Archie: The Married Life (The Married Life, #1)

by Michael Uslan

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

When I was young tween, the only real reading I did was Archie comics. We had them in our house all the time; my parents must have thought they were safe enough because no one ever gets any action. There has been news recently about Archie being shot to death in the graphic novel Death of Archie which is the last book in The Married Life series. This news got me curious so I had to pick up the first trade paperback which covers the first six issues of this series.

I have always been on the side of Betty and never could understand why Archie would choose Veronica over her. Archie: The Married Life is split into two different timelines; almost like a Sliding Doors scenario, or, if you are a fan of Broadway, If/Then. This series follows the life of Archie married to Veronica and then Betty. There are some situations that are different in each timeline but mostly follow the same events. Unfortunately nothing much has changed since they were in high school.

Archie: The Married Life does try to look at the normal day-to-day issue facing adults but it holds back too much. For example, Midge finally breaks up with Moose because she is scared of his violent outbursts. This story arch could have gone into some interesting themes of emotional and physical abuse but it treads lightly around the topic. Moose does try and work on his anger issues but there is just so much more they could have done.

My favourite character was always Jughead and I enjoyed it when he hard a love life, luckily this is inserted into this series but not very well. He is getting married. I won’t tell you to who, but the only romance I saw between them was when they shared a milkshake at Pop’s Treat. This brings me to my next issue; why are they still hanging out at Pop’s Treat? I am sure it would be nice to have a place to hang but they could go to a bar or something different every now and then. They are working adults now, but they all still act like teenagers.

I think my biggest problem is the fact that this series is a sugar coated interpretation of what adult and married life would be like. No one has sex; although there was some alluding to an affair between Veronica and Reggie, but nothing happened. The series is still marketed to young tweens and this disappoints me, I thought Archie: The Married Life would have been a more adult look at the Archie world, I was wrong. I don’t even know if I want to continue, I might just read Afterlife with Archie instead.

This review originally appeared on my blog: http://literary-exploration.com/2014/10/26/archie-the-married-life-vol-1-by-michael-uslan/