Reviews

Archie: The Married Life Book 5 by Tim Kennedy, Paul Kupperberg, Pat Kennedy, Fernando Ruiz

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dantastic's review against another edition

4.0

Once the Riverdale gang graduated high school, the timeline diverged into two. In one timeline, Archie married Betty and in the other, Archie married Veronica.

I haven't read Archie; the Married Life books 1-3 but I read the wedding special and I think I have a handle on what went down thanks to the "what happened before" sections at the beginning of each thread. This volume collects issues 19-24 of both Archie Marries Betty and Archie Marries Veronica.

I wasn't really sure what to expect with this. There's still a fair amount of humor but it's mostly the Archie gang doing adult things. The art is great and the ongoing storyline is very engaging. What the hell is Dilton up to? And what's Fred Mirth's deal?

My one gripe is that Betty is with Reggie in the timeline where Archie married Veronica. It doesn't ring true to me. Everything else kicks ass, though. Paul Kupperberg's writing makes the Archie gang more well rounded than they typically are and Fernando Ruiz and the Kennedy brothers knock the crap out of the art.

Only two unread Archie books in my house now!

dantastic's review against another edition

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5.0

The journey is over. This isn't a spoiler since it's on the cover but the death of Archie had more of an impact on me than the Death of Superman when I was a teenager. At first, I was wondering if Archie would die in both timelines. Now, I'm glad I only had to go through that once. Writing wise, it was the greatest Archie story of the pre-horror ear. The Riverdale gang evolved quite a bit from their teenage hijinks. The art was great too, new but with echos of the classic style.

Welp, that's the last unread Archie book in the house. Time to move on to something else.

schottjm's review against another edition

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I enjoyed the premise of there being two universes, one in which Archie marries Veronica, and the other where he marries Betty. I thought the series was going to attempt to explain that based on events early on, but no. There were a couple of things mentioned/hinted at that were never resolved. And I guess that is my biggest issue with the series overall; it felt like they kept changing their minds about the direction of the overall plot.

And the final two issues resolved nothing. They had the build up to Archie's death, but no clue which universe it was set in. It really felt like a cheap ploy to wrap up the series because the writers had no idea where to go.

I do enjoy the series overall. It was nice to see Archie and the gang delve into real-life issues. But the ending was disappointing.