The Riverdale Book Review

Took Archie Comics Super Special to task Friday for rerunning dozens of pages from other current Archie products. While I do not approve of this policy, I should add that one of the books Archie Comics Super Special cribs from—the thick trade-paperback anthology The Best of Archie Comics Book Four—is one of the best Archie collections to have been released in recent years (and there’ve been so many). Not only does it contain the masterpiece “Quiet on the Set,” it has the 1971 Everything’s Archie #16 cover story “Summer Prayer for Peace,” in which Archie and Jughead receive their draft notifications and argue with token Riverdale hippie “Clyde” over whether or not they should burn their draft cards. They opt instead to hold a big outdoor Archies concert instead, at which they sing “Summer Prayer for Peace”—an actual real-world Archies single, found on the album Sunshine.

There’s a lot more to recommend in Archie Comics Book Four, but “Quiet on the Set” and “Summer Prayer for Peace” are worth the ten bucks right there.