Archie, Vol 4 by Mark Waid & Pete Woods (illustration)

You can see the reviews for previous volumes:

Archie Vol. 1
Archie, Vol. 2
Archie, Vol. 3

Archie, Vol. 4
by: Mark Waid & Pete Woods (illustration)

The fourth volume of the Archie series features the headline-making comic event ‘Over The Edge,’ where the lives of Archie and his friends are forever changed. – Goodreads

The foreword of this volume starts about this book having a pivotal moment that happens. With that said, it seems to be something to look forward. At this point, its already done a lot right. Every volume has crafted these characters that we love but modernized them and given it the graphic novel treatment. The art has been fantastic and each issue also brings out a different story for each of the characters.

Volume 4 is a pretty solid volume. We go through Veronica coming back from boarding school and having to find back her rhythm with Archie in their relationship while still having resistance from her father. Betty tries to move on and starts to have a bond with Dilton. At the same time, Archie and Reggie’s feud gets worse. Archie and Jughead both are really quirky characters and still inject humor but there is a more than usual switch of tone here as we barrel to the ending which gives us a rather heartbreaking moment. The way the story sets up about how each character finds out about the situation is a really clever move. Its gives this life to Riverdale. There is a real change in pace also because there is essentially more drama going on as well. At the same time, the different issues here have focus on a wider range of characters and not just the four main ones like for Dilton for example. Its a nice way to change the angle every once in a while.

Up to this point and building from the first three volumes, it was time to give the story a real push in a new direction for its characters. Something really life-changing and I appreciated every bit of it. It captures a lot of those spontaneous decisions a teenager (or honestly possibly anyone) can make that end up having unexpected consequences outside of your own realm of control. That sets up the stage for some growing up for everyone in Volume 5 and I am looking forward to see how it moves from this ending.

I have Volume 5 so I’ll be jumping into that right away!
Have you read any of the Archie Comics?