Cracked.com ran an Archie-friendly piece by Luke McKinney last month, How Archie’s Gay Friend Proved the Internet Can Do Good.

It says things which the Archie comics can’t really say for themselves about inclusion, challenging assumed social norms and responding to over-the-top agitations and accusations of anti-gay activists.

The piece incited its own debate about gay rights in its comments section, so that’s good.

Not so good are the frequent easy swipes at the Archie style and traditions. It’s too easy to make fun of something for maintaining family-friendly values for so many decades, tougher to respect how difficult it is to roll with so many societal changes over that time and still endure as essentially the same American teen character.

But Cracked.com is a contemporary humor site, and that’s what they do: mock things. Nice of them to mock Archie’s tormentors more strongly than Archie itself.

What I’ve come to respect most about the Kevin Keller phenomenon is how the character’s not just been incorporated so easily into the Archie universe as a progressive modern-day character, but how he’s also figured into the ongoing Archie nostalgia kick, where the company has dredged up dozens of characters from its distant past and framed new books in designs evoking classic Archie titles of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Truly, Everything’s Kevin.