Comic Review #27: Archie Meets the Punisher (1994)

 

It's finally time for me to discuss Crossovers and knowing me and this blog then you know I'm going to pick the weird ones, the ones that make you go "what the holy hog fuck were they smoking when they came up with this comic?" because well those comics are always an incredibly fun to read. The ones where they take something popular and put it in a place where it might not belong. Ones that should be in any collection. I can't actually think of any of these "weird" crossovers that aren't really fun to discuss and review and to read. After realizing that I needed to talk about a few of these crossovers on my blog I went to my Facebook group and gave them some crossovers and they picked Archie Meets the Punisher. A clear winner with 5 votes.

I've already talked about The Punisher before in the story where he becomes a black man (no seriously this exists) but I finally get to talk about Archie Comics. Archie was created all the way back in 1941. He's a teenager who gets into wild and wacky Teenage adventures. Trying to get dates with Betty and Veronica (Betty is the lady he should choose because Veronica is a piece of shit. She should just go with Reggie because they are both pieces of SHIT.) but I enjoyed Archie a lot as a kid and read about 5,000 of them. It was hard to go past a checkout counter and NOT want to read a wacky Jughead adventure. Jughead is still the best Archie related character and one of the best comic book characters of all time. Also Riverdale is the best comic related TV show ever and I will not hear another word of discussion about comic shows.

The original concept apparently involved a murderer in Riverdale who like kills Archie's parents. After he comes home from Riverdale opening new security stuff to BE ABLE TO SEE IF KIDS HAVE WEAPONS. Jughead's carryin' a fuckin UZI! This is probably the least Archie thing possible because Archie is stuck in 1963 for the last 40 years. The guys who published Archie Comics pretty much said no but the people working there including Victor Gorelick (who worked there from 1957 to about 2020 He was 16 when he started and 78 when he sadly passed away. He must have really liked Archie to work at that company that long.). Batton Lash came up with a better concept which I shall discuss right now!

There's a criminal that goes under many names that the Feds want. I'll call him RED. Red looks pretty much like Archie Andrews except with the biggest fucking set of chompers I've ever seen and I've seen Gary Busey's teeth a whole hell of a lot. Anyway he escapes to Riverdale and we change settings to Archie getting in trouble with Veronica due to her shitty little cousin causing him to dose her with a hose. I guess Archie should have looked where he was spraying first, but still it's that little shits fault. I do not know if he appeared in Archie comics before but I'm sure he has.

Archie runs afoul of some mobsters that want to kill Red but it seems Red is pretending to be a industrialist and is trying to get help from Mr. Lodge, Veronica's dad. Veronica ends up taking Red to the big dance at Riverdale High. Archie ends up being saved from the mobsters thanks to the Punisher shooting off a warning shot. He meets up with the Punisher and they both think "How could this happen to me?" or something like that. It's a funny scene and probably my favorite in the book, well it might be but another scene is a great contender.

Jughead throws a rock to distract the Punisher and they both try to go to the police who don't believe Archie because all kinds of shit he's done in the past because Archie is kind of a doofus. Archie, Jughead, The Punisher and the Mobsters after Red all show up to Riverdale High and shit goes down, but not before The Punisher gets Ms. Grundy a 192 year old teacher at Riverdale High feel something erotic. It's very amusing. Red grabs Veronica and escapes to another part of town. The Punisher, Microchip, Jughead and Archie are at Pop's which is really funny seeing grumpy old Punisher in a malt shop. Microchip was very excited about malts earlier in the story so I hope he enjoyed his malt. They get a call from Red and Veronica gives Archie a clue so they all go to where the balloons are held for the big parades. 

The Punisher gets Red into a corner and tells him that Red is no longer necessary as a guy named Scooter was at the dance and is ready to tell the cops everything. This is a neat in joke for people who know way too much about comic books. You see Swing with Scooter was one of DC's Archie like comedy books in the 1960s. Neat little reference there! Red actually gets trapped by a balloon and it ends up flying off into the distance. I'm pretty sure Red died despite The Punisher going "Yeah the Feds will get him" Red is also bald and complains about pigeons while flying away. The comic ends with Wolverine finding a mutant that looks just like Jughead. Man I want that comic to happen but after 27 years  I doubt it ever will.

FINAL VERDICT: This comic was a lot of fun. Made me laugh several times. I loved how Batton Lash actually took Riverdale AND The Punisher seriously. Sure there were a few jokes about how outdated Riverdale is. Moose has a I like Ike button for crying out loud but you can tell that if he didn't know about Archie he learned a good amount before writing this crossover. He made sure that fans of both Archie and the Punisher could enjoy this comic. I only have one minor nitpick and that's The Punisher saying he was working with the Feds when he's a guy that should be in prison. Oh and the Punisher ends up kissing Ms Grundy on the forehead at the end. What do you bet that I could find some erotic fanfiction of that duo? I'm betting I could very easily. Anyway this is a fun comic that you should pick up if you enjoy either The Punisher or Archie. I also dug how he put some of Marvel's teen comedy characters like Patsy Walker (aka Hellcat) and Mille the Model into the story. That's really neat little touches.  This definitely makes me want to check out more comics done by this guy.