Tai Freligh reviews Archie Meets Ramones #1…
When the Archies tank at the Riverdale High Battle of the Bands, a magical twist of fate sends them hurtling into the past—and face-to-face with none other than the Ramones! Can the legendary punks get the Archies to realize their own rock ‘n’ roll potential and find their way home? Probably not—but it’ll be a blitzkrieg bop of a journey, as the two bands bounce from 53rd and 3rd to Rockaway Beach in this must-read crossover from the writers of the best-selling ARCHIE MEETS KISS and WE CAN NEVER GO HOME with jaw-droppingly beautiful art from Gisele Lagace (“Occupy Riverdale”)!
The artwork on this issue is crisp and colorful and seems to be an update on the classic Archie comics. While not overt, it seemed to me that Archie and the gang are a lot more grown up now than when I was originally reading this comic book. They do poorly at a talent show and end up time travelling to the 70s and meeting up with the Ramones, where they have a series of misadventures while trying to get back to the future.
While this comic was somewhat entertaining, I felt that the plot was too random and didn’t really make sense to me. Now I’ll admit I haven’t read a ton of Archie comics and I certainly haven’t cracked the cover on one in probably twenty years, so maybe this is exactly the kind of storytelling that happens in these comic books. If so, then an Archie fan might appreciate this more than I did, but I just couldn’t get past the randomness of the story and the way that it wrapped up in the end.
The 48-page, full color comic debuts on October 5th for $4.99 U.S. and comes from the best-selling creative team of co-writers Alex Segura (Archie Meets KISS) and Matthew Rosenberg (We Can Never Go Home) with art by Gisele Lagace (“Occupy Riverdale”) and colorist Shouri and variant covers from Veronica Fish, Francesco Francavilla, and Dan Parent.
SEE ALSO: Check out a preview of Archie Meets Ramones here
Rating: 7/10
Tai Freligh is a Los Angeles-based writer and can be found on Twitter.
Originally published October 5, 2016. Updated December 16, 2019.
