Riverdale Book Review

My daughters and I have been floating candidates for Most Changed Supporting Character in Archie —characters that are so seldom used or so poorly defined that the writers and artists either forget what they ever looked like (or that they previously existed), or feel obliged to reinvent the character. I thought that Hermione Lodge, Veronica’s mother, is the most shifting character. (It amuses me that the current Afterlife With Archie storyline brands Hiram Lodge—Veronica’s dad and Hermione’s hubby—as a serial adulterer. They might as well have made him a man who marries a bunch of different-looking women named Hermione.) The girls proposed Nancy, Archie Comics’ first regular female African-American, who first appeared in 1976 (seven years after Valerie, the first female African-American in the Archie universe, joined The Pussycats). Nancy was the de facto girlfriend of Chuck Clayton, son of the Assistant sports coach at Riverdale High. Nancy’s look, tastes and style continue to change. She’s sporty. She’s studious. She’s hip. She’s nerdy. She rarely carries a story by herself. Still, Nancy’s in a slightly better position that Hermione Lodge, who sometimes drops off the face of the earth, with stories that have you believing Veronica Lodge is a motherless child.