Archie Comics has taken yet another
gamble at mixing Riverdale's favorite teenagers with something that
nobody saw coming. I mean really, can you honestly sit there and tell me that you could have seen this one shot
starring the SYFY phenomenon coming. That's right, straight from your
television screen to your comic book pages we have Archie vs
Sharknado. With the popularity of Afterlife With Archie and Archie vs
Predator it was inevitable that we would get something just as odd
from the publisher. However, I don't think with a hundred guesses I
would have selected Sharknado as something that would crossover into
the Archieverse.
Like most of the smaller publishers,
multiple covers are done to produce more money by making comic book
stores buy more issues which consequently causes the readers to buy
more issues. The cover I got seemed to be the most common one as I did
not see another at the store I frequent. The cover parodies Army of
Darkness if I am correct which is not the only inside joke that this
issue includes. As far as I am aware of this is indeed a one shot.
I don't really think we needed this one
shot let alone an entire series of the gang vs sharks. That's not to
say its a bad thing, its just hard to capture what the Sharknado
phenomenon has going for it in comic book form while mixing with
Archie and his friends. I think if you want to take Sharknado to the
pages of comic books, they should use SYFY's original characters while
mixing with celebrities just like the movies do. Now, I will confess,
I watched the first Sharknado. I found it mildly entertaining but
didn't get the craze. I missed the second one somehow but was able to
catch the third movie. I'll say this about the third movie. I found
it extremely entertaining, for all the cheese and over the topness
that it offered.
That being said I wasn't very excited
about reading this one. Maybe I'm on a bit of Archie overload but I
just wasn't enthused about reading this latest crossover. This comic
came out around the time Sharknado 3 hit the airwaves in order to
capitalize on the (surprising) success of the franchise.
So the story starts off acknowledging
that Sharknados do exist which kind of took me off guard. I figured
it would be a brand new story but it was kind of a continuation even
referencing the events from the movies. We have a very Betty and
Veronica centric storyline that focuses heavily on them. At the
beginning they in Washington at a protest trying to save the sharks
because people suddenly want to kill all the sharks so that
Sharknados will go away. This seems to be tackle a very present
debate in our everyday life but I won't get into that political
issue. Well, as you might as guessed the Sharknados interrupt the
rally and the carnage begins.
If you have been reading the predator
crossover and the afterlife series, you will know that the writers of
these books are not afraid to kill off major characters. I will
admit, at first this was kind of cool and shocking but after a while
if most readers are like me they are becoming desensitized to the
gory demise of these beloved characters. The shock value is taking
its toll on good story tell I am afraid with some of paths the
company is deciding to take. If they really want to be shocking then
have a storyline where Betty and Veronica are not swooning over
Archie for once.
Eventually, the girls head back to
Riverdale to try to warn the gang but alas they are too late.
Sharknados have arrived and are tearing through the streets and the
people of Riverdale. There isn't much of a storyline here except the
characters trying to figure out how to stop the Sharknados which not
to be a spoil sport but by the end of the issue, they achieve. You
have all of your regulars in this issue that do their characteristic
thing. There is even Jughead trying to kill one of the sharks because
it stole his crown. Yes. You read that correctly.
The issue is done in that classic
Archie style but with much more blood and gore than the classic
series offered. In a comic named Archie vs Sharknado, I knew what I
was going to get. It was a fun, mindless read but its hard for me to
recommend for anyone to pick it up. Unless you are this huge
Sharknado fan and must have all things surrounding the franchise. Or
if you like seeing the Riverdale gang dismembered and torn apart by
sharks but if you like that you should just pick up the predator
crossover or the afterlife series. Those comics do a much better job than
this issue does. I was surprised by the amount of easter eggs that
are in this one. I could tell that the writers had fun with this one
but in the end its one that wasn't needed.
-Richard
Richard Ewell is a nerd and self published author. While also being Needless Thing's resident Lego fanatic & reviewer. His first novella Fat Trapped was released in 2013 introducing the horror world to The Blankenship Family. Some random likes of his are the Batman villain Bane, Jeff Smith's cartoon epic Bone, and the 80's BMX movie RAD.
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