Francesco FrancavillaRezensionen

290000

I am veryyyy close to giving this volume and the first volume 5 stars because they're incredibly well done and I love the characters! (The main one, anyways) Clint and Kate make such a fantastic duo and reading their adventures is a blast. I thought moments of the narrative were kind of fractured, however; for instance, we never get to get a final answer on what was up with Cherry and that safe, and the clown dude story is also left hanging? But other than that stuff, everything from the dialogue, the artwork, the panels- all SO GOOD. I think the minimalistic style and color schemes are especially notable in these issues and really emphasize the story well. And lastly, that issue with Lucky was refreshingly nice, although slightly heartwrenching at the end.
Can't wait to keep reading!

I've never been an Archie fan until I watched Riverdale, so I wanted to give the Archie Horror line a try. I love paranormal stuff, so this book was fun to jump into.
The plot, in a nutshell: after Jughead's dog (wonderfully named Hot Dog) gets hit by a car, Sabrina brings him back to life. Chaos ensues. People die and become zombies, including our beloved Jughead, and Sabrina mysteriously "disappears."
There are a lot of characters, but if you read closely, you don't need to be familiar with the whole Archie-verse, which is like 70-plus years long. That's a lot of reading! That said, I'm grateful I was already familiar with most of the characters thanks to Riverdale (Ginger and Nancy were the only ones I didn't recognize). Every time Hiram Lodge made an appearance, though, I kept thinking he was Commissioner Gordon from Batman. LOL! They could be twins!
Anyway, I loved the writing and the art. The book has the creep-factor down pat, so if you love horror comics, this should hopefully be a fun read.

1535

I appreciate WHY Angela was brought in to the Marvel Universe (from an Intellectual Property and business perspective) but I really do not care at all about her as a character. Maybe it's because I didn't read Age of Ultron or Infinity but this volume felt like it tried too hard to make something out of the Mystery of Angela that just didn't catch my interest at all.

Pizza Dog is the Best.

It was better than I thought it was going to be.

I'm so on the cuff with my grade there. It's leaps and bound better than Vol. 1, that I rated a deserved 4, but this isn't quite up there with the most stellar things every written, drawn and plotted in the comics universe. I think it might have a hardcore 4.5, or even 4.8.

This one definitely takes you off with a bang, and I'm utterly in love with all the interaction of Kate & Clint and Clint & Natasha & Ex-Wife & Jessica. I love that Fraction has started playing around with timelines and appearances, giving himself a little more slack to be amazing with timelines and approaches.

I loved the comic book covers tribute. I loved the way the second to last issue went back at step and brought us to the villain in the end of the issue, matching the one before it where we saw how Clint got to that moment. I love how much Kate know Clint and won't let him pull his normal crap.

I love, love, love the Pizza Dog issue this ends on. That was genius and interesting, and gave us so much more information about the tenants of the building than we'd ever seen before. I'm hoping in the next trade we'll revisit Kate and Clint's conversation, the way the Villain-Hero double play issue rolled out. I'm definitely on board, and I've totally taken off the whole part where I think about this as a superhero title under that title and expectation.

Lots of great humor in this installment, enough for me to rate 4 stars, even though I was confused about the timeline of events and sometimes, the order I was supposed to follow with the panels. It was still fun enough that I'll read more.

This comic book is very hunting indeed. It will mess with your feelings and make you feel disturbed. Perfect for a horror comic book. I should mention that I don't like zombie comic books or anything to do with the zombie culture. The only other comics I like with zombies are iZombie and Manifest Destiny because they deliver something different. Afterlife with Archie has the same effect.

Probably the best thing about this comic book is you don't have to know anything about Archie and his gang to read it. I never read anything from Archie except for the Mega Man comics before. However, my mom has read the comic books so she knew all about Archie, Betty, Veronica, and Reggie. The only thing I knew about was stuff from Sabrina and stuff from Josie and the Pussycats thanks to the movies and television shows. Sabrina makes a brief apprentice in this volume, but it's clear the creators aren't done telling her story. I'd like to see Jose and the Pussycats make there way into this universe as well.

When you hear Archie you usually think about something your mom and dad read when they were your age. This is not your parents Archie comic book. When the back say for mature readers, they mean mature readers. Now there aren't any swears and sex is only hinted, but they don't shy away from the blood. Who'd every think an Archie comic book have blood? Besides the blood this is also very morbid. Not going to give anything away, but issue four is really heartbreaking on so many levels.

Besides Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's fabulous writing (which reminds me of the first volume of Marvel Knights 4), Francesco Francavilla's art really is fitting for this comic book. I kind of like the cartoon style the regular Archie comics deliver, but this comic book needs a more realistic style. He can draw nearly scary zombies, but not too scary because you need to understand what happened to them they couldn't control. If this man drew most of the horror comic today, I'd read more horror comic books.

Maybe I would have enjoyed this more if I were better acquainted with the original Archie comics.

First and foremost I do not understand why Veronica and Betty fight over Archie. Is he heir to some throne? Does he have lots of money? Archie doesn't even look that appealing. I've never read any of the original Archie comics. I remember being a kid, flipping through some of the comics that my great grandparents had at their house. I just remembered being confused on the love triangle. I was kind of worried that the story was going to focus on that but it did not. Spoilers ahead.

Jughead needed to man up when his dog, Hotdog got hit by a car and died. Instead, he ran to Sabrina Spellman, and she did some illegal spell causing some real Pet Cemetery mayhem. I won't give too much away on the plot but this is a zombie story that actually has a good origin and makes sense.

The comic wasn't as creepy as the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina but it wasn't a childish Archie comic either. It was a perfect mix of horror, teen angst, and a sprinkle of comedy. I enjoyed seeing Sabrina's character again. I am not sure if her aunt's are evil in this but in one panel of the comic they look ghoulish. I also like how she is to blame for all of this. She was told not to cast the spell bringing Hotdog back to life but she did so anyway. She was banished for a year to another realm, I wonder what is going to happen when she comes back.

I loved that this paid homage to Night of the Living Dead (1968), Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th. The fact that it was mentioned in the comic made it feel much more realistic. Also enjoying the fact that this is taking place during modern times.

Overall this was a great read, I am waiting for the series to be complete before I continue reading.

cool art, fun ideas. sad it never got the ending it needed but it wasnt like it was a magnum opus or anything½

Not as good as the Sabrina comics, but not terrible. I'd read the next in the series.

This is the best superhero comic series that I've read, which is a very small amount but I really love this team. I just read the entire Infinity crossover just because the GOtG appeared in it and I have to say that I like this team much more then the Avengers or New Avengers. I'm glad I read Infinity though because it pointed towards Ms. Marvel and Nova two series I'd like to try.

This and the first volume actually got me to read a superhero comic. Which is something I've not done in many, many years. I should probably give them 5 stars just for that. Fantastic series.

This book turns the Archie universe on its head with its dark and mature take on the lovable characters. What I liked most was how the characters were made realistic--as in people you could actually have as friends. The characters have far more nuance and personality than their 'Archie' counterparts, and all this is done in the span of just a few pages every issue. It's easy to understand why the characters do the things they do.

The horror itself is very well done. The blood and gore flow freely; they don't feel gratuitous at all. However, the greater horror is psychological: the characters go through a lot, which shows a lot in the decisions they take and the actions they carry out. I especially liked the way Archie matured through the book.

I must say, I'm truly impressed by this. Can't wait to read even more!

So, I'm just going to paste the following review to Volumes 5 through 8.

If there's anything good about this enforced COVID social abandonment experiment we're all in the middle of as I type this (almost into week five), it's the ability to binge read a series of graphic novels like one would normally binge a Netflix series.

And this feels like a Netflix series. This is the darkest parts of Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul, but set on a dying Native American reservation, where everyone is stretched to their limit, doing the most horrible things to just get through the day. There's a corrosive bleakness and despair that runs through every page, and even when Aaron and company let a little light in, it's only so he can slam the door shut and cast the reader into an even more depressing darkness.

These are probably the most real characters I've ever read in a graphic novel series. I'm invested in every one of them, and I'm desperate for someone to find some hope to cling to before this all wraps up, but I really doubt that's going to happen.

This is one of the best pieces of fiction—in any medium—I've ever experienced.

Hawkeye

Once upon a time, Archie comics defined family friendly comic programming. With this, Archie proved they can write horror comics better than most too. Particularly, the scenes where Archie leaves the mansion to find his parents.

Aw man, why did that wretched red-head who got Clint into so much trouble have to come back? She's clearly not as helpless as she passes herself off to be, since she held her own against Clint's super-spy friend (not sure if this is supposed to be Black Window, but it could very well be considering that the style of illustration for this series is radically different than any of the other Marvel comics) and seems to have terrible timing for coming back into Clint's life. As per usual, Hawkeye is busy defending his neighbourhood pals from the Russian mob, and it looks like the beat down he gave them isn't really sticking so this is clearly going to be one of the major story arcs for the series.

Besides the high octane plot, what I enjoy most about this series is its drastically different design aesthetic. Unlike a lot of the Marvel lineup, where the art tends to be pretty typical of comics (big-breasted damsels/heroines, chisel-jawed heroes, far too much spandex, and an overwrought colour palette), Hawkeye goes in totally the opposite direction with its simple lines, drastically reduced colour range, and minimalist colour design - which I thought I was just imagining, but they actually admitted that they did this on purpose in the added content for this book. It pairs well with the fact that Hawkeye is not your typical hero (he's just a talented human) and this story is not about his heroic acts (though he does act like a hero on occassion). Marvel still isn't coming close to the grittiness and literary themes of the Vertigo/Image/independent lineups, but at least they're breaking away from the superhero genre a bit with this series.

Another hard GN to rate.
I loved the first half of this where, to be fair, not a lot of actual plot happened. But the artwork was excellent, the banter was sharp, and Tony Stark was actually a likeable character (great seeing him out of his depth with pretty much everything, and being razzed by a talking raccoon).

The issue 10 happened and the artwork went to shit; sketchy, limited colour palate, and just horrible. I can't get any enjoyment out of that style of artwork. And the story plunged us into the middle of Infinity and then straight out the other side without really knowing what was going on.

The final issue in the collection improved slightly in art style, but I didn't like the story. Way too much focus on Gamora and Angela; both characters with absolutely no sense of humour.

The four stars are for the first half of the GN. If it had all been like the last 3 issues I'd have been 2 starring this.

IGN Best Comics of the Decade (2010-2019)

Absurdly, insanely good -- Fraction and Aja hit a lot of the same beats from the first volume (the surreality of Clint working with the Avengers, Kate and Clint's strange partnership, the quirky inhabitants of Clint's building) but boy, they HIT. I can't wait to see what these guys cook up next.

While the titular arc is pretty weak, the Gordons-centric backup "Skeleton Cases" is a rare example of a "Batman story without Batman" that actually works.