I came across an article today about a comic strip that I used to read pretty religiously as a youth. It turns out that they're going to kill of Archie Andrews from Life of Archie pretty soon.
Whatever will Betty and Veronica do?
This blew my mind. Hell, I didn't even know the comic strip was still going and that they were releasing new digests of strips, but killing off the main character in a 70-year strip that isn't a super hero? Wow. He's going to die while attempting to save the life of a gay character that was newly introduced a few years ago so as to make his death significantly honorable and to take him out with a bang.
No pun intended.
Killing off Archie threw me for a loop but I continued to read articles about this and came across the fact that freakin' Peter Parker was killed off too???? What in the hell.
Look, it's been a very long time since I've read comic books. I have a collection that I haven't looked at it in years. It consists largely of very early Avenger's comic books and the famous Death of Superman series. I still have the comic book where Superman dies in the cellophane wrapping. Back in whatever year that was, it was devastating to me. I read that entire comic with pain in my soul. Hey, I was Drake before Drake. Out of the ashes of Doomsday's defeat came four separate comic books about new Supermen. Of course I took a particular liking to the Man of Steel series, because colored.
Now had I been up on the Spider-man series I'm sure I'd have felt the same way about the death of Peter Parker. Hell, I'd bet people cared more about Peter Parker than Spider-man. Despite having actual super powers (unlike Batman for those that don't know, don't show, or just don't care about what happens in the world of super heroes), there was an extremely human end to Parker. He was I and I am him, slim with the tilted brim swag gangster clique. Funny enough I'm amazed that I did not know about this at all. I know there's an entire community that's up on these things and I'm not part of it, but this seems like a big deal.
I'm guessing Spider-man didn't die off permanently since comic books have a way of bringing folks back to life in new and innovative ways. Archie on the other hand - the homey from Riverdale - is dying for reals. He's dying in a statement intended to draw attention to both gay rights and gun control, a pretty lofty goal for a comic strip that I'm guessing most folks don't even realize still exists. But it's kind of cool…aside from the whole death of the main character thing. I mean, comic books and characters have long had social and civic implications. Everybody fights battles the way they can. Some folks use music. Others use poetry. Some folks use their comic books.
I'm no expert in this arena so I'll let those who are address that stuff. But I found myself tilting my head to the side and saying, "not my n-word Archie!". I still remember the first time I jacked one of my older sister's Archie Digest comic books. Nostalgia you are my oyster. Archie, I shall miss thee even though apparently you will come back as a zombie and be honored or something in later comic books. Or something.
A lot of folks here at VSB are comic book folks and appreciate the "nerdier" aspects of spectrum. Let's go full nerd today, any significant comic book moments that stick out to you?
And hell, who else is dead that I don't even know about???!?!? WHO DEAD?!