The new principal of Riverdale High, Mr. Stanger, continues to make unwelcome changes. In this issue, Jughead has to deal with Coach Eng, a tough guy who takes an instant dislike to him. Jughead doesn't want detention, but how's he supposed to avoid if the new rules seem designed to send everybody there?

I liked this issue even more than the first, I think because of the dream sequence. This time, Jughead was visited by January McAndrews, a member of the time police and a descendant of Archie Andrews from the 29th century.In her time period, her town was being destroyed by a descendant of Reggie Mantle. Jughead's first reaction was to assume that they'd have to kill Reggie to save the future (in his dreams he tends to be a bit more casual about the deaths of people he knows than I'd like), but January stopped that thought in its tracks. Killing Reggie would change the timeline, and they weren't allowed to do that, so they had to figure out another way to deal with the situation.I enjoyed all the action (January and her enormous gun!), Jughead's plan, and the idea it gave him for dealing with Coach Eng's obstacle course.

Like I said in my review of the first issue, one of the reasons I started reading this was because of the news that Jughead is explicitly revealed to be asexual in the fourth issue. Just like the first issue, this one has a hint of what's to come. It's an even stronger hint than the one in the first issue (this time around, Jughead avoids a kiss from January and says “Sorry, just not into kissing”), but yeah, the explicit mention coming up in the fourth issue is still a good thing, because even this could be interpreted multiple ways.

I'm interested to see how things go in the next issue, since Jughead is going to be faced with a bigger problem than the possibility of detention.

Extra:

Whoops, almost forgot the extra comic at the end. Just like there first issue, there's a classic Jughead comic at the end. This time around, I popped out of guided view and skimmed it. Still not to my taste.

(Original review, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )