The things people bring back from vacations.
Creative Staff:
Story: Alex de Campi
Art: Fernando Ruiz, Rich Koslowski
What They Say:
Archie and the gang head back to Riverdale, but the vicious extraterrestrial Predator is in hot pursuit! When the kids determine that Betty and Veronica are the targets, they devise a secret weapon—Jughead in drag!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The opening installment of the Archie vs. Predator series is one that gave most of its focus to the Archie crowd and showed off what their lives are like. It was familiar in the way that Archie largely hasn’t changed over the decades, which is a positive, but it had enough modern aspects to keep it in the present, but just a bit squeaky clean as you’d expect with a few amusing nods here and there. With the Predator, we got a few scenes with him out there and it felt similar to how it’s been portrayed in the movies, more stealth and watching at first more than anything else, but also with a few trophies along the way to make clear that we do very much have a killer here and not a fully sanitized creature.
Which is something this issue reinforces significantly.
The fun here is in watching how the book deals with the rather sudden changes to everything, again, much like in the movies. Here, it starts off with the problems Betty has in wondering if Cheryl will want to be paid for the dress that was ruined on the island, but that concern goes out the window when they discover she and her brother were killed there. It goes even worse in the restaurant where they learn the knows when Pops serves them some cake – because cake goes with all kinds of news – and gets his head blown off. Though they don’t know it’s a Predator, it’s a sad statement that they all basically go into terrorist alert mode and know exactly what to do to survive. For Betty though, she grabs Veronica and heads to Greendale as she’s convinced this is all happening because of the jaguar curse that she initiated on the island and needs Sabrina’s help.
The book plays with this will, giving Sabrina a plum role and plenty of great dialogue as she deals with both of them, but it also brings the reality of the situation into play when General Keller later arrives on the scene. He’s useful for the page of full exposition in talking about how the government knew about the Predators (I knew it!) and what they need to do to defeat it. That puts the plan into motion, which we see some of here to comical effect, but mostly sets up for how much worse things have to get before it can potentially get better. What we do get along the way is seeing the Predator, now designated a teenage Predator, going all out and having fun, ripping heads off to get spins for trophies, killing cats and splortching Greendale and Riverdale residents while most everyone freaks out.
In Summary:
This is deliriously awesome. It is, very much, a simple premise. But with every simple premise, it’s all about execution. The story here takes us through the familiar ideas and plays with them well, particularly with the jaguar curse and some of Betty’s backstory regarding why she knows so much about it all. We get a good focus on her and Veronica here and that has them dealing with the situation in their own particular way, but it serves to blend in the other characters for help and support. The end result is a fast moving book that has a really great amount of dialogue and quirkiness about it to make it thoroughly fun and engaging. And bringing the Predator into Archie style may still feel like a weird combination, but damn if it doesn’t work to make it an absolute hoot. I’m loving it and am glad there’s two more issues to come.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: May 20th, 2015
MSRP: $3.50
