Total Nerd Archie Comics That Prove Archie Is Smarter Than You Think  

To most comic readers, Archie is one of the vanilla characters to ever grace the comic book rack. In fact, when Archie made his first appearance in 1941 that was the whole point: to have a character that squares could relate to, taking their minds off of World War II and the atrocities that followed. But as time moved on and new authors began to work for the Archie Publishing Company, the stories began to change from tales of a wholesome American town to an almost unintelligible pastiche of superhero crossovers, topical issues, rock bands that formed out of nowhere, and even zombies. If you’ve never read the series, and you’re wondering, “What are Archie comics about?” The answer is nothing. And kind of everything.

It was probably never anyone’s intention to make Archie Comics smart, at least not until the late '80s - and even then the Archie writers had to be covert about what they were doing. It wasn’t until around 2010 when they began to fully let their freak flags fly. The began to tackle issues like gay marriage and gender dysphoria, along with stories where Sabrina the Teenage Witch brings Jughead’s dog back to life. And then they would reset the whole thing and start over again, just because they felt like it. Not only is this some of the most interesting storytelling in the history of comic books, but it proves that Archie is a lot of smarter than you think.

Vote up the issues you think prove that Archie Comics are smarter than they let on, and if you have a favorite story about the Riverdale Gang, let us know!