Jughead's TIme Police

Jughead's Time Police by Rich Margopoulos
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Jughead Jones meets January McAndrews, Archie's 29th century descendant, he's quickly pulled into the world of... The Time Police!

I read the modern re-imagining of Jughead's Time Police a couple months ago. I was aware of the series during my Archie fandom of my early teenage years but never picked it up. It's on sale at the Archie store for $6.99, BTW.

Jughead's Time Police collects material from Archie Giant Series 590 and 602, Jughead 14 and 18, Jughead's Time Police 1-6, and Jughead #2.

This way way better than I thought it was going to be. First off, the modern Jughead #2 was good but I just read it. I mostly bought this for the classic Jughead stuff. For a comic written for kids and teens, Nate Butler and Rich Margopoulos did a great job handling time paradoxes and such. They could have said "This is a kid's comic. Piss on logic" but the time travel is very well done. The time loops and time paradoxes were solid and they also did a great job not contradicting themselves or violating their own time travel logic, unlike a lot of more "mature" works.

And the art! While all the classic stuff is done in the DeCarlo style, Rex Lindsey incorporates dramatic Marvel angles and Kirby machines into his issues. Doug Crane wasn't quite as good but Archie brought in a ringer for Jughead's Time Police 3-6: GENE FUCKING COLAN! As you can guess, Gene Colan puts Jug and Jan through some dramatic Marvel panels with crazy angles. Gene Colan doing Archie! It boggles the mind.

The stories involve a lot of paradoxes and such and also Jughead and January's throbbing teenage urges, which brings me to my one gripe with the entire collection: Jughead should not have a love interest, much less multiple love interests, unless said love interest is a cheeseburger.

Jughead's Time Police is a great read and probably the closest we'll ever get to Doctor Who drawn in the classic Dan DeCarlo Archie style. Four out of five time travelling beanies.

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