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Published by: Archie Comics
Released on: Jul. 22, 2015
Writer: Anthony C. Ferrante
Artist: Dan Parent
Cover Artist: Dan Parent
Purchase at Amazon
The director of the SyFy “Sharknado†movies brings his money-wagon on over to the world of Archie and all the Riverdale regulars, putting himself in the writer's chair for this epic of crossovers. Is this the first comic book/cable-movie world crossover? It just might be. At any rate, it makes for an interesting enough combo to be at least intriguing in a press release. And the intentional campiness of both Archie and Sharknado seems like a match-up that could work.
While visiting Washington D.C. with Mister Lodge, Betty and Veronica decide to do some monument gazing while the old tycoon makes a pitch to Congress, and all while random sharknados are popping up all around the map. While the two girls are up in the Washington Monument one of those very storms plows right through, picking up the monument with them in it. The two need to use their wits and lots of impossible strokes of luck to get out of this one. Especially if they're going to make it back to Riverdale to the mid-summer high school dance (is there even such a thing?)
Meanwhile, Archie, Jughead, Reggie, Moose, Midge, Dilton, Hotdog, and some others that have cropped up since the 80s, all live it up on Cheryl's yacht at a pre-dance pool party. The party takes place on the ocean and attracts sharks, but only the swimming kind, not the sharknado kind. Those pests show up later. So the kids have lots to worry about with their own shark dilemma, plus they gotta hurry up at get to school in the middle of summer for a dance.
The dance goes off without a hitch for about half a Josie and the Pussycats song before the sharknados show up and then all heck breaks lose. People die horribly and sharks get slaughtered.
Ferrante peppers his script with nods to at least two shark movies (Sabrina has a great Deep Blue Sea moment) as well as Army of Darkness, and throws in bits of humor that fit right in with the way Archie stories have been told for decades. And with the art by Archie regular Dan Parent it plays out exactly like one would expect an Archie comic to play out. The one exception is the violence, which although is cartoonish and low on detail, is pretty in-your-face with plenty of mangled bodies and mutilated sharks. So if you're an uncle buying this for his adolescent nephews, don't let their mom see it.
