‘Mighty Crusaders’ returns from Archie Comics

Ian Flynn and Kelsey Shannon team up on the new series featuring The Shield, The Comet, The Web and many others.

Archie Comics will bring back its flagship superhero team, Mighty Crusaders, this December in a new series by Ian Flynn and Kelsey Shannon.

You may be asking yourself, “Wait – Archie published superhero comics?” Why yes, yes they did (and still do). Characters like The Web, The Shield, the Comet and many others appeared in comics back in the 1960s, eventually forming a team called the Mighty Crusaders. They’re appeared several times since then, under Archie’s “Red Circle” banner in the 1980s, as part of the Impact line from DC Comics in the 1990s and even as a part of the DC Universe circa 2010. Archie launched New Crusaders as a digital series back in 2012, by Flynn and Ben Bates, which was followed by the Dark Circle line a few years later, which features new takes on The Fox, Black Hood and The Shield, among others.

“I’m really excited to return to the Dark Circle heroes and pit them against the greatest challenges they’ve ever faced,” said writer Ian Flynn. “I think fans of the classic and newer Crusaders will enjoy our new, high-paced approach to their world!”

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Betty and Veronica re-imagined as biker chicks in ‘B&V Vixens’

New series by Jamie Rotante and Eva Cabrera launches in November.

Archie Comics continues its wave of “re-imaginations” of its characters with B&V Vixens, a take on Betty and Veronica as leaders of a biker gang in Riverdale. The idea for the series came from Archie editor Jamie Rotante, who will be joined by artist Eva Cabrera.

“I couldn’t be more honored and excited for the opportunity to not only let pop culture’s two most recognizable BFFs take center stage, but to give them the opportunity to kick a whole lot of ass along the way,” Rotante said to The Hollywood Reporter. “Betty and Veronica aren’t just two young ladies who happen to like the same boy — they’re two hard-working, intelligent and strong women who maintain a friendship despite their differences; consistently defying all expectations to overcome the odds stacked against them. That’s something I really wanted to explore with this series — and not just Betty and Veronica, many of the female Archie Comics characters will get a chance to tell their own unique stories in a way that’s fun and action-packed.”

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Comics Lowdown: We’re all doomed! Or not!

A writer predicts the demise of Marvel comics, but the DC honchos are bullish on their medium. Plus: Sitting down with Los Bros Hernandez.

Let’s kick things off with some doom and gloom! At the Disney theme park fan site The Kingdom Insider, Thom Pratt asks “Will Disney Stop Publishing Marvel Comic Books?” Pratt makes some good points: The Marvel universe most people are familiar with comes from the movies, not the comics; the comics themselves are not really accessible to most people, both literally (because of the uneven distribution and quality of comic shops) and figuratively (because the storylines cross over and the continuity is complex); and the profits are low relative to what a large corporation like Disney expects. Of course, this is all unvarnished speculation, with no insider knowledge, but there’s food for thought here—and as Pratt points out, Marvel is already outsourcing its digests to Archie and its young-readers Star Wars comics to IDW.

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