Comics Review: "ARCHIE COMICS: JUDGMENT DAY #2" - Is Hellraisin' a Bad Thing?

ARCHIE COMICS: JUDGMENT DAY #2 (OF 3)

ARCHIE COMIC PUBLICATIONS, INC.

STORY: Aubrey Sitterson

ART: Megan Hutchinson

COLORS: Matt Herms

LETTERS: Jack Morelli

EDITORS: Jamie Lee Rotante; Vincent Lovallo; Stephen Oswald

EiC: Mike Pellerito

COVER: Megan Hutchinson with Matt Herms

VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Francesco Francavilla; Reiko Murakami; Inhyuk Lee

32pp, Color, $4.99 U.S. (August 2024); on sale in comic book shops June 19, 2024

Rating: Teen+

Eternal high school student and teenage boy, Archie Andrews, and his friends made their debut in M.L.J. Magazines' Pep Comics #22 (cover dated: December 1941), and before long, Archie was the publisher's headliner character.  In 1946, the company changed its named to Archie Comic Publications, also known as “Archie Comics.”

Archie Comics also has a dark side, as seen via a number of horror and dark fantasy titles sometimes published under the “Archie Horror” imprint.  Archie's latest horror offering is Archie Comics: Judgment Day.  It is the first in Archie Comics' new line, “Archie Premium Event.”  It is written by Aubrey Sitterson; drawn by Megan Hutchinson; colored by Matt Herms; and lettered by the great Jack Morelli.  The series finds Archie on a mission to rid his hometown of Riverdale of all “wicked-kind.”

Archie Comics: Judgment Day #2 opens in a Riverdale beset by all manner of shape-shifting demons.  Archie is on a quest to cleanse his hometown, and thanks to Madam Satan, he has the power to do so.  She possesses the power to summon, imprison, and enslave demons for her own purposes.  Archie now has the “infernal power” in the form of Alistair, a demon that Madam Satan has bound to him.

Archie has been so successful that there are apparently only two demons left to kill.  However, his old buddy, Jughead Jones, is concerned that in the course of killing all those demons that Archie has lost himself.  He hopes that Betty and Veronica can help him reach Archie, but Alistair has other plans.  Meanwhile, where is Reggie?

THE LOWDOWN:   For a long time, Archie's marketing department has been sending PDF copies of some of their titles for review.  Archie Comics: Judgment Day #2 is one of them.

With this miniseries, writer Aubrey Sitterson has concocted a delicious dark brew that should quench the dark thirsts of his readers' imaginations.  In a review of the first issue, I said that Madam Satan is the straw that stirs this drink.  However, with this issue, Sitterson has made Archie such a radiant alpha-man hero that even Alistair pales next to him.

Megan Hutchinson is killing it with Judgment Day.  Her art is a flow of magical weaving with page after page of tapestries that recall the art of Heironymus Bosch.  Hutchinson's storytelling is dazzling, and her cover art is purely a thing of illustrative beauty.  Under the colors by Matt Herms, her art is eye-popping and gorgeous.  The great Jack Morelli tops it off with his classic comics lettering.

If Archie plans on doing more horror and dark fantasy comic books like Archie Comics: Judgment Day, then, they must do them.  There is entertainment gold in Archie's horror comic books.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of Archie Comics' “Archie Horror” imprint will want Archie Comics: Judgment Day.

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Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"

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