I love Archie’s Weird Mysteries! Seriously, the comic and the show and I’m still waiting for the day where Archie Comics will sell an omnibus with all 24 issues but I digress. With its distinct art and ink style by Fernando Ruiz, John D’Agostino, and Rich Koslowski, and B-movie premise, its perfect for those who like some light horror-comedy than the more darkly ironic Archie Horror line.

The Return of Scarlet: Aka the first Archie’s weird mystery I ever read. Even though it was a sequel story to the show that I hadn’t seen yet, I was immediately sucked in by the small recap and the high stakes fight of a enemy turned friend turned mysteriously enemy again. It has the usual Archie humor alongside the vampire attacks and the pathos that comes with Scarlet’s return and has Beaumont who is a major reoccurring character. So yeah, basically an ideal intro to the weird mysteries, 

Lord of Earrings: Everyone’s heard of being careful what you wish for? In this case, a pair of earrings act as an evil genie wish. In Betty’s case, her desire to be as admired and as rich as Veronica turns her into an even worse version when she makes it big. Not only does Betty have Veronica’s ego, but it’s coupled with self righteousness as Betty knows shes a good person (well. . was a good person). While it is more preach than the usual weird mysteries fare, I liked the Archie twist to the story. 

Fear of Frost: Upset by everyone’s antipathy to his work, Jack Frost decides to make Riverdale his ice kingdom. Sure, it won’t make people like him but he’ll have fun with it. While regular Archie fans may have enjoyed the return of the Mighty Crusaders, this is what I call an epic teamup as Beaumont, Archie and co. call upon the personification of all nature spirits to fight Jack Frost. 

And Now a Word from Our Monsters: Satellite beams brings mascots to life? It can only happen in a little town called Riverdale, and nicely ties into Archie’s research paper on the effects of ads on people. The more aggressive they are, the more people buy. Who wouldn’t when a kaiju sized hose threatens to strangle you. It’s a classic, B movie fare with a clever solution from Jughead of all places. But then again, he knows best from all the McDonalds commercials he salivates over.

The Faculstein Monster: When a mad scientist decides to make school more efficient by combining the Riverdale falculty into one Cereberus/Frankenstein monster, the Archie writers create something truly horrifying. I mean, one monster with Grundy’s head berating you with math, Coach Kleats making you do push ups and Weatherbee sending you to detention? The terror is real