Archie vs. Predator

Archie vs. Predator isn’t part of the Archie Horror imprint that launched in 2013 with the zombies-in-Riverdale title Afterlife with Archie, but is instead a mash-up from Dark Horse Comics that was no doubt inspired by the success of Afterlife but also by a much earlier crossover, Archie Meets the Punisher (1994). And indeed it’s closer in spirit to the latter in that it’s illustrated in the classic Archie style (very unlike the Archie Horror comics where even Archie himself is unrecognizable) and keeps something of the sweetness and innocence of the Archie-verse going in a story filled with splatter and just the slightest suggestion of an adult gaze (as both Betty and Veronica provocatively strip down to their underwear at different points). It’s a comic that wants to have its cake and eat it, and for the most part it works. When Betty says to the Predator “You are one ugly melon farmer,” it’s a good line.

But while enjoyable, I thought the writing was quite a letdown from the Archie Horror comics I’ve read. There are no funny jokes and the plot is incredibly slapdash, even by Archie standards. Why whisk the gang down to the Caribbean for a holiday? Why wouldn’t the Predator just land in Riverdale? Why introduce all the nonsense about the curse of the local Jaguar Goddess into a Predator story? Did it even mean anything? Is the teenage Predator in love with Betty and Veronica? Does that add anything? The skips in the narrative made the breaks between the individual issues invisible, and led me on at least two occasions to try to pull pages apart because I was sure something had gone missing. As a way of shuttling things along, Mr. Lodge’s medi-lab serves as a really awkward plot device. I mean, it gets us Super-Archie and the gag ending, but you’d think they would have come up with something a little more grounded. A lot of what goes on here doesn’t feel like it belongs in either the Archie or the Predator universe.

There are some parts that did share a strange continuity with the Archie Horror titles. Like the pre-eminence of Jughead as the ultimate victim (he’d been the first human zombie in Afterlife, and the werewolf in Jughead: The Hunger). Here he gets his severed head and spinal column stuffed in a snack machine. Meanwhile, Dilton Doiley has gained in importance from the classic Archie days as Reggie Mantle has all but disappeared. There’s one great panel that has Reggie taking a selfie of himself blasting away at the Predator with a machine gun, but I think he’s blown up just after this. And the fact that I have to say I think he gets blown up is telling, because I wasn’t sure and anyway that’s it for him. He doesn’t get a signature execution scene or anything. He just disappears. I find this strange because Reggie was one of the four main characters in the comic, being the dark foil to Archie, so that the two balanced out the equally light/dark competition between frenemies Betty and Veronica. He was a more interesting character than Jughead, and more worthy of receiving a gory comeuppance, but in the alt-Archie comics he’s largely forgotten.

Overall then, Archie vs. Predator is a lot of fun but not as good as I was expecting. I really liked seeing the Predator drawn in the Archie style, along with the assorted mayhem, but as I’ve pointed out the writing doesn’t deliver. It’s just not as clever a comic as it could and should have been.

Graphicalex