Despite various incarnations over the years (including two separate versions published by DC Comics) and the involvement of creators like Carmine Infantino and Alex Toth, Archie's superhero characters have always been the weirder branch of the Riverdale family tree. Over the last year, though, the revival they've attempted with New Crusaders seems like a good enough try at rebuilding their characters into a new, cohesive universe.

Now, they've taken another big step: Recruiting Mark Waid and Dean Haspiel to relaunch The Fox in a new series that's scheduled to hit shelves later this year.Originally created by Joe Blair and Irwin Hassen in 1940, the Fox feels like a mash-up of the more popular heroes of the Golden Age: Paul Patten was a reporter and photographer who donned a black costume with pointy ears in order to fight crime and get good stories. He even had the requisite girlfriend with the truly hilarious name Ruth Ransom, presumably reflecting her status as a potential kidnap victim in need of a Foxy rescue.

Waid and Haspiel are, to say the least, a pretty intriguing choice to relaunch the title. One of my favorite things about the New Crusaders book is how it's built around the ideas of legacy heroes. That was a major selling point of the DC Universe for me when I was growing up, and before DC steadily did away with that idea, Waid was one of the architects that really made it work. Haspiel isn't quite as big a name in the superhero genre, but still, an Archie superhero book from the guy who worked with Harvey Pekar on American Splendor and The Quitter is intriguing enough just as a concept that I want to see it right now.

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