I shall begin my review of Betty & Veronica Double Digest #151 by first lamenting the price.

$4.39 Canadian?!

WTF, Archie comics. W.T.F.

That’s like, five dollars for 25 pages of The Saga of Betty & Veronica’s New Look since the rest of the issue consisted of a bunch of stories I’d read as recently as last night in digests that came out about 20 years ago.

Do you know what five dollars bought me when I was young, walkin’ to school uphill both ways, Archie comics? Several new digests with a balanced amount of new and recycled stories to keep me entertained plus some penny candies.

Maybe Betty and Veronica don’t need a new look to entice new and old readers into the fold so much as they need a content overhaul with a fair price smacked on the cover.

$4.39.

I’m just sayin’.

And when did the covers get so flimsy?! When I was young, I could use Archie comics as a shield against the rain, a coaster for my beverages and a baseball in the neighbourhood ball games if we happened not to have an actual baseball on hand and they came out of it looking and feeling better than they did when I bought them.

Anyway.

So. The new Betty and Veronica.

After reading Jughead utter the words, “YO, WASSUP DAWG,” in a relatively new digest, I suggested in a previous entry the quality of Archie comics had been so compromised, this makeover business wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to Riverdale.

As is often the case in my life, I was right.

But I have to say if the new look does stick, I’d really love if some minor adjustments were made to Betty and Veronica’s over-exaggerated assets. Like, let all the air out of their chests and maybe put it in their waists, for starters. When I’m settling down to read an Archie story, I don’t need to be reminded of those booklets the Body Shop released back in the day informing me if Barbie was an actual person, she wouldn’t have her periods because she was so damn malnourished and ill-proportioned and yet this was the first thing I thought of when I saw Betty on page 3.

Or perhaps Archie comics have gone this route to remind me to campaign against unrealistic beauty standards in some kind of reverse psychological activism approach or something?

Betty and Veronica certainly look the five dollars they cost, if you get what I’m saying.

And I think you do.

That said, the art is certainly as dynamic and interesting as advertised, but, unfortunately it isn’t supported by dynamic and interesting writing. But it’s still a step-up from “YO WASSUP DOG.” So I’m conflicted about how to give my opinion on it.

It’s better but it’s also been better.

The story opens with Betty info-dumping about her friendship with Veronica and how they both love Archie Andrews crymoancomplain, just before the pair plus Midge head off for the movies. It’s there they meet Nick St. Clair, a silver-tongued bad boy with a goatee who catches Veronica’s eye immediately, despite Betty’s repeated warnings (“I think he’s trouble. He looks like a hood.”).

Besides being the cleanest-cut hood I’ve ever seen, it’s revealed that not only did Nick sneak into the movies–Betty’s reaction to this is so vehemently disapproving even for her that I feel like I missed the part where he said he snuck into the movies while simultaneously doing drugs and robbing a kindly old lady–he got shipped to Riverdale to live with his Aunt and Uncle because he was running with a bad crowd back home. Also, he owns a bad-ass motorcycle. Betty suspects he is a murderer.

Which makes him all the more attractive to Veronica.

True to the Veronica we know and love, she ditches her friends and goes for a spin on the bad-ass bike. Betty and Midge do The Right Thing by going home to Mr. Lodge and tattling. Mr. Lodge develops a newfound appreciation for Archie and forbids Veronica to ever see Nick the Clean-Cut Hood again.

… Which makes him all the more attractive to Veronica.

Alone with Betty and Midge, Veronica gushes about how hot Nick is and if she had to choose between him and New Archie, she’d totally choose Nick. Judging by the look of New Archie, who doesn’t make an appearance in this issue, I can’t say I blame her. Midge helpfully points out the perks of Veronica giving up on Archie to Betty, as if Betty hadn’t figured them out five seconds earlier.

Betty is then left in a prickly TO BE CONTINUED position.

In the face of “YO WASSUP DAWG” there is something admittedly fresh about the writing. And yet, it can be altogether lame. At times it seems like Melanie Morgan felt like she was upholding the integrity of the comics and characters by having New Betty spew things like, “In Riverdale, we don’t ditch our friends just to take a joy ride with a smooth-talking stranger,” but even Old Betty never said anything so stale.

No, seriously.

And that’s where the new format fails. There is a clear understanding of the functions the girls serve in the Archie Universe, but it’s almost been pared down to the point that they’re parodies of themselves and have no choice but to act autonomously of each other. Betty and Veronica (and Archie, Jughead, et al) are way more entertaining when they’re acting, reacting and interacting. I didn’t see that here. When Betty spends 99% of the story telling Veronica how freaked out she is about Nick the Hood and later Veronica’s all, “Why didn’t you tell me you were worried?” There’s a problem. Sure, Veronica’s self-absorbed… but I didn’t get the impression she was self-absorbed so much as I did that she was deaf and needed a hearing aid. Talk to each other, dangnabit! It’s more interesting that way!

So basically, it was kinda flat.

Of course, how much can I reasonably expect in the first of a four-part story? There’s a lot of establishing going on here and that’s fair, and as I said, it’s better than the usual but it’s not better than it’s been. People might get swept away with the new format at present as it distracts from weak writing–not only here but in all of the recent comics–but as soon as the sparkle is gone, there’s nothing to fall back on.

So I hope the next three issues get better. If they do, there’s the seed of something good here and I can totally see myself enjoying New Betty and Veronica and even wanting them to pop up regularly.

Just so long as it’s not at the expense of Old Betty and Veronica. If that’s the case, forget it, bitches. I’m out.

What I really miss are the stories from the 40′s to the 60′s. The 70′s were okay, the 80′s to the mid-90′s had some incredible high points and I enjoyed those too, but the older comics were Total Wow. The writing back then was on–witty, biting, wholesome (but not always!), sarcastic and the group dynamic was F’n A. We’re talkin’ three dimensional characters who played off of one another, spit out fantastic one-liners and had interesting plots. The stories often featured a wicked sense of humour and fun that would make you LOL.

Dorky Archie fans like myself know what I’m talking about but for those who are not, let me put it this way: you could take the script of a story from the time Veronica had the bob and Betty had the poof of curls trailing behind her head, not change a damn word of it, give it to New Betty and Veronica and you’d probably think they were REALLY onto something and this makeover business marked the beginning of a Golden Age because that is how strong the comic was back then.

Seriously. If you read an Archie story from that period, I guarantee you’ll be surprised at how timeless and sharp the writing is.

And then you will be sad about how dated and dull it is now.

And then you will look at how much those awesome old Archie books cost and you will probably CRY.

Condensed review:
Has promise. Too expensive. Cry.