Harley & Ivy Meet Betty & Veronica #1 –
DC Comics / Archie Comics
Written by Paul Dini & Marc Andreyko
Art by Laura Braga
Colors by Tony Avina & Arif Prianto
Letters by Deron Bennett
Cover by Amanda Conner
In the last couple of years, we have seen some amazing comic book crossovers. Publishers are playing nice like never before, and it gives us as readers, a lot of things to look forward to. Still…never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever see this combination. When I first heard about Harley & Ivy Meet Betty & Veronica, I was excited, but I wasn’t sure how they would all cross paths. Let’s find out together, shall we?
The story centers around Veronica’s father, Hiram Lodge, who wants to build school/entertainment venue at Sweetwater Swamp near Riverdale. Ivy doesn’t take the news very well, and decides to head to Riverdale with Harley by her side to do something about it. When we see the Archie gang, it really does feel like classic Archie in a way. Betty and Veronica are at odds, Archie finds himself in the middle and Jughead is being Jughead. The gang is forced to help the Lodge family set up for a costume party, which sets up for quite a hilarious moment in the book. It also provides the perfect cover for Ivy and Harley to do what they need to do. I won’t give away the middle part of the story, which is quite entertaining, but the end of the book definitely gave me a good laugh and sets up Issue 2 perfectly.
This book was both everything I expected, and surprising at the same time. It felt fun, it felt goofy, but the reason for bringing these two worlds together actually made perfect sense once I saw it. Dini and Andreyko just made it seem so simple, and everything else flowed from there. One character taht I was really drawn to in this book was Jughead. I don’t know if it was just getting a break from the Jugehead from the Riverdale TV series or what, but it was nice to see the hungry, lovable Jughead back again. It just feels like this entire team has been working on Archie books their entire life, and then, they made Ivy and Harley fit in seamlessly. You could not have picked a better artist for this book either. Braga’s work just took this book to another level her amazing detail work. I have a feeling that this is a limited series that I am going to end up wishing was an ongoing when it’s all over.
RATING: PULL / BUY