I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: KISS-“Rock and Roll All Nite” (on Dancing with the Stars April 9, 2012).

When I decided to write this post, I thought about how weird it was that Kiss did an Archie comic.  And then I remembered that Kiss performed on Dancing with the Stars, which may be the weirdest sell-out thing I’ve ever heard.  [Realistically it is impossible for Kiss to sell-out any further I realize].  The only thing crazier is that they had men and women dressed in Kiss make up doing some crazy dance routine to the spectacle.

The fact that Gene screws up the lyrics in the first verse…to one of the most well-known songs possibly ever is even more unfathomable.

The band sounds good though, and I’m pretty excited to see them live this Fall.

But boy I hope they don’t have these dancers on stage:

[READ: May 9, 2012] Archie Meets Kiss

For my birthday, Sarah bought me this comic (we were in the store for Free Comic Book day and she found it in a box).  This is number 3 in the 4 part series.  She didn’t know that and I didn’t know it until I was about 2/3 of the way through the book.  (I’m surprised it doesn’t say so on the cover).  Knowing that it’s Part 3 makes the opening of the story seem more sensible, since it starts in the middle:

Archie is a zombie, Sabrina the Teenage Witch is helping them out and Kiss come through a portal to the rescue.  Talk about lack of exposition!

When I saw this crossover event was coming, it made me smile.  Kiss has sold out in so many bizarre ways that appearing on Archie hardly seems weird at all.  What does seem weird to me is how underutilized Kiss are as characters.  Kiss has been in comics before, they have had several of their own series, each more disturbing  than the last.  And, if you even go as far back as Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, the guys each have their own “speaking” personality.  Yes, I know that the characters are personalities as well, but I’m just talking about dialogue here.  And that’s where this book fails.  

The Kiss guys could be anyone in this story.  I mean, change them into generic superheroes or even Super Superheroes and you wouldn’t think anything was different.  They don’t make bad Kiss-type jokes, Paul isn’t particularly sexy (I know it’s a kids book, but he doesn’t even have any charisma).  Gene isn’t particularly scary either, I mean Archie as a zombie is scarier than Gene.  And Ace and Peter just seem to get lines because they happen to be there.  And, since I’m picking nits, I don’t really like the way they are drawn either.

The plot, from what I could tell, seems kind of funny.  Riverdale (I’ve never been a big fan of Archie, so it’s all kind of new to me) was apparently overrun by zombies and monsters (Frankenstein’s monster, a mummy, a vampire).  From something Jughead says (and he seems much more cynical and snarky than I thought he was), it seems like it has something to do with Kiss, but I can’t imagine what.  Much of this issue contains the preparations for the fight as well as the fight itself.  And there’s some kind of story about an amulet which, again I have no exposition to explain what’s going on.

When I saw that this was book 3, I wanted to run out and get the other three issues, but after finishing this one, I’m not sure if  want to get the others.  The cliff hanger was interesting and yes, I would like to know a) how they got there and B) how the fix things, but I didn’t like the characters all that much.  If I see them I’ll pick them up, but I’m not compelled to hunt them down.

And for the record, the story is by Alex Segura and the art is by Dan Parent

So I didn’t love the book, but it was still a great present.

Any Archie fans have feelings about this mini-series?