Archie Comics Review: Used backlog Part 2

This batch is a group of small, 96-page digests.

Sonic Super Digest #8

I’d always been curious about Archie’s Sonic titles (and their other licensed characters, like Mega-Man). They looked well-produced, especially compared to the regular Archie comics. Unfortunately, this probably wasn’t the title to get. This digest series focused on the various side characters in the Sonic universe. There were also a couple of continued stories that pointed readers to an online app to finish. That was a dirty trick.

I really don’t know much about the mythology of the character, though I have watched some Sonic cartoons. These were produced with Sega’s direct oversight, so I assume they approved of them and kept them in line.

These were definitely for kids. They’re adventurous, but thoughtful. The stories are usually trying to impart life lessons.

There wasn’t that much of solo Sonic in this comic, except for the last story. I didn’t quite understand it, but I loved his Mach 5 bed. Getting this small digest used was a cheap way of finding out about title. It’s not for me, but kids and Sonic fans might like them.

Tales from Riverdale Digest #11

This is a smaller 96-page digest from the early 2000’s. It starts with a Fernando Ruiz story where a group of freshmen idolize Archie and want to be like him. So they end up unintentionally screwing up a bunch and end up in the detention with him. Mission accomplished.

Next, Veronica wears a shiny vinyl skirt. (If only she was real.) It’s a two-part story where Ronnie tries to promote herself as a teen superhero and accidentally foils a crime. A caption at the end asks the readers if they want to see more of Powerteen.

There’s a couple of pinups, including this cool one of Cheryl Blossom.

There’s a story with the young animated Sabrina. Then there’s a section of reprints from Archie’s Madhouse. They’re kind of goofy, but harmless.

This kid with elastic powers looks like he’s dating a blonde Josie from the 60’s.

There is a section with Josie and the Pussycats. Melody is wearing a dress made of money. A very glam-looking Alexandra is, of course, jealous of the attention she’s getting. Alexandra ends up wearing a similar dress made up of 100’s and she ends up upstaging Mel. (Okay, this story is non-canonical. Nobody could ever upstage Melody.) The digest finishes with a Cheryl story. There’s quite a bit a variety in this little volume.

World of Archie Digest Free Comic Book Day #1

This is the 2013 FCBD edition. I never got one of these for a Free Comic Book Day. These are a pretty good giveaway, especially compared to most of the other offerings.

In the opening story by Fernando Ruiz, Archie wins a date with his pop music crush, Ashlee Simpleton. However, dating a celebrity is too fake for Archie and he ends up dumping her. (It’s not like Archie is having any trouble getting a date with a beautiful girl whenever he wants.) Okay, what’s Fernando got against Ashley Simpson, whom this is obviously inspired by. She comes off like a jerk in this. She’s a nice girl (relatively to the rest of the entertainment industry).

There’s a pretty good variety of characters featured, including Betty and Veronica, Chuck, Josie and the Pussycats, and Sabrina. Here she is looking really dangerous. Sabrina’s concerned that Harvey is lying about going out with another girl. Some magic gets him to confess. In fact, he’s scared enough to confess about dating several other girls. This honesty does not please Sabrina, at all. (And hey, Harvey, you’re already going out with a doll, albeit with an irritating aunt and some strange supernatural experiences, but wise up.)

The book finishes with several Jughead tales with a couple by Rex Lindsey and a couple by Samm Schwartz. Here’s Jug not enjoying himself with Miss Riverdale, who’s likely been re-colored from the original. This would have been a great item to pick up for FCBD.

Archie Digest Free Comic Book Day #1

Here’s the 2014 FCBD giveaway. The digest begins with several Archie stories. I like the last one, where he has to take the bus to school and he’s like a celebrity amongst the underclassmen there.

It’s not a Josie and the Pussycats section; it’s a She’s Josie section, the predecessor to the Pussycats from the 60’s. Alexandra and Alex are drawn in their original incarnations here. There’s a Scooby-Doo-ish mystery story, as the kids disrupt a gang of art thieves. They’d revisit this concept in the Pussycats cartoon later.

Fernando Ruiz does a long story with Archie and Reggie competing as ventriloquists with dummies. In the competition, Hot Dog ferrets out a thief with a midget in his lap. The book again finishes with some Jughead. This isn’t quite as great as the previous one, but still a great giveaway.

Archie Comics Review: Used backlog Part 1

This has been far too long in coming. I bought these over probably over a year ago. They’ve been sitting in a pile in my living room all this time, mocking me. These digests are all from Coas Books. Their supply of Archie digests ebb and flow and I picked these up when they had a bunch over a couple of trips. I’ve mentioned before that Archie Comics has stopped making traditional digests. (Now they’re sort of miniature magazines.) I haven’t decided what I’ll do with this batch, since they’re likely not going to be around in used bookstores much longer.

Betty and Veronica Jumbo Comics #242

This is not a “double digest.” This is truly a jumbo-sized digest with maybe 30 more pages. I might not have picked this up but for the size just to get a look at. This one will keep you busy for a while.

It starts off with Archie trying to date Ginger, but her cat keeps getting between them, including getting Archie stuck in a window. Finally, the cat ends up falling for Archie and approves of him. There are then several Betty and Veronica stories, including Veronica doing some matchmaking for her butler, Smithers.

There’s a Sabrina section featuring stories by Holly G. In the first one, she meets Jay and Silent Bob as ghosts in a haunted house. They quickly make nuisances of themselves, just like in the movies. This was an odd crossover for a kid’s book with an R-rated movie, but there was an actual official crossover with Archie a couple of years ago.

Sabrina also twins herself in another story to go out with Harvey and her magic school schoolmate, Shinji, at the same time. This was more a romance story than Sabrina usually is and it has continuity. Holly G. also draws Sabrina’s aunts more pleasant and normal-looking than they ever are elsewhere.

Lots more Betty and Veronica, including a shower scene. Various Archie artists love putting the girls in the shower. There’s a long Veronica story with her researching the Revolutionary War with the aid of a ghost.

There’s section of 50’s Archie. They seem slightly embarrassed by this material for some reason and even put a disclaimer on it. The girls are all-out fighting over Archie in this era. Betty is “Crazy Betty” here, but also sort of Hard Luck Betty, who has trouble getting a date.

The girls are pretty fashionable. In this story, Betty gets knocked on the head and insists she’s actually Veronica. It turns out to be a scam on her part, but Mr. Lodge sets her straight. This material, I guess, could be shocking to someone only familiar with Nice Girl Betty.

There are further stories with Veronica getting help from her cousin Marcy and the computer Geek Patrol, she becomes a glamorous teen detective to solve a mystery at school, and joins the circus as a clown.

Isn’t this a sweet pinup by Dan Parent? This was a pretty good volume. Certainly, it was big enough that some of it had to be good.

Betty and Veronica Halloween Annual #237

This Halloween digest begins with a rather un-Halloween story of Archie on a talk show being confronted by all of girls he’s going out with. That could be horror story, but all of these girls still want him.

This is by no means a complete list. It even includes an out-of-season Noelle, Santa’s daughter. It’s actually not much of a confrontation, as everyone agrees to adore Archie. I’m so jealous, but not angry enough to stop reading his comic books.

This more in spirit with a Halloween party with the gang. Betty manages to scare everyone with an elaborate prank. Who would have suspected her?

There’s a good-sized Sabrina section. There’s a couple of Gravestone Heights era stories, though I wonder if there’s only a couple of stories from this era, since that’s all I’ve ever seen.

Sabrina then introduces a warlock to the concept of love. I’ve seen these Sabrina stories before, though.

It’s an ad from the Good Old Days of 2015, when Archie was publishing a bunch of digests and putting new stories in them.

Ronnie in a tie. So 80’s. So fashionable. Sigh. So cute.

Okay, it’s not Melody from Josie and the Pussycats. She’s Betty’s Fairy Godmother, sort of. She ends up stealing Archie from her and Veronica. We’ll add her to Archie’s girlfriend list. (This does seem to be about as close as Archie has ever gotten to dating Melody. How are these two immune to each other’s attractiveness?)

This is cute with Betty imagining herself as a flapper with the rest of the gang in the Roaring 20’s. The short hair style doesn’t look good on Veronica here, not like it does in the 60’s. There’s also a story with Betty Cooper, Girl Detective. She gets her man, the criminal, but loses her man, Archie, to Veronica.

Great Rex Lindsey drawn story with Mr. Lodge explaining that he’s spoiled his daughter, but she’s not a bad kid thanks to her relatively normal friends. There’s a Little Betty and Veronica Halloween story and a couple more Halloween stories in the back. It’s a fun digest, but I’ve read a bunch of the material inside in other digests. Archie’s been around for over 80 years, but they’re not drawing on enough older material and keep just recycling the newer stuff.

Betty and Veronica Holiday Annual #248

A couple of stories about decorating start this Christmas digest, including Betty’s grandma reminiscing about falling in love with her husband. Betty then does some shopping for Veronica, who’s out sick. Betty makes the mistake of haggling on the prices of the high-end gifts on Veronica’s list. “Veronica Lodge does not pay ‘reasonable’ prices!” Veronica insists on being billed for the full amount.

Great Dan Decarlo drawing of Veronica unhappy at a party. The Sugar Plum Fairy tries to help her and Betty get time with Archie, but they just ending up fighting each other before finally making up and agreeing to share him. What is it about this redheaded kid?

A holiday section with Sabrina follows, but its 70’s Sabrina. Nothing to get too excited about. Various random Betty and Veronica stories follow. There’s one with Veronica dressed in disguise with a wig. In another, Betty thinks Veronica has had a nose job. Then, Veronica goes snooping in Betty’s room to find her diary.

You just have to love this panel with the chickens. There’s a Little Betty and Veronica Christmas story, along with a Little Sabrina story with a snowman brought to life. More Christmas stories with the girls follow, including a two-part story where Veronica isn’t sure what to get her parents before she goes to Jamaica for the holidays. She decides on canceling her trip to spend it with them.

Unfortunately, I’d read most of these stories before, so I didn’t get much out of this. Still, it’s an Archie Christmas digest and it’s great for the season.

Comics Review: Wonder Girl—Homecoming

 

You’re mine, Yara. Finally, all mine. Sigh. Much like the Legion of Super-Heroes trade, this one is also tinged with regret for the title as a whole. Unlike the Legion, where we regret what was lost, with Wonder Girl, we wonder what might have been.

I fell in love with the character of the Yara Flor/Wonder Girl at first sight. It was Issue #3 of the series (9-16-21) where we first met. I actively searched out for more with Issue #2 of Wonder Woman: Future State (11-11-21) and Issue #4 (11-12-21).  These are collected in this volume. Later, I got an issue of Trial of the Amazons (5-24-22), which is not included here. I could have gotten more issues that were in this volume, but I’d actually passed on a couple of issues when I noticed they weren’t drawn by Yara’s creator, Joelle Jones.

I embarrassingly don’t remember why I thought to look for a Wonder Girl trade. It had never occurred to me before that there would be one. The character seems to have been sort of discarded at the moment. As soon as I saw this was available, I definitively made up my mind what to do with an Amazon gift card without further consideration.

I won’t pretend I know the exact origin of this character. From some Wiki-research, Yara was been created for a CW TV show, but the show fell through. (I seem to vaguely remember a different Amazon DC superhero show did nearly make it on TV, but the pilot failed horribly. I can’t find it.) While the TV project was viable, Yara was rushed out and highly promoted. When it was gone, she faded into relative obscurity just as fast.

Why not do a new Wonder Woman TV show? She’s a movie star now. (Also, they tried that and it didn’t get past the pilot.) What about the other two Wonder Girls? Okay, Donna Troy’s backstory and history is likely not useful as is. (And there’d be the amusing comparisons with the Debra Winger/Wonder Girl from the 70’s Wonder Woman show.) Cassie Sandmark, I think, might be a great choice with her background, but not if you were making the show as part of the Agenda. You’d want to replace the blonde, blue-eyed White girl with someone ethnic and non-American.

Funny thing, nobody apparently told Joelle not to make Yara beautiful and charming, which she did. Yara is based on a real Brazilian Indian model. From looking at the pictures, I can only tell you that Yara is the most idealized-looking version of this woman imaginable. (Model? Really?) I think the impetus to create this character was to piss off comic book fans. They weren’t supposed to like her, but it was awfully hard not to. This might have been the downfall of the character with the company. When they found out that fans liked the character, she had to be scuttled in favor of Nubia, an angry black Amazon, or that precious trans-Amazon character.

This volume isn’t the entire corpus of Yara Flor in comic book literature, but it’s likely most of it where she was the starring character. I was very intrigued by what I originally bought, if kind of confused by the story. I thought getting the rest of the Wonder Girl series and the other issue of Future State would explain things. No, it was made worse. As well as the character was designed and as fully formed as her personality was, the story is there, but just not well developed. Yara’s story has the appearance of being rushed out. Either that, or Joelle isn’t much of a writer.

From Issue #1, Yara is very much a normal girl, but with an exotic background. Yara’s Amazon mother was executed in front of her by unidentified supernatural entities. Sent away to the US, Yara was determined to return, but only as a tourist. Her foster relatives are introduced and dismissed without any further mention. Yara’s American upbringing does give her a pretty good sense of humor and an independent attitude.

Meanwhile, the other Amazon tribes and the gods on Mount Olympus sense Yara’s return and are disturbed by it. Indeed, many other superheroes sense something important is about to happen. Yara is blissfully unaware of all of it. She befriends her tour bus driver, who is obviously smitten with her (like the readers). I’m sure Joao is modeled after somebody, but I don’t know who. Recap stops for a moment. This whole thing bit with the eyes of the world (and beyond) on Yara doesn’t pay off and is not explained. Lower your expectations.

At a tour destination, Yara is pulled underwater and encounters a river goddess, who gifts her a magical bolo. Aren’t there pictures beautiful? I don’t think I’ve ever seen an underwater scene so well drawn. Also in Issue #2, Artemis and Cassie Sandsmark are sent to find Yara by their respective Amazon tribes. Yara is attacked while on an airliner by a couple of Amazon assassins, which brings the plane down into a crash landing.

Issue #3 I reviewed before without understanding what was going on. I’m still kind of clueless. A Brazilian crocodile goddess, who’s not explained until the annual issue later, tries to seduce Yara into her service, but Greek god Eros, is the one who ends up claiming her by stabbing her with one of his love arrows. Meanwhile, Cassie and Artemis meet and reluctantly work together. It’s a fairly amusing contrast in personalities. In Issue #4, Yara is trained as a warrior on Olympus and meets her Pegasus. Hera then offers her immortality.

Issue #5 was not drawn by Joelle, though Adriana Melo does a very good job. I probably shouldn’t have just turned up my nose at buying this. Melo does draw Yara pretty thick, though. Storywise, Yara refuses Hera’s offer and has to fight her way out of Olympus. I’d like to explain all of the complicated motivations here, but there aren’t any. Yara just doesn’t want to work for Hera, who likely should have worked out that deal before having her trained.

Cassie meets Potira of Brazilian Amazon tribe and is taken to the tribe’s home for a visit and they find Donna Troy already there. The Brazilians plan on getting Yara back and marching on Themyscira, as they feel that tribe has abandoned their duties.

Cassie is kind of ditzy in this series. Not dumb, but a bit silly. This was not experience with her in the Teen Titans. She was anything but that. (Annoyingly, I never reviewed the trades or issues I had of that version of the team led by the Tim Drake/Robin with Connor Kent/Superboy, but trust me, bro.) On the other hand, she was kind of spacey in an origin recap issue (5-9-24), so I’m not sure which is the real thing.

This panel made me laugh. There’s a couple of women at work that are obsessed with capybaras, a giant, gentle rodent. They have a bunch of stuffed ones (stuffed animals, not actual rodents) at their desks.

In Issue #6, Yara ends up in Greek Heck. Her and Eros have a heart-to-heart. He’s hurt that she refused to stay with him, but she didn’t want to be used by Hera. She escapes and makes it to the Gates of Olympus. On the other side, the Brazilians are ready to storm the gates. Yara’s mother’s killers arrive to confront her. Leila Del Duca does a good job on the art here and the next issue. (It’s still not Joelle.)

In the last issue, The Amazons storm the gate and a large fight ensues. Yara unmasks one of the killers and it’s Eros. In their talk, Eros declares his love. He says he was ordered kill her mom and seems to imply that he’s also her dad. I think they walk, if not run, away from this revelation in a future issue. It’s problematical to say the least. Zeus intervenes and attacks, but Cassie talks him into letting Yara go. Eros, for his part, releases Yara from his love spell.

Umm. . . the end? Okay, all that for this. I don’t know if this was the planned end of the series or if they cut it off here, which is what it looks like.

Next is an annual. The crocodile goddess comes back and steals Yara’s boyfriend, Joao. The Brazilian Amazon’s home is also under attack at the same time. Yara defeats her. The end. The art is still not by Joelle and only okay.

Future State actually came out before the Wonder Girl series, which is very confusing. Yara Flor is shown as the future Wonder Woman, before her origin story. Like I said, this felt rushed. DC wanted this character to be seen as legit as soon as possible. These two issues are drawn by Joelle.

Yara is trying to get into Hades to rescue her lost friend, Potira. She gains an impish guide in Caipora. The imp takes her the entrance, which looks like an airport terminal.

Yara ends up having to fight it out with a Sumo wrestler to get the fee to give to Charon to carry her over. The first issue is basically filler. The second issue is the bulk of the story that I’d read and been impressed with before. Yara makes a deal with Hades and is able to find Potira, but isn’t able to bring her out. It’s a very brave attempt, though, and heartbreaking for her.

The other issue I have, which isn’t in this trade, is the issue of Trial of the Amazons starring Yara. It’s written and drawn by Joelle and sets up a good murder mystery, but it’s mostly with Cassie doing the work. Yara is just sort of in it. I’m kind of sorry I don’t have any other issues of this, though. It looks interesting. As far as I know, Yara is just a guest star character in other comics after this. She’s basically been discarded.

Sigh. Given how much I like Dani Moonstar, it’s obvious I have a thing for pretty girls with long, dark hair, who ride a Pegasus. Suddenly, I wonder if Joelle likes Moonstar, too. Dani is Cheyenne and Yara is Amazonian, but they are both American Indian. Dani’s Pegasus is named Brightwind, while Yara’s is named after me.

Do I recommend this? Yeah. Even with the questionable story, even though Joelle doesn’t do most of the art, even though the character has no future, it’s still stunning, if not hypnotic, for the artwork. Wonder Woman does not need replacing. There were already two Wonder Girls. But, this was an original and interesting premise with a charismatic new character. What might have been . . .