Recently, the news that Archie will propose to Veronica has been sweeping the nation. Much like how Captain America died or Batman died. Now it is Archie Comics’ turn to temporarily revive the fortunes of a flagging intellectual property through a shamless stunt.
Of course, this particular move, like so many others, has been met with criticism. Mostly because Archie is marrying Veronica. Most comics fans don’t like Veronica, believing her to be a stuck-up mean bitch. And this is true. Veronica is a stuck-up mean bitch. But here are some truths about Veronica most people don’t want to realize:
1.) She is rich. This counts for a lot.
2.) She is unpredictable and fun.
3.) She doesn’t care much what other people think of her.
4.) She is rich, yo.
5.) Most importantly, she is not Betty Cooper.
Some people do not realize that this last is a major plus. Betty, after all, is the “nice” one. She makes Archie cookies and helps him with his homework and does charity-type things and doesn’t gripe about being kind of poor. Plus, let’s face it: she’s smoking hot. Why wouldn’t Archie want to marry Betty?
The answer is simple.
Betty Cooper is motherfucking psycho bugfuck crazy.
Look at this shit. Understand that Archie is a popular kid, sure, but he is not exactly the star of his school. (That’s Reggie. Just because Reggie is an asshole doesn’t mean he’s not super-popular at Riverdale.) Archie is the decent guy everybody likes, who gets okay-to-good grades, plays on a couple of sports teams in a non-star fashion, and dogs lots of chicks. He is pretty fucking unremarkable as teenagers go, and were it not for his line of comics he would be the most boring human on the planet.
Betty Cooper is psycho for Archie Andrews, who tops out at “the most averagest person around.” She has giant blow-up pictures of him. That you know she took herself, with her stalker camera. Look at some of those photos, how awkwardly cropped they are. That’s because they are photos of Archie not knowing he is being photographed.
You know goddamn well the only reason she has pictures of Archie in the shower is jilling-off fodder. That’s not sexy. That’s fucking disturbing. Porn is great. Porn you make yourself – not in the “videotaping yourself doin it” sense but the “take time to produce life-size beat-off photos” sense – is creepy.
She kept an audiotape of him speaking! What. The. Fuck.
You just know that she looped it and edited it so she could have imaginary conversations with Archie. “Archie, do you think I am the prettiest girl at school?” “Heck… yes… Betty. I would… LIKETO… take… YOU… out for… a soda?” In Bettyworld, she is the rich one, and Archie is secretly a prince from the kingdom of Mevonia, come to take her away on his unicorn steed to a idyllic life of sybaritic pleasure.
She is so crazy that when she thinks Archie is near, her sleeves disappear as her psionic powers spontaneously manifest themselves! (Okay, that’s a bit of a dig on the art, but come on, Dan DeCarlo made so few mistakes that when you find a biggie like this one you have to comment. Archie artists today couldn’t hold DeCarlo’s jock if they had a crane.)
Note also how her father holds her back. It is much akin to how one holds a Rottweiler back before you let it rush into a dogfighting ring. “Savage him, Betty! Savage him and leave him bleeding and praying for death!” He knows what happens if you let Betty loose without tranquilizing her first. There was that time in Ohio. That’s why he’s Mr. Cooper now, instead of Mr. Lifschitz, and why Betty is no longer Brenda.
“Imagine if she told him he loved her.” If he did, that would be when she would go get her rifle, climb the clocktower, and start shooting at Lodge Mansion’s windows. “HE LOVES ME!” *BLAM* “HE LOVES ME!” *BLAM* “TAKE THAT, SMITHERS! I CAN KILL BECAUSE ARCHIE LOVES ME AND ALL IS RIGHT WITH THE UNIVERSE!” *BLAM* “ARCHIE WANTS YOU TO BLEED, MR. LODGE!” *BLAM* “ARCHIE’S LOVE MAKES ME IMMORTAL! I AM A GODDESS OF EVERLASTING PEACE AND LOVE!” *BLAM*
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Are you guys seriously anylizing a COMIC BOOK? I mean, maybe a book i could see, if it was a realllly old classic, but Archie books? – Tigerthecat
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You can’t blame Archie for trying to hitch onto the Lodge train. Any ride works if your goal is to get the fuck out of Riverdale.
On the other hand… damn, Betty is flexible.
As an asexual, I can only say: …Do people who aren’t dangerously unhinged actually act like that? Is Betty an exaggeration of teenaged behavior, or was the writer just projecting his/her daydream of an obsessive crush?
Also, I was sure that the redheaded rival girl would get Archie. Huh.
http://mediumlarge.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/friday-may-29-2009/
I am not upset that Archie went for Veronica. I mean, what if Betty got her way? She’d spend her entire life being completely subservient to husband Archie, while it’s doubtless he would always hold a flame for Veronica.
I mean think about it. All those times Archie had Betty do his homework and wash his car so he could take another girl out? Yeah. Every day. For the rest of their lives.
Sad.
And here we have a beautiful example of reverse-sexism at work: Swap the genders around and it wouldn’t be aww-cute-teens-in-love, it’d be presented as a cautionary tale about stalkers. Which do exist in female form, who are every bit as disturbing and dangerous and which Betty clearly is. Scary! o.O Archie went shopping for a ring for Veronica, and a restraining order for Betty
C’mon, fair’s fair. Veronica kept photos of Archie, too. And Archie has made huge pictures of both Betty and Veronica.
One problem with contemporary happenings in the Archiverse is that the characters have changed, grown, and evolved (or devolved, depending on one’s POV) over the decades. 1950s Betty was a lot more worldly, 1950s Veronica could be downright vicious. Their current incarnations are not the same personalities, and neither are they the 60s personalities (I’d say the characters began getting codified into their current mode after the abortive idea of letting Archie, Reggie, and Jughead get drafted at the tail end of the Vietnam war; the Archie Group just forgot all about that storyline and never mentioned it again.)
I think this explains, too, the mystery of Archie’s appeal to the girls. When they were rivals in the 1950s and 60s, Archie was a prize to be fought over; it was not necessarily that he was so special but that both girls wanted him. By the 70s and 80s, as the girls began burying the hatchet and become genuine friends (as opposed to their earlier versions where they were rivals who would occasionally ally with each other), the reason for fighting over Archie became less clear.
Sounds more like straight-up sexism, rather than “reverse”. Suggesting that women can’t be shit-scary screwjobs is kinda limiting their opportunities in life.
Nice analysis. However you are forgetting one significant detail. Its a well known fact that the more beautiful a woman is, the more psychotic she is.
Now since Veronica is about the same level of beauty as Betty, it stands to reason that she’s just as bugnuts crazy as Betty. So how come she doesn’t display her psychosis as much? Its because she’s fucking loaded and Daddy paid for years of intensive psychotherapy so that she can act calmly and keep her public uproars down to the point where she’s only seen as being bitchy.
This is why Veronica’s dad does not want Archie around. He knows damn well what his daughter is capable of and he simply can’t afford to let her out of his sight and run off with some unsuspecting suitor who may inadvertently trip some psychological trigger in her head and end up as 165 lbs of ground chuck. He’s already made one incident disappear before it hit the press. He can’t afford another one.
Either way, Archie is simply fucked. If he had any clue as to the severity of his situation, he’d shave his head, buy some clothes from a thrift store, get into his car and just keep on driving.
And pray.
The Veronica wedding thing is a three issue storyline that is followed by a three issue storyline were he marries Betty.
That said: Betty might be a crazy bitch, but she won’t infect you with some weird ass European VD like Veronica would. And she still ain’t as Crazy as Big Moose, who would, in any logical ‘Future Archie’ storyline be locked up in Riverdale State Penitentiary for murdering Reggie. (Or acquitted for murdering Reggie because he’s Riverdale Technical Institute’s star linebacker and was already getting NFL contract offers; in any case, Reggie is deader than Lincoln.)
I was about halfway through typing “jilling-off” into Google when no, wait, I got it.
Must remember for future use.
love is hate, betty
embrace anti-life
embrace dilton
The Veronica wedding thing is a three issue storyline that is followed by a three issue storyline were he marries Betty.
If this is true, it is a distillation of what makes Archie Comics Archie Comics.
On a side note, Reggie is not the real king of Riverdale high, MGK — Jughead is.
“Reverse” sexism cracks me up. Like, men are so special that when someone is sexist against them, it is unnatural enough it has to be some kind of newfangled reversified sexyism, and then and only then does sexism become bad. Like “reverse” racism; when it happens to Whitey, stop the presses, we got to give it a whole new word.
I will agree with the idea that Betty is a psycho, mostly because everyone in Riverdale seems to be seriously disturbed in some manner or another. A “Call of Cthulhu” game set in Riverdale would be ripe with opportunities for creepiness.
Did you seroiusly make a Gordon Korman Bugs Potter reference in there?
So, are you suggesting that Betty will one day be faking an accent as an “international” movie star?
Interesting idea.
So, is this going to lead in to a ‘Why I Should Write Archie’ thread? Because your version? AWESOME.
Which part is the Bugs Potter reference? Mevonia?
I once saw someone’s blog comment or message board comment that went something like this (I’d link to it but my search for it was unsuccessful):
why aren’t all the riverdale girls lesbians? it’s obviously their best option, because they’re all really hot and look at the guys they have to choose from:
archie – dweeb
jughead – not interested
moose – big dumb brick
dilton – complete nerd
token black guy whose name i never remember – not bad but he’s already going out with the token black girl whose name i never remember
reggie – total dick who probably makes fingerguns at himself in the mirror
I have to admit he had a point. Although he did leave out Glenn Scarpelli.
You know what relationship really suffers from Archie’s decision?
Archie x Jughead.
The bromance is over.
Now since Veronica is about the same level of beauty as Betty, it stands to reason that she’s just as bugnuts crazy as Betty. So how come she doesn’t display her psychosis as much? Because Veronica can easily afford crate-sized shipments of Valium.
A few random observations: Archie is clearly a player of epic proportions. He routinely nails both Batty and Veronica, as well as the occasional other girl. Both Betty and Veronica both know this. And yet, they still swoon and scheme over him. Apparently, having sex with Archie makes you his crack-slave.
Also, you know he’s managed to talk them into a threesome at least once.
Betty does the kinky stuff for Archie because she is so desperate to please him. Veronica does the kinky stuff because she’s a Lodge, and that’s just how they swing.
On some levels, Betty would seem to be the more ‘fun’ girl to be with. However, she is dangerously obsessive and needy. Archie is right to marry Veronica; he just needs to make sure there’s no pre-nup agreement, and then run off with Cheryl Blossom (who’s also wealthy, and will do the kinky stuff simply because she’s a redhead).
@Perry Holley – I’m honestly surprised Cheryl Blossom hasn’t come up more in discussions of this subject.
And hooray for redheads.
I already knew that Archie was marrying Veronica for the money. That was obvious the first time I saw the article. But this….wow. It’s a good thing Veronica has money, cause she’s going to need to hire somebody to watch her ass. Otherwise she’ll be the victim of a hit and run accident and Betty will be “consoling” Archie for all she’s worth.
I think Perry Holley has the most accurate grasp of the dynamic here. Clearly, Archie has fist-sized swingin’ nuts.
“ARCHIE WANTS YOU TO BLEED, MR. LODGE!”
That’s win right there, that is.
Fatal Attraction was based on an Archie comic?
After seeing the doll of archie she owns on another blog about newpaper comics, this gets creepier.
A lot of famous works are based on Archie comics.
Jurassic Park, War Games, Star Wars (New Hope and Empire only) Scott Pilgrim…
Archie comics is a common cultural wellspring.
Betty, Veronica. Who cares. We all know that Cheryl Blossom is superior in every way.
Isn’t the gender-swap version of this scenario pretty much John Cusack’s character in the start of Better Off Dead?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088794/
I love how everyone is getting all worked up about a cover. Not that the comics industry has ever had a history of using misleading covers or the like to drum up interest.
Also, is John Roger’s Twitter account the new BoingBoing?
Just a few non random quotes:
“We all know that Cheryl Blossom is superior in every way.”
“Cheryl Blossom (who’s also wealthy, and will do the kinky stuff simply because she’s a redhead)”
“hooray for redheads”
You know, reading stuff like this makes me more and more sure that my love of comics and my desire for redheads might have a greater correlation than I thought. (Also sure that Stan Lee has as big a redhead fixation as they come)
I assume the above story was written by the late, great Frank Doyle? (The use of flowery dialogue for comic effect — “ecstasy of ecstasies!” — seems like his thing.)
The thing that makes the Archie characters work is that they’re basically very dysfunctional people within a non-dysfunctional universe. That is, nobody can be really bad in Riverdale, but within that context, they’re all rather flawed, crazy, mean or weird. Doyle understood that particularly well, usually.
@ Matthew E.
Brenda Lifschitz was the real name of Bibi Lanay (the movie star). She was in “Who is Bugs Potter?”.
Oh, okay. Thanks. I wouldn’t have remembered that.
One guy was bad enough in Riverdale to warrant an Archie/Punisher crossover.
“Betty, if I’m going to be a senator by the time I’m 30, I need to marry a Jackie, not a Marilyn.”
I’m one of the folks who are genuinely irrationally outraged by this whole soiree, but what gets my goat more is that they’re having Archie and pals grow up and stuff.
(Of course, I went equally nuts when they unveiled the “new art style” a year or two back in the Betty and Veronica digests, and that never amounted to anything afterward, so it’s all most likely much ado about nothing).
You know, they could probably make a fortune doing OZ, Riverdale style.
Betty, Veronica, and women’s prison. Think about it.
Al: I don’t think your far off the mark, but that may be because I “suffer” from the same “affliction”.
Man most of the photos in this story are things I could easily blow up and put on my wall… are all Archie comics this hot?
@Nora: Do you mean like Cell Block H?
Me? I’d fuck Big Ethel. She could make me her “spinner” any day of the week.
[...] Items for 6/4/2009 By tew, 6/4/2009 It puts the lotion on its skin [mightygodking.com] Most comics fans don’t like Veronica, believing her to be a stuck-up mean [...]
I don’t understand all the Veronica hate I’ve seen since this was announced… she always seemed clearly superior to me, and my fellow female preteen-Archie-digest-reading friends agreed. Betty’s sweet, but her relationship with Archie has always been too lopsided and depressing for me.
To be honest, though, I think both of ‘em can (and should) do better.
Are you guys seriously anylizing a COMIC BOOK? I mean, maybe a book i could see, if it was a realllly old classic, but Archie?
Are you guys seriously anylizing a COMIC BOOK? I mean, maybe a book i could see, if it was a realllly old classic, but Archie books?
Tigerthecat: Hi. You must be new here.
[...] poor Betty, seemed to have become more fixated on Archie as the series has gone on. She is flat out nuts. But I still feel sorry for her. She has been strung along for 599 issues only to have her heart [...]
[...] Maybe it’s not such a bad idea for Archie to marry [...]
Betty and Veronica are both off their rockers. You can tell, because they both date an annoying dweeb like Archie.
Anybody know which comic/issue this story was in? It’s hilarious.
[...] relation to Betty Cooper’s obvious insanity, I give you this, brought to my attention by Jaime [...]
I remember that story! (Alas, I don’t recall if I had that issue or my younger sister did.)
I didn’t think anything of it at the time….
[...] It puts the lotion on its skin. Why Archie is smart to propose to Veronica rather than [...]
[...] one, two) Tell The World: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]
If I had to marry one of them, I’d take Betty.
Veronica will treat you like shit, spend all your money, and fuck your brother.
As long as you don’t divorce Betty, she’ll treat you like a King.
…but if you DO divorce her, hide your pet rabbit and your large cooking pot…
[...] back when the issue was first announced, I took the opportunity to make fun of Betty being insane, and that took on a life of its own to be sure. But I genuinely like Archie comics; at their best [...]
I’ve always found the crazy girls to be incredibly sexy, to the point that my best friend insists that my attraction to psycho bitches is a manifestation of some kind of subconcious suicidal urges. Crazy women are never boring, and they’re always better in bed (or back seats, or behind a highway rest stop, or on their parents’ dining room table, or wherever).
On the other hand I’m pretty much broke and perpetually single aside from the occasional brief-yet-exciting relationships and one horribly failed engagement. Maybe Veronica is the wiser choice for the long term. Besides, it’s not like Betty won’t still do anything Archie wants, so all he has to do for some hot crazy bitch sex is to sneak away from Veronica and have Jughead fake an alibi for him.
[...] Mighty God King’s got a point. He’s got one hell of a point, in fact. You should read him, by the way: he was very sound on Captain America. Even if I can’t find it any more. [...]
[...] the creativity in the work of Samm Schwartz, and people can upload comics with “WTF?” subtexts that elicit the easily answered “Wait. Who wrote this stuff?” — it stands to [...]
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