(courtesy archiecomics.com)This is one of those stories that I checked the date on, and no, it’s not an April Fool’s joke. Veronica and Betty’s redheaded boy toy Archie Andrews will die from a gunshot wound in July’s LIFE WITH ARCHIE #36,. The guy whose band topped the charts with Sugar Sugar will meet his Maker via gunfire, ending the “flash forward” series and proving that no, there isn’t life after High School. At least not for Archie, who buys the farm saving a pal from a bad guy. No word on whether or not Mayors Against Illegal Guns will include Mr. Andrews in their roll call of victims of “gun violence.” Archie Comics Publisher/Co-CEO Jon Goldwater’s statement after the jump . . .

We’ve been building up to this moment since we launched LIFE WITH ARCHIE five years ago, and knew that any book that was telling the story of Archie’s life as an adult had to also show his final moment.

Archie has and always will represent the best in all of us—he’s a hero, good-hearted, humble and inherently honorable. This story is going to inspire a wide range of reactions because we all feel so close to Archie.

Fans will laugh, cry, jump off the edge of their seats and hopefully understand why this comic will go down as one of the most important moments in Archie’s entire history. It’s the biggest story we’ve ever done, and we’re supremely proud of it.

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109 COMMENTS

  6. We do not know the circumstances of Archie’s death by firearm but we all need to be in agreement that it is the firearms fault. If Archie was at a bank and some robbers came in and shot someone it is still the firearms fault. If Archie gets hit in the crossfire of a drug gang war it is still the firearms fault (not Eric Holders). If Archie tries to intervien in Jugghead’s suicide and gets shot wrestling the firearm away from Jugghead it is still the firearms fault. We need to start blaming the firearm before issue publication and before MDA or MAIG can get a word in.

    • “IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN A DGU”

      When this issue hits newsstands, if Archie really does die unarmed, TTAG should totally note for the kids that he might have lived if he’d carried protection.

  9. What is this, some bastardized form of positive reinforcement? Visualize something hard enough, often enough and it will come true?

    • The Tinkerbelling of Archie Andrews! At least he got an Air Force base named after him! 😀

  10. The latest version of the “Life With Archie” has been showing two different future timelines…one in which Archie marries Betty, the other in which he marries Veronica. Both storylines have featured his gay friend Kevin Keller becoming a Congressman on a “common sense” gun control platform, and recent issues have shown someone watching him on television as he cleans a pistol, saying, “You’re going to get yours, gay boy” (that’s the sort of slur people use in the Archieverse).

    Presumably, Archie will die (in both timelines) blocking the shot from the would-be assassin.

      • No, but Miss Grundy (his high school teacher) dies of cancer earlier in the book, shortly after marrying his principal, Mr. Weatherbee.

    • Oh good grief. Right, because gun rights people are going around shooting congressmen and gay folks. I enjoyed Archie comics when I was a kid, but today I would certainly keep this garbage away from any child under my supervision, unless I wanted to show them what anti-rghts propaganda looks like.

    • I thought Archie was supposed to be funny. When did it turn into a bizarre political comic?

      • The original “Life With Archie” series started back in 1958, and was always a bit more “serious” than all the other Archie titles.

    • Hal… Do you…do you read Archie comics?

      I mean, I guess it’s okay if you do, but we’re worried about ya, buddy.

      • I will admit to a fondness for the Archie comics of the 1960s and earlier. As for the modern stuff, I borrow it from my sister, who’s a big Archie fan.

        While the modern “Life With Archie” is getting some well-deserved criticism, I have to admit that “Afterlife With Archie”, in which Riverdale is ground zero of a zombie apocalypse when Sabrina (the teenaged witch) resurrects Jughead’s dog after Reggie runs it over, is kind of cool.

        (She’s sent to Hell…as such…by her aunts for doing this)

      • I was in grade school when I started reading MAD magazine. Their lampoon on this strip was called “Starchie!” & I never went near Archie comics after that.

        Starchie & his pal Bottleneck (get it?) are juvenile delinquents whose rival in petty crime is Wedgie van Smelt. Selling school `passes’ to freshmen is their source of income. “Biddy and Salonica” are two acne-ravaged junkies being chased by Mr. Whethernot the principal. Starchie winds up in reform school until old age produces a grey crisscrossing on his chin.

        A far more uplifting story than the original. BTW, the duo don’t carry real guns but “thirty caliber rubber band guns all loaded with a linoleum square”.

        • You missed out on the Superman/Batman thing, I suppose. I was WAY into THE BLACKHAWKS.

    • Y’know, Archie could have avoided a conundrum by going the polygamy route. On the other hand he would have twice the nagging but also twice the fun. So it should have worked out.

      • “When you find yourself in a hole, just dig deeper until the bad plateaus and the good catches up.”

        Excellent advice, indeed.

  11. This is about as relentlessly tedious as Marvel going full-out left-wing and whacking Captain America at the height of the Iraq War. Fortunately, I doubt anybody really cares about Archie anymore.

    • Wait what? Captain America “died” in the aftermath of the Civil War event, in which he fought against government registration of superpowers. There’s nothing leftist about that.

      It’s the same thing as what the X-men have been fighting for decades, where first they want registration and next they round up everyone. Hell, basically the entire Sentinel storyline of X-men can be seen as an allegory for Gun control, in which it is very, very against it.

      It even translated to the movie, where Senator Kelly (a democrat) the head honcho behind the sentinels in the comics said that he saw mutants as “Weapons in our schools.”

      If anything Marvel comics are pro-gun, from having gun-wielding heroes to having multiple instances where the heroes fight against government overreach and a totalitarian police state. Hell, the entire plot to the new captain america movie is that government overreach is bad, to the point where the people who want america to become a police state are (SPOILERS!) LITERALLY NAZIS.

      • I would choose Uncle Scrooge, he has got so much money those two wouldn’t stand a chance. Besides, I always have wanted to defy physics by swimming through gold coins.

  13. Probably a Pureheart the Powerful and Captain Hero cliffhanger alternate-universe crossover.

    • “Teeny weeny magic beanie pointing toward the sky,
      bring me muscle, vigor, strength…form a super guy!”
      – Jughead Jones, as he turns into Captain Hero

  17. I quit reading this comic back in the early ’70s. Someone please tell me Archie scored with Veronica before he spits the bit? I mean he’s been after her, like, forever.

  18. let the moonbats create their own universe in an obscure comic. The tide seems to be turning out in the real world.

  19. Archie will come back as a militant homosexual and advocate for gay and lesbian youth…

  20. I understand he was shot as an innocent bystander in a shootout between some politician and a gangster named “Shrimp Boy” That has to be fiction, right?

  21. Sugar, ah, honey, honey
    You are my candy girl
    And you got me wanting you
    Honey, ah, sugar, sugar
    You are my candy girl
    And you got me wanting you

  22. Wait….. So this is a real comic? Not just some nonsense printed on the wrappers of crappy bubble gum?……

  24. I would thumb through these while waiting in line at the super market when I was a kid and my sister would read them cover to cover.

    I admit that I thought that a few of the characters needed a lead injection so seeing this is like having a childhood fantasy come alive.

  25. Mentioned this to my co-workers. One of them handed me something called The Afterlife of Archie… What’s with all the parallel universes?

  26. Many a Sunday afternoon following Archie and the gang. I am sure it will be some anti gun propaganda thing that has a “moral” that offs him.

    Oh well, I lost the innocence of child hood decades ago.

    • Wow! Had Touch Football not been invented yet?

      I should talk! I was into THE HARDY BOYS. Read about one a week.

  29. Back in the day when Archie et al was penned by Dan DeCarlo, Betty, Veronica, and all the girls in the “Archiverse” (with some exceptions) were spankworthy. Dude knew the female form, and was unafraid to make Betty, Veronica, Midge, Josie, Cheryl Blossom, and many others the feminine ideal. For a lot of young guys, this was their first real exposure to sexy girl cheesecake art. For that, I will always have a place in my heart for Archie Comics.

    http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e59/beatzosan/pinups/DanDecarloBettyVeronicapin-up.jpg

    Over the last few years, whoever’s been drawing it appears to have never met a human woman. The faces are all wrong, all the girls have flat bums, and the “art” isn’t worthy of the label.

    Does anyone remember the very religious Archie comics of the 1960’s and ’70’s?

    • I couldn’t agree more. Dan DeCarlo actually did mildly naughty cheesecake back in the ’50’s and ’60s. The modern art is terrible compared to the old days.

      And I do remember the Christian comics published by Spire:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spire_Christian_Comics

      I recall buying a couple of these back in the ’70s and thinking, “Waitaminute.,..these aren’t normal Archie comics! I’ve been ripped off!”

  32. Hopefully the series will finally end so no more innocent trees will be butchered and the nests of baby birds destroyed to make the paper for the Archie series. We must ban the Archie print books for our children’s sake and do it in the name of nature. Trees have legal rights too.

  34. Sorta the reason why I am a big fan of Donald Duck and Scrooge. They weren’t afraid to solve a problem in a non PC way (even if it was *only* with a blunderbuss loaded with salt).

    That and the interesting stories.

  37. This is about the stupidist dumbest most progressive indoctrinating crap that I have seen from these progressive losers in about, well, about 15 minutes.

  38. Modern Archie < Old Archie

    I'm surprised TTAG hasn't done a review of the new Captain America flick.

  39. Obviously drug/gang related. In Chicago, LA, or NYC.

    The propaganda value is just colossal. MDA (the wholly owned subsidiary of MAIG) will be all over this like a cheap suit.

  40. The “Daily Planet” just put out an extra with the headline: “Steve Canyon Kills Archie in Self Defense.” Apparently, those dots on Archie’s face were associated with excessive meth use and he tried to roll the jut-jawed brigadier general for some drug money. The permanent teen found out the hard way that BG Canyon never leaves home without his trusty Model 1911.

    Honestly, I thought “Archie” had ceased publication decades ago. In intellectual terms, it made Dagwood & Blondie look like Werner von Braun and Madame Curie.

  41. No need to get all sentimental. Archie will live on in at least 30 other comic books in the Archie series. “Life with Archie” was just one of the series that happened to be failing financially.

  42. I have better ideas for Archie`s demise. Killed by a terrorist bombing or killed by a drone strike after posting statements online not pleasing to the government.

    • A drone strike would have been awesome. Wait, this is a couple months in the future, right? Somebody tell Jughead, quick. He may be able to save his buddy by taking the bullet himself.

    • This. Veronica wins because she isn’t an adoring puppet. She’s her own person and she took on Archie as an equal (if not better.)

      I think this is just another example of the left’s murderous tendencies coming to light. Archie didn’t do nothing to no one, yet they sacrifice him to their progressive god just like all the other shooters.

  45. Actually, Archie will live on in other Archie comic books. He just died in the Life of Archie series. My guess is that this particular Archie Comic was not make enough money, so they shot him.

  46. Well, he’s enjoyed 45 years or so of prime youth. Gotta pay the piper sometime.

  48. So Archie went to the wrong part of town at the behest of Veronica who wanted to score some exstasy and weed and got zapped by some gang banging thugs. He should have been carrying a G23 to defend Veronica from the hip hop mob.

    • The sequel: after Archies horrible demise Veronica falls into depression, gets on smack and starts selling her body for the Bloods. After years of hard knocks she meets a john who works for the DNC, who offers to marry her and make her a proper senators wife. Will her murky past stay hidden as she begins social climbing in DC, strung out on cocaine and liquor? Stay tuned for the next exciting episode.

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