Archie Already Married Veronica

One more thing about this whole Archie marries Veronica in a flash-forward future story business: it's sort of been done already. This story, "Dream Boy," is from the '60s (I assume; I read it in a digest, but it has the early '60s look). The art is by Dan DeCarlo and while the writer is, as usual, uncredited, it seems like it could possibly the young George Gladir (or maybe a freelancer). And it takes them only six pages, rather than six issues, to explain how an Archie/Veronica marriage would go and how Betty would be involved. I doubt if the much-hyped new story will be as plausible.

I also love the stylized, single-color backgrounds for the fantasy sequences, and DeCarlo's portrayal of Betty's evolution from Small-Town Teen to unrecognizable glamour girl. (Click on images to see the full-sized versions.)






It's not a new observation, but: part of the secret of Archie's success is that the characters are not goody-two-shoes. They all live in a clean, wholesome fantasy world, but within the context of that world, the main characters alternate between being friends and being mean to each other, both consciously and unconsciously. I mean, it doesn't seem at all implausible to either Betty or Veronica that Betty might try to steal Veronica's husband. It's just the way they naturally see themselves.

They've all been toned way down over the years, and were even starting to be toned down within Frank Doyle's lifetime (he and DeCarlo may have created Cheryl Blossom to do some of the nasty stuff that Veronica could no longer get away with) but even now they have something resembling actual flaws, which most kids' comics characters do not.