The Recap Page: What You Need To Know Heading Into ‘Archie’ #7

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This week's Archie #7, by Mark Waid and Veronica Fish, sees a war brewing in Riverdale as a recently injured Archie faces the wrathful vengeance of Hiram Lodge. But don't expect a typical Archie reset when the dust settles!

The Story So Far: The all-new, all now, “hip” and “with it” Archie series for the kids today with their phones and their Donkey Kong, is essentially a back-to-basics reboot --- or as reboot-adjacent as something with the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ approach to continuity Archie’s always had.

What has changed is storytelling technique --- gone is the Dan DeCarlo house style that Archie artists are encouraged to recreate, replaced by the gorgeous artwork of Fiona Staples and Veronica Fish. The comics now have a sense of storytelling momentum and continuity, with a new status quo at the end of every story, if not every issue. But unchanged is the classic Archie sense of farce, where if something can go wrong for Archie and the gang, it will.

What Happened Last Issue? Something went wrong for Archie and the gang.

Archie was beaned in the head with a softball and was rushed to the hospital, and dreamed he was a caveman --- leaving us to wonder if the entirety of Archie BC is the product of Archie’s concussion. In a nice touch, Archie continues to narrate his perspective on the events of his life to the reader, but because he’s taken a blow to the head, he never actually looks at the reader and in fact seems to be talking to the nurse.

Betty Cooper, who hit the softball, feels guilty over landing Archie in the hospital, and may be having second thoughts about the non-status of her relationship with Archie.

Meanwhile, Reggie Mantle, whose soul is made of garbage, attempted to slime his way into the good graces of Hiram Lodge, and leaned --- through breach of confidential notes that the butler led him to --- that Veronica became interested in Archie because he was the one who accidentally knocked down their house. He told Mr. Lodge. Mr. Lodge realized it was an accident and forgave Archie and all is well.

Just kidding! All is not well.

What’s Next? Hiram Lodge, now having been given a name to his pain, is going to wage a counter-attack on Archie Andrews, with the help ("help") of Reggie Mantle. Archie’s not going to die, since they did that already and it’s too early in the reboot to go back to that well; what’s going to happen instead is that Lodge will try to make Archie’s life into a Hell upon this Earth, and it will backfire in some fashion and in a way no one saw coming.

I have no idea what the general shape and content of the new status quo at the end of Archie #7 will be, and for a series that for ages has been defined by its fealty to the reset button, that is genuinely exciting.

Archie #7 comes out at finer comic book stores on April 6, 2016.