The cover for this comic kind of tells the whole story behind the new story arc, except at the same time it really doesn’t.  The girls are bored with Riverdale and seek a way out.  As they walk around town they discover all the things that annoy them, and then conveniently they discover at school that there is to be  contest to determine who will be the school’s sole exchange student for the year.  This divides the comic into two rough halves, the first part where they are walking around the town, and the second part where they are competing.

The second part is a bit of the regular from Archie Comics, but it is the first half which is a lot more fun.  For those that don’t read Archie Comics, they actually do attempt to put out some interesting concepts in their recent issues and this one is no different.  As the girls are walking around town they are essentially breaking the fourth wall, listing the things that they hate about Riverdale, which read as the list of things that keeps readers away.  They all still hang out in 1950s style places, with the same class over and over again.  Their fashions have been outdated forever (since the 1950s?) and they need a change.  For those that are regular with some of the other more popular characters that break the fourth wall (Animal Man, Deadpool, Harley Quinn) they probably wouldn’t expect to find the same dynamic from an Archie Comics story arc.

When the second half of the issue takes over, it is clear that there is really some need for this change, not only for the fictional girls, but also for the real reader that is used to these stories.  This part plays its role as well as the two girls compete against each other, but it isn’t really as fun as the first half where the two break down everything that is Riverdale.  In the end it is a pretty fun issue, not as dark as almost anything that can be found on the shelves, but that is not a bad thing here because it is evident that the writers are pushing some boundaries, both for their characters and for themselves.

Story: Michael Uslan Art: Dan Parent
Story: 8.0 Art: 7.6 Overall: 8.0 Recommendation: Read

Archie Comics provided Graphic Policy with a free copy for review