-esque take on high school life in Riverdale.
If keeping up with these comic book events, it shouldn’t come as of much a surprise that with Riverdale, CW took a more mature approach as well.
But in so doing, they have effectively cemented the idea that Archie Comics are no longer for children. It’s a quick brand transition that erases more than 75 years of pre-established expectations regardless of the fact that more kid-friendly versions are still sold at bookstores alongside the harder-to-explain-to-your-kids versions.
Archie Comics were created in 1939 by John L. Goldwater, Maurice Coyne, and Louis Silberkleit as a means of appealing to fans of the Andy Hardy films.
If you’ve never seen those, they are lighthearted teen films — a far cry from what CW has released thus far on the Riverdale series.
https://youtu.be/JKrDtmadJMg
That may sound like criticism, but in reality it’s not. The change was needed. Archie Comics had stopped relating to kids and families of the 21st Century. To stay relevant, they needed to pivot into surprising new directions, and that they have done to critical acclaim.
Most of these experimental takes on the Riverdale characters have met with widespread critical acceptance.
Contrast that with the unaired 1964 television pilot, the 1970 Archie special or, worse, the 1990 Archie high school reunion movie Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again. (Warning: you can’t un-see this trailer.)
As for Riverdale, CW has released an official synopsis (h/t to Newsarama).
As a new school year begins, the town of Riverdale is reeling from the recent, tragic death of high school golden boy Jason Blossom, and nothing feels the same. Archie Andrews (KJ Apa) is still the all-American teen, but the summer’s events made him realize that he wants to pursue a career in music — not follow in his dad’s footsteps–despite the sudden end of his forbidden relationship with Riverdale’s young music teacher, Ms. Grundy (Sarah Habel). Which means Archie doesn’t have anyone who will mentor him — certainly not singer Josie McCoy (Ashleigh Murray), who is only focused on her band, the soon-to-be-world-famous Pussycats.
It’s all weighing heavily on Archie’s mind — as is his fractured friendship with budding writer and fellow classmate Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse). Meanwhile, girl-next-door Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) is anxious to see her crush Archie after being away all summer, but she’s not quite ready to reveal her true feelings to him. And Betty’s nerves — which are hardly soothed by her overbearing mother Alice (Mädchen Amick) — aren’t the only thing holding her back. When a new student, Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes), arrives in town from New York with her mother Hermione (Marisol Nichols), there’s an undeniable spark between her and Archie, even though Veronica doesn’t want to risk her new friendship with Betty by making a play for Archie.
And then there’s Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch). Riverdale’s Queen Bee is happy to stir up trouble amongst Archie, Betty, and Veronica, but Cheryl is keeping secrets of her own. What, exactly, is she hiding about the mysterious death of her twin brother, Jason? Riverdale may look like a quiet, sleepy town, but there are dangers in the shadows.
What do you think of the new Riverdale series, readers? Did the CW go too far in turning this series adult, and for that matter, do you think Archie Comics of today have gone too far, or was it just what the characters needed? Sound off in the comments section below.
[Image via CW]
