Welcome to Archieness & Riverdalers Presents: Archie (Vol. 2), Issue #6! In the previous installment, Reggie gets involved in trying to fuck with Archie’s Veronica-centric world. The plan was to get Archie to see Veronica at her worst, but it backfires when he sees her at her best. You know what they say: if you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best! How’s that for high-maintenance?

Archie and Veronica become tighter than ever, and Betty has resigned to the notion that Archie is gone from her life. Stupid lipstick incident! BEING A TEENAGER IS SO TOUGH!

Archie needs some time alone to process before he can talk to Jughead and Betty again for reasons of possible betrayal. Things are falling apart at the seams! I love it!

Archie (Vol. 2), Issue #6 [April, 2016]
Written by: Mark Waid

Betty’s on the softball team, and she’s up to bat. Two strikes, Cooper. You better hit the ball or else it’ll be detention in the boiler room for you, young lady.

Betty pretends that the ball is Veronica’s screaming face, and she hits it so damn hard that the leather strips off of it. The ball knocks Archie in the back of the head as he leaves school for the day, killing him instantly!

But before that, he catches us up: Betty and Jughead are fucking with his romantic life, so they’re out of the picture until they either apologize or gift him with a ham. Archie can’t hang out at Veronica’s until Mr. Lodge is out of town because he might recognize Archie as the kid who murdered his mansion.

Anyway, Archie died.

But a small group of kids saw the bludgeoning and are going to take him to the hospital anyway. Meanwhile, Veronica is waiting for him outside the school and he’s not going to show up on account of Betty killed him. Time for Reggie to swoop in. “Like a helpless gazelle alone on the plains,” he whispers to himself before he does the pounce.

Reggie rides up in his whip. “Hey, Ronnie! Brand new wheels! Need a lift?”

The driver’s seat is on the right in the cars in Riverdale, apparently.

“Whatever,” Reggie grumbles. “Strap in.”

“You are…?”

“*sigh* Reggie. Reggie Mantle. We’ve met. Repeatedly.”

“Oh. Body spray. Right.”

Reggie takes her home while Betty gets approached by a kid in a baseball uniform. He smiles cheerfully, ready to hit that. He introduces himself as Sayid and asks what her secret is to hit the ball as hard as she did. “It’s all in how you see the ball,” she blushes.

“You were watching girls practice?” she asks as they start walking away together.

“I’ll watch anybody do anything if they’re great at it,” Sayid replies. Looks like we’re really hitting it off!

Let’s see what Archie’s up to?

It’s the death rattle. Time of death, 3:15pm.

Reggie and Veronica are having a conversation about how great Reggie’s dad is and how little Veronica cares while Reggie drives into garbage cans on the sidewalk. “You’re not thinking about Andrews, are you? You’re trading up when you’re with me, doll.”

When they arrive at the Lodge residence, Reggie almost asks her to go to the Carly Rae Jepsen concert with him (lol), but she runs off to greet her dad. Reggie tries to introduce himself, but Mr. Lodge tries to pay him for “bringing Chauncey’s car back”. Needless to say, Reggie leaves with a thought bubble full of stormy clouds!

Reggie returns to his empty house to eat cold cereal for dinner, since both his parents work 19-hour days and they hate their son anyway. He sits at his desktop and starts poking around the ol’ WWW DOT COM for some information on one Hiram Lodge… written by Mr. Mantle!

“WHO IS HIRAM LODGE? GOLD-HEARTED INVESTOR OR COLD-HEARTED OPPORTUNIST?”

Bingo bango, sir! Maybe Reggie’s dad ain’t all that bad after all, except for the beatings and the molestations.

“Tongue my puckered butthole some more, son.”

Later, Reggie visits Lodge Manor and chills with his homie by a luxurious outdoor pool. Mr. Lodge reads the Mantle article and tells Reggie that if she’s after Veronica, then fat chance! She’s got her eye on some sap named Archie. Tough titties.

Reggie defends himself for exactly half a sentence before Lodge’s phone rings. While Lodge takes the call, Reggie imagines a future of wealth and fame, cozying up with the Lodges. Lodge talks business before hanging up.

“Never a day off, huh?” Reggie says.

“Are you still here, kid?”

Reggie tells him that he can be his man on the inside, but Lodge correctly states that he could buy Reggie’s dad with the money under his couch cushions. “You’re in over your head. Go home.”

Eat dirt, Reginald.

Betty takes Sayid to Pop’s. He’s telling her the centipede joke! Pop’s up on all the gossip, so he tells Betty right away that Archie is on death’s door at the hospital. “He got hit in the head. With a softball.”

BRRT!! She runs out of the shoppe immediately, leaving Sayid in her dust.

“Archie? Who’s that, her brother?” Sayid asks conversationally.

“Her ex,” replies Pop.

BRRT!! Ex-boyfriends, huh? That’ll complicate things! That’ll complicate things like damn! Sorry, Sayid. You’re all washed up!

Stop chatting, kiddo. You’re supposed to be dead.

Speaking of washed up, Veronica is talking to a reporter about Archie for her memoir. He’s been on her mind ever since he PLACED HIS THROBBING–

“Something attracted you to him. What?” the reporter asks. Then Veronica remembers this dipshit deer-in-the-headlights face Archie made after he destroyed the Lodge mansion and she starts laughing. She tells the whole story. “Daddy swore he’ll kill whoever was responsible if he ever found him. Kill him. Daddy was so livid, he didn’t even hear me laughing. But any boy who can make Daddy that angry… I think I loved him right away.”

Meanwhile, Archie’s breathing his last labored breaths in his hospital bed when Betty pops open the curtain. She admits that the terminal concussion was her fault, and his parents + Jughead are like BRRT!! Betty starts crying. “I hit a home run.”

Mr. Andrews is so impressed he starts smiling widely. “From the diamond? He was in the parking lot. That’s got to be… what, 450 feet? What kind of pitch?”

“Four-seamer,” Betty sniffs. Mrs. Andrew comforts her. Archie mumbles Veronica’s name.

INTERMISSION!!! *dancing movie theater food*

Reggie is hanging out outside the Lodge residence. Smithers, at the front door, tells the kid to shove off. Reggie demands to know where he went wrong. “Miss Veronica had had hundreds of hopeful suitors over the years, lad. Mr. Lodge sees through the more transparent ones, and I protect our girl from the rest.”

Reggie’s lightbulb brain flickers on. “Dude, have you met Archie Andrews? Do you think he’s good enough for Ronnie?”

And Smithers just narrows his beady little eyes at him.

They both hear a shriek from inside. Veronica just learned that Archie’s corpse is decomposing in the hospital, and she demands a helicopter ride post haste! She starts crying and asks the reporter, Jess, to come with her. Smithers offers a chauffeur. Reggie watches the whole spectacle with a big fat smirk while Smithers rifles through Jess’ notes

Is there stuff in there about Archie’s mushroom-shaped peen?

Smithers pretty much invites Reggie to look through the notes without saying as much, and Reggie discovers that Archie Andrews was the one who knocked over the bones of Lodge Manor! Juicy! Juicy stuff! Oh man, blackmail ahoy!

Veronica, now at the hospital, rubs Archie’s head and the kid pretty much snaps out of his horrible death. The doctor assures him that he’s gonna be ALLLLLLL RIGHT! Give him some fucking space, you many, many friends and family! Beat it.

And no one tell him about the softball, k?

Later in the evening, when Archie is sleeping, someone comes into the room and says “BOO.” Archie is like “whuzzat”, then there’s a mysterious KLIK (someone taking a picture of his cracker-ass), then he dopily drifts back to sleep… and he’s getting discharged tomorrow! Miracles do happen. We’re all so thrilled that Archie isn’t actually dead, right everyone? Right? Hello?

Reggie’s waiting outside the gates of the Lodge estate for Hiram. When Mr. Lodge rolls up he’s a CUNT HAIR away from calling security on his ass, but Reggie rushes up claiming he wants to apologize for his many transgressions. “Mr. Lodge, sir, I was less than honest. I do want something from you.”

A blowjob? lmao

“A place in your orbit. I don’t mean an important one. I just want to be somebody.”

How about a blowjob, kid? That’s his final offer. Barring that, what the ungodly fuck would someone like Reggie McNugget have to offer Hiram Moneysacks?

“I thought you might like to see this picture,” Reggie says, showing Hiram the photo her took of Archie in the hospital. It looks just like the deer-in-the-headlights kid.

I think Hiram might be mad?

RAWR! Muh hemorrhoids!

Final Thoughts

Archie’s going to get caned back to the Stone Age. I hope his supple buttocks are ready for the beating of a lifetime!

I liked this! Good job, Mark Waid. I’m going to keep reading this trash. Thanks for nothing!