Big Archie Comics announcement last week: The company’s flagship comic, Archie, will be relaunched, and its issue numbering reset from #666 (or thereabouts) to #1. The impetus is the participation of two major comics talents, writer Mark Waid and artist Fiona Staples.

The recent history of Archie is of attention-getting stunts that assure big sales of the first few issues but which have debatable longterm impact. The more realistically drawn “New Look” phase lasted a couple of years and was confined to the digest and trade reprint formats, not imposing on the major Archie titles. The various grown-up Archie series—“Archie Marries Betty, Archie Marries Veronica, Archie Marries Valerie, the Life With Archie magazine, et al.—ended a few months ago with the Death of Archie finale. The zombie comic Afterlife with Archie is currently still hot, on its seventh issue and boasting a new spin-off, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. The author of those comics, playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, was recently given the title of Archie Comics’ Chief Creative Officer.

So, this could just play out as another easy-hype quick-fix.

But it should be said also that rebuilding Archie’s flagship title right now is not such a bad idea.

This is far from the first time that Archie has been reinvented. The original 1940s stories drawn by Bob Montana seem harsh and grotesque compared with the willfully softened renderings of Riverdale by Joe Edwards and others starting in the 1950. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, Archie employed two superlative comic artists, Harry Lucey and Dan DeCarlo. DeCarlo’s influence was particularly widespread, and many later Archie artists willfully aped his style. The other supreme Archie artist was Stan Goldberg, a giant in the teen-comic genre who did Archie knock-offs for both DC (Binky & His Buddies) and Marvel (Millie the Model) in the 1960s before spending 40 years doing the real thing. The main Archie comic belonged to DeCarlo and Goldberg for most of the last 40 years. They are the titans.

But DeCarlo, godlike as he was, died in 2001, not long after a tragic falling-out with his longtime employers over rights to the Josie & the Pussycats characters. Goldberg, who was Archie’s ace delineator for the last decade, trusted with major projects like “Marries…,” passed away at the end of August. Some DeCarlo and Goldberg disciples still exist in the Archie stable, but only Jeff Schulz comes close to nailing that style which has defined the Archie characters since the early ‘60s.

There have been some inroads made in finding a new Archie art style. I’m partial to the work of the artist known as Gisele, who drew the instant-classic “Reversedale” tale in which Archie and the gang switched genders.

Fiona Staples, who’s been entrusted with Archie’s latest new look, may be able to make hers stick. She did an awesome Josie & the Pussycats poster—it hangs in our home—and did some excellent alternate covers, ones so good I bought the same issue twice. She draws teens as rough-and-tumble rock-and-rollers. There’s an energy to her work that rumples up the old clean-cut Archie to good effect. As for Mark Waid, he has a loyal following for his Marvel Comics work, and did a bang-up job reinventing The Fox for the revival of Archie Comic’s old Red Circle imprint.

It seems, unfortunately that the Archie makeover team is only contracted for a few issues. Hard to know if this will really get the ball rolling. The Life With Archie magazine, which came hot on the heels of Michael Uslan’s ingenious Archie Marries… saga, foundered quickly due to convoluted plots and lack of direction. Hopefully there’s a long game plan for the new Archie. The Archie #1 announcement suggested that whatever transpires will be lasting, that the renewed Archie comic will differ from the classic Archie that will persist in the digests and reprint books.

Changing times, bold measures. Archie used to exist in order to explain what a teenager was. Now teens rule the planet. A new Archie is indeed in order. The thesis here is sound. But can they deliver?

…and, if you don’t mind me asking, wherefore Jughead? His eponymous comic was put on hiatus ages ago due to its own rumored makeover. Hate to be greedy, but…