Archie #630
Shout It Out Loud!
Written by: Alex Segura
Penciledby: Dan Parent
Inked by: Rich Koslowski
Colored by Digikore Studios
Lettered by: Jack Morelli
Published by: Archie Comics
Cover Price: $2.99
Note : This review is for the digital version of the comic available from Comixology.
Summary (contains spoilers): The last issue ended with things looking pretty bleak for the kids from Riverdale. Four monsters had pretty much sucked all the fun out of town, and laid a serious beat down on Archie and his friends.
Sabrina the Teenage Witch managed to cast a spell convincing the monsters that Archie and his friends had all been turned into fun-hating zombies, giving them time to get away. KISS seems to consider this a losing battle, and tells the kids to sit it out, while KISS made a final stand.
Archie refuses to take no for an answer, and leads the rest of the kids to the carnival to try and help stop the monsters, pretending to be zombified.
KISS is already there and trying to save the day…WITH ROCK! But the monsters sneak up on KISS, and quickly subdue them. Archie and company rush in and start playing “Riverdale Rock City” to save the day.
Which is a distraction for Dillan, Kevin, and Sabrina to help KISS escape and rally. The monsters are quickly defeated and revealed to just be normal teenagers themselves. They are sent back to their dimension, and before KISS leaves too, they play one last concert with the Archies.
Review: I have to say, it has been a lot of fun reading Archie the last four months for this KISS story. I don’t think I could ever buy Archie regularly; some of the dialouge is just a little painful and the stories and characters are a little simplistic. BUT, for an occasional read, it was a lot of fun. Pretty much every other comic I read is so dark and grim most the time. It’s nice to have some islands of pure comic fun to fall back to.
One really nice touch in this issue is something most people might not have even picked up on. On the last page, all the Archie characters are wearing KISS makeup. While most of them are wearing the four that people traditionally know of (Demon, Star Child, Space Ace, and Catman), Kevin Keller is rocking Eric Carr’s Fox makeup!
You can thank my brother in law for that. He’s a huge KISS fan and definitely converted me! To me, KISS is pretty much the most underappreciated rock band ever! That said, I am a KISS purist and if it ain’t Peter Criss or Ace Frehley, I don’t wanna hear it, but I still thought the Eric Carr makeup was a nice touch. Sadly, no one was rocking Vinnie Vincent’s “Wizard” makeup.
Another thing I noticed through the issue was lots of cool little details in the art to help give characterization. Sabrina playing with her hair:
Like the Eric Carr fox makeup, it’s not a big thing, but shows that even though the art does have a certain simplicity to it, Dan Parent is always looking to add clever little details for the reader who is actually paying attention. I love things like that!
Like I said in my review of Archie #627, Archie meets KISS is pretty much exactly what you expect it to be. It is just a fun and campy comic, and I definitely am glad I checked it out.
Final Score: 7.0 – Stealing from myself here, but Archie Meets KISS is a fun, entertaining comic that gives the reader exactly what they should want and expect.
