Archie was my first exposure to reading comic books. Sure, as a young kid I was into superheroes. But that was through other media & adaptations. Such as the Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man movies, or the various animated kids shows based on characters like the Justice League or the Teen Titans. My family used to have this cabin and there were some old collections of Archie comics I found back during the summer right before ninth grade.. There were a few of those large collections collecting various different issues. The most intense it got was Archie trying to figure out how to the movie theater while on two separate dates at the same time while Moose was trapped in roller blades and constantly running into other people. Fast forward to college when I saw the CW was making a Riverdale show and I was at first surprised by it’s really dark tone. But also kind of digging it for the first couple of seasons. This ultimately lead me to discover the existence of Archie Horror and the story in question.
The basic plot is that Cheryl & Jason Blossom are the children of Satan worshippers and one of them is destined to become the Anti-Christ. But it’s sort of like a contest/competition where the two of them are trying to out-evil the other by manipulating people in town. But wait! There is a third sibling that neither of them knew about – Julian Blossom. He arrives in town and now Cheryl & Jason are scheming together to get rid of their competition.
Right off the bat, I think the art work for this mini series is pretty solid. It takes a semi-realistic approach to how it depicts the characters and their world. And it has a variety of different of colors on display. All though it does lean towards the darker shades and of course red definitely has it’s fair share of page time. But I think some of more eye catching art you will find are the designs from the individual comic issues which are included in the trade. It embraces the supernatural aspect in a more flashy display.
As for the story itself, it is pretty solid. It does have a sense of fun and a touch of dark humor. Characterization for the main players are vaguely similar to how they are in the CW show with a few exceptions. Jason is more similar to Cheryl and their parents are surprisingly decent people, devil worshipping aside. But Betty and Jughead are still similar enough to their TV actors which would help bring in fans of that show. But even if you aren’t a fan of the show, they still work well in the context of the mini series. But there are a few problems that do kind of bug me.
Julian makes his surprise appearance at the end of an issue, which in itself isn’t bad. But it’s in issue two and this is a five issue mini series. It doesn’t give the story a lot of time to build tension between the three siblings. I think the thinking is that they waited on that reveal because they wanted to give us an idea of how Jason & Cheryl normally act in Riverdale and how Julian’s appearance changes life for them and the town. And the timing would make more sense of this was a six issue story. But it probably should have happened at the end of issue one. There are also a couple of cutaways to an unidentified dead body as well as an unseen person throughout the story. At the end, it’s revealed this is Julian after his siblings killed them. The implication is supposed to be that he came back from the dead and is now returning for revenge. But at first, I thought the story was implying a time loop where the events of the story play out over and over again. That could have just been my stupid brain interpreting it that way, but those cutaways do seem a little out of place at first.
Speaking of the story implying Julian comes back from the dead, the series also has another cliffhanger. Betty does investigating and digs into Riverdale’s dark past and Jughead gets s little too involved in Cheryl & Jason’s games. The two of them end up getting together at Pop’s diner and they try to come up with a plan of what to do with their information. But as far as I know, this story doesn’t have a sequel nor are there any current plans to continue the mini series. That combined with Julian resurrecting does feel anti-climatic when you come across that realization. And personally, I think it would be really cool to have the Blossom siblings use more obvious supernatural abilities. A little something to really show off that these are potential dark rulers of Hell with a wide arsenal of tricks and magical powers.
Having said that, it isn’t a bad story. I still find myself enjoying it. Though that could be me just being a big fan of Horror in general. It’s a more tame example of what the Archie Horror imprint has to offer. I mean, with other titles like Afterlife with Archie & Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, this does feel the most grounded. Think of it like a gateway to discovering a bunch of other cool Horror stories, whether it’s from Archie or elsewhere.