REVIEW: Archie, #1

[CBR News]

"Archie" #1 is a brilliant reimagining of one of comics' most enduring characters by Mark Waid and Fiona Staples.


Full review here.

[Lee Stone]

Looks like their gamble has paid off... over half the reviews so far have given it 10/10.

[quinnzel]

Wow. 5 stars. Now I'm really excited about picking this up.

[Fuzzy Barbarian]

Wow! All the hype for this now. I thought the preview pages looked interesting, and knowing nothing about Archie, I'm fully on board with Waid's take on the characters from what I've seen. I was on the fence on picking this up (I was honestly only going to get it for the creative team), but hopefully my place ordered enough though.

[Cinnamon]

I'm more interested in Jughead, but I'll go take a look in the LCS.

[Expletive Deleted]

This was . . . I don't want to say "surprisingly" good, given that it's Waid and Staples, but I was unprepared for the level of quality on display. I just want to keep hyperbolically throwing superlatives at it until I seem deranged.

I've never really been an Archie person. I read some when I was a little kid, when I was gobbling up every comic book I could find, but very few of them really stuck with me. The only one I remember clearly is a super-creepy Life With Archie strip about a demonic teddy bear (Google tells me it's called "Nightmare Nursery" and I'm not the only one traumatized by it). Anyway, this issue made me a fan. I'm in for as long as this run lasts, plus the Jughead series and whatever else comes down the pike.

[JayBee]

It was a good start. Enough to hold my attention until the next issue.

[RockyBanks]

This was . . . I don't want to say "surprisingly" good, given that it's Waid and Staples, but I was unprepared for the level of quality on display. I just want to keep hyperbolically throwing superlatives at it until I seem deranged.

I've never really been an Archie person. I read some when I was a little kid, when I was gobbling up every comic book I could find, but very few of them really stuck with me. The only one I remember clearly is a super-creepy Life With Archie strip about a demonic teddy bear (Google tells me it's called "Nightmare Nursery" and I'm not the only one traumatized by it). Anyway, this issue made me a fan. I'm in for as long as this run lasts, plus the Jughead series and whatever else comes down the pike.

My thoughts exactly. I was cautiously optimistic, and now I'm slightly embarrassed that I ever doubted Waid and Staples. This book is phenomenal.

[DDD]

This was terrible, complete with the trio of minorities who care so much about Betty and Archie's couple (main characters) ... because?

[UltimateTy]

This felt short. I'm not the biggest Staples fan but I like the way she draws Archie, I probably wouldn't have given this 5 stars maybe 3 1/2 or 4.

[JayBee]

This was terrible, complete with the trio of minorities who care so much about Betty and Archie's couple (main characters) ... because?

My assumption is the bubble that is a small town high school.

[billee0918]

This was great! Been a casual Archie reader since I was a kid, this was a terrific new start.

[The Odd Man]

This was the first actual Archie comic I've read in decades and I loved it!

Sure I read the digests as a kid, but I never felt the urge to actually pick up an Archie comic until I saw that Mark Waid was involved. And damn am I glad I did! Fantastic art from Val Staples, and beautifully coloured as well.

As much as it confuses me to admit... I might just be buying an Archie comic regularly from now on!

[Samurai Jack]

This is the first Archie anything I've ever bought. Sometime in the late 90s or early 2000s, I was given an Archie digest as a gift. I liked the book and the characters, but I never went out to read/buy Archie comics on my own.

Reading Mark Waid and Fiona Staples' first issue has been a near perfect re-introduction to the characters and what can be expected of the comic. I liked how there were chapters dividing sections of the comic, similar to the digest format that Archie is famous for.

I really like Fiona Staples' character designs and the personalities of Archie, Betty, and Jughead. Jughead was the biggest surprise and the highlight of the first issue, for me. I've always known him to be very big on food, but I really liked his loyalty towards friendship being so high of a priority to him that he wasn't even remotely close to being swayed to give up private information of his best friend's personal life. Jughead seems like the ideal best friend to have in high school and long after graduation as well. Mark Waid's writing for these young characters in a modern setting is off to a very good start.

Looking forward to reading/buying the second issue of Archie, and I'm very interested in Jughead's own comic now as well. I was previously just going to buy Jughead #1 just because it was a new Archie-related comic, but now I'll be reading it as well.

[Lee Stone]

Can't wait for the inevitable documentary on how Archie went from being an overlooked company for decades, just maintaining it's little corner, to being a major player with Archie Horror, Dark Circle and the new Archie in just the last year or two.