Part of the New Archie Comics that seeks to bring that Archie brand of humor and hijinks with some more realism and depth, Tom DeFalco’s look into Riverdale’s resident class clown and town jerk is superb.

Narrated by Reggie’s dog, Vader, we are given a different bias view of the self-proclaimed king. Vader is unabashedly Reggie’s biggest fan after he is adopted by him. He enjoys his jokes and pranks and shares his hatred of Archie.

He is also able to give readers an inside look into Reggie’s lonely home life. His dad’s always at work or schmoozing to investors for ads for his newspapers while his mom is at every charity board except for her own son. However, Reggie refuses to feel sorry for himself nor let others pity him.

That’s Archie’s big mistake when he apologizes for letting Ronnie schedule her big bash just at the same time as Reggie’s, which everyone ditches for the Lodges. Thus commences Reggie’s revenge, using his other nemesis, Moose Mason. He plans to kill two birds with one stone and get his crush, Midge Kump all to himself.

Vader is just a dog so he doesn’t quite get Reggie’s big attraction to Midge but with Sandy Jarrell’s expressive art of longing looks and tender moments, you can see how Reggie appreciates that Midge doesn’t see him as a villain like everyone else does.

It also adds some depth to Moose, showing his home life, secret talents and loyalty of which Reggie manipulates to his full advantage, of course. That’s another thing I appreciate in that while it explains Reggie’s nastiness, it doesn’t excuse it. Readers can see how much of a jerk Reggie can be, but his relationship with Vader does redeem him. As well as his complex frenemy relationship with Betty and concern for Midge.

My one complaint that sometimes Jarrell’s style is too simplistic for my taste, and makes the characters look like stock-still figures but maybe I’m just not used to her style.

So 4 stars for adding some three-dimensionality to the Riverdale’s Prince of Darkness.