Archie Comics is one of those comic publishers who has been around since the Golden Age of comics, but was never the top company in the business. Starting as MLJ Magazines in 1939, the company put out a lot of comics in the superhero genre during the Golden Age of Comics. They did not have major success, but would evolve with the times. Namely in the post-war era of the 1940s and 1950s, the small cast and crew of MLJ Magazines’ Pep Comics would expand into a weird empire of teen romance, comedic antics, and marketing. In fact, they would even name themselves after their star character.

The teenage antics would also expand greatly. Not only would some characters get their own spinoff books like Betty and Me and Archie’s Pal Jughead, but the slice of life genre would expand into musical acts with Josie and the Pussycats and magic with Sabrina the Teenage Witch. It was all remarkably family friendly and safe overall, which parents were fans of with the comic panic of the 1950s and early 1960s.

In fact, Archie Comics would inspire multiple animated shows, including Hannah Barbera’s 1970 series Josie and the Pussycats. Often assumed to be one of the many Scooby Doo imitations the company put out to capitalize on the show’s formula, there was admittedly no comic to inspire the sequel, Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space. A few television specials would come out on network TV to also capitalize on the family-friendly antics of Archie and friends. There would even be a one-hit-wonder song from the band made for the 1968 cartoon, The Archies!

In fact, Sugar, Sugar was on top of the US song charts for four weeks in 1968, and eight weeks on top of the same charts in the UK! It was also top of the charts in South Africa and Australia at some point, though my research partner Doctor Internet and I are unable to find out for how long.

So yes, Archie Comics might not have been as massive as Marvel or DC, but it could have easily been considered number three overall. The adventures of Archie Andrews and his high school pals fell into a solid formula, with romantic antics and hijinks abound. This continued even into the indie comic boom until Image Comics surfaced in the early 90s. Perhaps not coincidentally, Archie seemed to lose its goddamn mind as a publishing company for a few years around then.

It’s hard to know the precise reason, as the history of Archie Comics is nowhere near as well covered or researched as the history of Marvel or DC. However, I have my theories. Starting with the late 1980s, the style of Archie changed dramatically. With most comic companies, you can tell at a glance when a comic was made… be it from art styles, fashion, or even the language used. Archie Comics was harder to peg down, but did feature something resembling the fashions of the day. Art would change between artists, but seemed to have an overall established “style” that everyone stuck to. 

But then came 1989, and that was thrown out the window. What would become recognizable as the 90s hit the Archie comics format like a hurricane with a nuclear bomb dropped inside.

Around this time, what has become known to many as the Dark Age of Comics was beginning. Releases like DC Comics’ Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns were released to a ton of praise and high sales due to their mature themes, treating readers with respect and intelligence, and delivering unusual stories that couldn’t be seen in everyday comics. It didn’t hurt that Alan Moore and Frank Miller were let off their proverbial chains to go crazy for the time, which let fans who already were loving their tamer works go crazy.

Unfortunately, a lot of other comic creators (and the publishers themselves) wound up taking the wrong lessons. Blood, guts, nudity, and gore. That was what now sold comics! Around this time, the artist became the superstar over the writer, resulting in things like Jim Lee wresting control of the X-Men away from longtime writer Chris Claremont. The newfound superstardom of the artist, as well as the desire to be respected as a creator, resulted in the creation of Image Comics. While more creator control and respect was 100% a good thing, there was also the small issue that it flooded the market with comics that followed the ideas of the Dark Age.

So many publishers were throwing in with these ideas. Marvel would give massive guns to the Fantastic Four for a few issues, while the X-Men would get new characters explicitly made to use guns and kill people. Some members of DC’s Justice League would get massive suits of armor. On both sides, gun users like Marvel’s Frank Castle got even more popular thanks to the other thing that caused the so-called Dark Age to rise up: the readers ate it up.

How much of this was the wild speculation market also waiting to collapse like a badly built scaffolding and how much of it was actual fan interest, we still don’t really know. A bunch of newly-numbered comics would hit the market, with each first issue promising to somehow be worth what Action Comics #1 had sold for only a few years ago. These new comics were dramatically different from what was often being offered, and it did feel like a new age of comics had begun.

…which, of course, was a small issue for Archie Comics. It wasn’t like Archie could give their title character a gun, or reimagine Riverdale as a grim and gritty strike force. Barely anyone in Riverdale even knew how to use a gun, much less had the reason to use one at all. The company’s characters were well known for getting into adventures, one-upping themselves with crazy stunts, falling in and out of love, and being a generally white slice of America stuck in a Pleasantville style.

This left one option for Archie Comics: to appeal to kids by being cool and hip.

I mean, basically.

To be honest, from what few comics are archived these days, it almost looks like someone at Archie just watched a bunch of Saturday morning cartoons to figure out what kids thought was awesome. Not only was Archie now shoving out new #1 comic issues to entice speculators to come buy their comics, but their idea of cool was remarkably distorted by the media they sucked up. Some of these comics were incredibly weird, and showed off what the company considered cool at the time.

To make it easier on their budgets, Archie would experiment with craziness by dedicating one comic a month to this stab at relevance. These would become quarterly experiments for the most part, and the publisher would run with what was popular out of them all. For the first comic, a simple question: What was one of the things that kids were constantly bombarded with during the early 90s?

Endless radio controlled vehicle commercials. So, logically, R/C vehicles must be cool, right?

Also, there were supervillains who used R/C vehicles?

This caught my eye the most out of all the strange comics Archie shoved out the door. It comes from 1989, the start of the chaos. The only issue archived by the internet seems to be issue 7, out of a 10 part series… but it’s more than enough to get the point. For reasons unexplained, Archie and his rival Reggie are leading two teams of classmates in a road trip across the United States to race R/C cars at various cities. The winners of the overall contest will win… something, and Reggie is out to sabotage Archie and his friends at every turn. It’s vague, but it works for a 10 issue miniseries with an overarching plot that still has room for one-shot adventures. It’s kinda like Wacky Races meets Around the World in 80 Days. However, it’s also weirdly insistent on those remote controlled vehicles, and the brand.

Yeah, it’s a very thinly veiled advertisement for hobby company Kyosho’s complement of remote controlled vehicles from the day. Much like the Christian comics of the 1970s, you almost believe it’s a legit Archie comic. Until…

That. Until that happens. This Leroy guy was just made for the comic, and while he works with Reggie and is despicable, he’s totally got the best tips to paint and customize your Kyosho products. These are totally awesome, and worth your money to purchase!

But hey, at least it wasn’t Archie 3000.

Hey, remember the Jetsons? Kids who watched cartoons on Saturday mornings might remember them. In one of the weirdest decisions I’ve seen, Archie Comics’ creators took the future of the Jetsons and shoved the fashions of the 90s into it. Archie now had a mullet, hair was weirdly feathered, and the future fashions were hilariously dated by being 80s and 90s colors rolled with the angular fashions of the Jetsons.

I mean, it feels like I’m reading a fever dream whenever I crack open an issue of Archie 3000. One adventure has Jughead picking up a fresh batch of instant Hot Dogs from a 20th century antique store, only to drop them all over Reggie and his new car by accident. I don’t even know how to parse how hot dogs are sold as a rare antique, but they apparently are.

Another genius idea was to take Archie and his friends and put them in a tribute to a 1957 Jack Kirby creation for DC Comics: Archie’s Explorers of the Unknown.

Similar to The Challengers of the Unknown, Archie and his high school pals have been recast as a group of adventurers for the 90s. Jughead is the motorcycle stunt man, Archie is the glorious leader, Veronica knows kung-fu, Reggie is an explosives expert… everyone has their own niche to fill. The comics are… completely batshit insane, much akin to the way that Archie 3000 is. The stories are thrilling in a family friendly way, but the internet has certainly made it harder to enjoy these comics in some respects.

But hey, if you’ve ever wanted to see the Archie crew take on giant robots, this is exactly up your alley.

At the very least, I’m certain someone would have asked for it. Unlike a five issue miniseries about how the teachers of Riverdale obtained super powers.

Yep! Four teachers of Riverdale High School are granted powers beyond those of a mortal man in a science lab accident. Together they band as a heroic quartet to fight the threats of… slacking!

Superheroes and Archie Comics are no strangers to one another. Back when Marvel and DC were reviving the concept of the spandex set in the 1960s, Archie dedicated a shocking amount of page time to every one of their teen characters obtaining a superheroic (or villainous) personality. Everyone except Veronica Lodge wound up with their own heroic identity, and either a spinoff comic of their own or a specifically-titled comic for the hero craze. It was bonkers.

To be entirely honest, though, we’re just revving up for the final act. You see, all the craziness would come to a head in 1989’s The Giant World of Archie issue 590. This was an anthology comic, based on telling a different set of stories focusing on the various antics and weirdness that happens in Riverdale. In this specific time period, there was a decision to make Jughead a little more “normal” in some respects. Namely, to give him a girlfriend. So, why not give him a girlfriend who’s also a descendant of his best friend Archie?

Meet January McAndrews, Archie Andrews’ long descendant from the 29th century. Time travel is a thing! She’s a time cop, who makes sure time can’t be wrecked by time crooks! And somehow, Jughead is a founding leader of the time police. Yes, Jughead.

Yeah. Somehow, Jughead has become a cornerstone of our future history, and the massive adventure throughout issue 590 is about how Jughead saves the life of a senator who will one day become president. And how he falls in love with January McAndrews.

And then we got a whole six issue mini-series based around this idea. Because hey, let’s go for broke.

Jughead Jones somehow has been left with a time traveling beanie hat, and has messed up time itself while sleeping. These adventures can be making sure Marco Polo returns from China with spaghetti, or else he won’t be born.

And defeating legendary sorceress Morgan LeFey with time traveling antics so he can play a knight in a school play better.

Or how Jughead’s dog Hot Dog is actually responsible for the American Revolution succeeding.

Or finding his own time clone, and how he can best fix time before it shreds reality… because he tried to cheat himself into getting a biology essay done early.

What about using an older clone of himself to ensure that the Union wins the Civil War?

Or how about defeating Morgan LeFey again before she can destroy time itself?

And falling in love with his best friend’s super-great-grandkid?

Yeah, this comic was bonkers, and amazing. If you’re into collecting it, Archie Comics has their PEP Digital line available online. It collects the weirder and themed stories, and can be found under entry 161.

Unfortunately for us readers, but fortunately for the sanity of everyone involved, Archie’s weird 90s experiment didn’t last too long. The marketing with Kyosho ended after 10 issues, and all of the quarterly comic experiments ended after their five or six issue runs. There were also a few crossover comics, like with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but the craze of trying to chase the dragon of being hip and cool seems to have faded just as quickly as it began. Luckily, Archie Comics has continued to truck along without too many issues.

In the years since, they’ve received acclaim for the Life with Archie series exploring futures where Archie chooses Betty or Veronica. They also achieved the longest-lasting licensed comic at 290 issues with Sonic the Hedgehog, and genuine fan and critical praise for the dark and enjoyable Afterlife with Archie. This would also results in spinoffs like Vampironica and Jughead: the Hunger, where more horror aspects leaked into the world of Archie. Or Archie vs Sharknado, which is about like it sounds.

Archie Comics did seem to suffer financial issues in the last decade, resulting in a lot of their original content and licensed comics being shuttered. However, the TV show Riverdale and the Mark Waid written 2015 reboot of their comics have proven to be remarkably successful. In fact, the “more serious” reboot series would even revisit a favorite of ours:

By the way, ever wonder what the other weird crossover comic was?

Yes.

It was glorious.