Afterlife with Archie #7

Betty:  R.I.P.
Chapter Two—"Dear Diary…"
written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
art by Francesco Francavilla

The rivalry between Betty and Veronica, as iconic as it has come to be and as painfully familiar as it may be for many girls, is a hard sell if we're expected to like these characters all that much.  Their particular brand of girl-on-girl on-and-off-again hate that gravitates around the romantic affections of a boy can be excruciatingly demeaning, both parties devolving into cattiness and passive-aggressive backstabbing to sabotage the other.  That Aguirre-Sacasa doesn't let his characters off easily with such behavior is a remarkably redeeming quality of Afterlife with Archie, even if (perhaps because) it doesn't entirely recuperate its leading ladies.

The voice of "Dear Diary…" is Betty's, her feeble—if noble—attempt at documenting the zombie apocalypse in the genre of teen-girl journaling.  Betty's relentlessly well-meaning and generally self-effacing, though it is refreshing to see her stand up for herself to Veronica later in the issue, but she's as pampered and privileged as the ultra-rich Veronica Lodge, in her own way.  Her troublesome older sister Polly, whose less coddled perspective gives her a more acute social insight, bears the brunt of inequitable sibling expectation.  Polly, like Veronica, may be trouble, but she's a great deal more fiery and gripping than her younger good-girl sister.  When she confronts her twelve-year-old sister about her new birthday present diary, Polly's mostly not all that wrong that she "never [does] anything remotely interesting -- -- so why would anyone want to read about [her] boring life?" (Afterlife with Archie #7: 2).  For her part, Veronica plays the rich bitch with expertise.  She's the mean-girl queen bee in high school; she's the jealous, spiteful rival in the apocalypse.  When Archie and Betty seem to spark up a semi-clandestine romance on the run, Veronica allows herself to lose all perspective.


In the shadow of their bitter threesome, the horror around them continues to threaten.  The fugitive survivors, at Archie's insistence, to take a moment to acknowledge the dead, to say goodbye to the friends and family they've already lost before continuing their pilgrimage to the CDC center in Pittsburgh.  Even that is interrupted by a zombie "horde" led by "Jugdead".  Dilton's the resident expert on "crypto-science," because why wouldn't he be?  Kevin becomes preocuppied with giving the supernatural phenomenon its own lexicon worthy of its pulpy gravity.  Hiram becomes increasingly resentful at Archie's leadership of the group, and he's never much liked him anyway.  They avoid other survivors, because in this new savage world, they don't know that they can trust anyone else.

They may not even be able to trust each other.  The Blossoms have always been a dark, unsettling part of the Archie world, but in Aguirre-Sacasa's hands they've become sinister.  It seems that in recalling a strange Blossom Thanksgiving and the death of her puppy, she finally puts two and two together, recognizing Jason's manipulative need for co-dependence and jealousy.  Then they're interrupted by a wandering zombie.  What ensues happens unseen, but Cheryl re-emerges covered in blood, brandishing her machete, and insisting she be called "Blaze".  Betty suspects she's killed her brother.

[February 2015]