I’m both terrified and in love.
Creative Staff:
Story: Mark Waid with Lori Matsumoto
Art: Joe Eisma
Colors: Andre Szymanowicz
Letters: Jack Morelli
What They Say:
Veronica’s out… and Cheryl Blossom is in! Veronica has to adjust to her new settings at Pembrooke Academy, a private school. That shouldn’t be a problem for the rich, affable teen, except for one thing: Pembrooke’s reigning queen, Cheryl, isn’t looking to make any friends. Can Veronica establish her place at the haughty high school? And just how is Archie going to adjust back home in Riverdale? Find out in this can’t-miss issue!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Before I get to the review proper, I just want say, check out that cover! It’s absolutely gorgeous and tells you everything you need to know about Cheryl and Veronica. Cheryl looks beautiful and menacing with her long red hair covering her eyes and the garden shears in her hands. And look at the colors! She’s surrounded by purples, reds, blues, and all the shades between, foreshadowing the conflict she will soon engage in with Veronica (who is always associated with purple). Veronica Fish really outdid herself on this cover, and once again, I’m pining for a print.
Okay, it’s time to switch and start gushing over what’s beneath the cover. So it’s been a rough week for the Riverdale gang. Hiram Lodge, furious over losing the mayoral election, packs his stuff and leaves, dropping Veronica off at the Swiss boarding school Lycēe Camembert while he heads off to parts unknown. Veronica might as well be on a deserted island. Because her father controls the telecommunications of Switzerland (he’s that rich), he set it up so that she could neither send nor receive calls, texts, emails, or Skype calls with anyone at Riverdale.
Although alone and despondent, Veronica was still a Lodge, and she set out to conquer Camembert just like she did Riverdale High. Over the course of her first week she impresses her teachers and forms a small court of girls to preside over. She does all that, but doesn’t make a friend. Not until Cheryl Blossom arrives on the scene.
Cheryl immediately gets under Veronica’s defenses and coaxes the whole sad story out of the young woman. She then invites Veronica to a birthday party for Julia, the only student there (apparently) on a scholarship, and who works part time in the student café. Veronica accepts and suddenly Camembert seems a little less hostile and a little less remote.
We’ll pause Veronica right there and move on over to Riverdale where both Archie and Betty pine over their lost loves. The events of the previous issue ended Archie’s relationship with Veronica and Betty’s relationship with Sayid. Jughead tries to jog Archie out of his funk, while Kevin tries to do the same for Betty, and we get a wonderful series of pages with equal panels on both sides—one devoted to Archie and one devoted to Betty. Both groups end up at Pop’s. Archie and Jug sit in one booth and Betty and Kevin sit in the booth beside them, and even though neither party speaks to the other, their conversations overlap brilliantly. Waid and Eisma’s comic timing work perfectly in these series of pages, basically presenting a masterclass on how to handle separate yet concurrent storylines.
All righty, let’s unpause Veronica and return to her and the party. Archie fans already know that Cheryl is up to no good, and certainly the Veronica Fish cover sets that up nicely, but in case you’re late to the party: Cheryl is up to no good. Cheryl has her own little cadre of mean girls and the party served two purposes: to humiliate Julia for the crime of being not super-rich and to show Veronica who’s the queen bee in these parts. Even if you saw it coming, it still punches you in the gut and immediately establishes Cheryl as a legitimate threat.
In his introduction to the backup story, Mark Waid writes that Cheryl functions as the female Reggie, acting as Betty and Veronica’s nemesis, and that certainly plays out in this issue. Reggie and Cheryl stand together as the only two genuinely destructive people in Archie. Most of the time, the conflict in the comic stems from honest misunderstandings, but Reggie and Cheryl actively try to destabilize the status quo and play with peoples’ lives. Mr. Lodge sometimes falls into this category, but his jerkiness derives more from his ambition and desire to protect his daughter. Cheryl and Reggie are just plain mean.
That’s an oversimplification, of course. One of the areas that Archie excels at is problematizing and building its characters—protagonists and antagonists alike. A few issues ago we got a glimpse into the man under the persona with Reggie, and I imagine we’ll get the same with Cheryl. It won’t make their actions any less despicable, but it will make them troublingly sympathetic.
Speaking of troublingly sympathetic, I have to say that Joe Eisma draws a beautiful Cheryl Blossom. In full disclosure, I do have a thing for redheads (as do most nerds, I think), but even if I didn’t, I still would have appreciated how she was drawn. I’m not saying this in a lascivious sort of way. I say it because this is the first time we meet Cheryl in this new Archie and as a major character she deserved to make a splash when she finally hit the page—and splash she does. She almost stands apart from everyone else in the panels, highlighting her beauty and her power. She naturally draws the eye, just as she naturally draws the attention of everyone around her. Her beauty doesn’t make her sympathetic, but it does make her appealing, and Waid and Eisma play the juxtaposition between her appearance and her actions like a fine violin.
Cheryl may be beautiful and conniving, but she’s not terribly smart picking a fight with Veronica. She might have won this round, but if I were a betting man, I’d put all my money on Ronnie and the Riverdale gang.
In Summary:
Cheryl Blossom returns to Archie in a big way here in issue 13. Once again this creative team has fashioned a masterclass in comic book creation. This was funny, heartfelt, and incredibly well drawn and paced. This is just plain old good storytelling here, folks. Dr. Josh gives this an…
Grade: A+
Age Rating: N/A
Released By: Archie Comics
Release Date: 19 October 2016
MSRP: $3.99
