Archie vs. Predator: Plot, Characters & Lore
Archie vs. Predator is a four-issue crossover written by Alex de Campi, penciled by Fernando Ruiz, and inked by Rich Koslowski. Dark Horse Comics and Archie Comics published it from April to July 2015, drawn in the traditional Archie house style. A young Yautja hunter landed beside Archie Andrews and his friends on spring break, then followed them home to Riverdale after Betty Cooper called down a jaguar curse on her rivals. By the end, most of the gang was dead, and Betty and Veronica Lodge were the only ones left.
Plot Summary
Spring Break At Los Perdidos
On the last day before spring break, Cheryl Blossom pulled up outside Riverdale High School to mock the "public school kids" and announce that she and her brother Jason were going yachting in the Caribbean. Jughead Jones answered by holding up a winning ticket: the whole gang was going on a luxury beach vacation, courtesy of Tayto-Chips. They arrived at the Los Perdidos Resort, where Archie Andrews and his friends declared it the most perfect beach they had ever seen, and a staff member warned Jughead not to go into the jungle unless he wanted to be dinner for a jaguar.
Veronica Lodge brought a trunk so heavy that Moose had to haul it, and Dilton Doiley used the trip to run the yearbook polls for cutest couple, most likely to succeed, and best dressed. That night Dilton's telescope caught a shooting star, just as Cheryl's yacht anchored off the beach. The "star" was a Predator ship, which descended into the jungle while each of the teenagers made a wish: Jughead wanted an all-you-can-eat buffet, Betty wanted Archie, Veronica wanted a flawless victory, Reggie wanted third base, and Cheryl wanted death to the proletariat.
The Best-Dressed Contest
The next morning Cheryl and Jason came ashore, mocked the gang's breakfast, and mentioned that they were off to loot a souvenir from the local jaguar god shrine on the volcano. Veronica turned the yearbook's best-dressed vote into a fashion show, and Betty Cooper first refused to compete. Cheryl took Betty aside and lent her an outfit, because she felt Veronica needed to be taught a lesson, and the boys acting as judges gave Veronica perfect scores until Betty changed her mind and walked out in Cheryl's clothes.
Betty won the contest and the yearbook's best-dressed title, and she celebrated by kissing Archie. Veronica called her a traitor, the two girls began to fight, and Betty ended up with a bleeding nose before Archie and Veronica kissed on the sand in front of her. Betty screamed that she hated them all and ran into the jungle, while the hidden Predator watched the whole fight through its thermal vision and Reggie called it the best morning ever.
The Jaguar Curse
Somewhere in the jungle the Predator caught Cheryl and Jason at the shrine and cut them down. Betty found the stone jaguar-head temple on her own, pulled an old dagger from its altar, and, still crying, called down jaguar vengeance on Cheryl Blossom and on Veronica Lodge for punching her in the face and kissing her Archie. Spears shot out of the walls as she ran, and she escaped the temple with the dagger still in her hand.
Archie and Veronica went looking for her, feeling guilty, and Archie found a bloody spear tip in the undergrowth before Betty reappeared all smiles and the three of them apologized. The skinned bodies of Cheryl and Jason hung nearby, and the Predator crouched in a tree above the gang with their skulls, the start of its trophy collection. The teenagers decided the Blossoms had slunk back to their yacht and flew home by seaplane, never noticing that Moose's heavy trunk had gotten heavier, and Betty realized too late that she still had the dagger.
The Curse Comes To Riverdale
Back in Riverdale, the gang gathered at Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe, where Dilton brought news that Cheryl and Jason had been found dead near the resort, killed by a "jungle animal." Pop Tate brought out a welcome-home cake, and a spear flew through the window and killed him. Betty realized the curse was real, admitted to Veronica that the dagger had been meant for her, and took her to Greendale to find someone who knew about supernatural things.
At the Spellman house, Sabrina Spellman examined the jaguar knife and called it atomic-level bad juju. The simple solution was to kill as many people with it as Betty had cursed, so Sabrina put on a horned skull headdress and began a ritual from a spellbook instead. The cloaked Predator smashed through the window, slashed her with its wristblades, broke the knife, and tore out her head and spine, then blasted her cat Salem with its shoulder cannon when he attacked it.
Jughead In A Dress
Betty had caught the Predator on video, and Veronica, who had borrowed Sabrina's clothes, dismissed it as a ninja with a terrible hairdo until the broken dagger reformed itself in front of them. They called their friends to the Riverdale High gym, where Kevin Keller's father, a general, explained that the creature was one of a race of nearly unstoppable alien hunters that took skulls as trophies, hunted only targets that could fight back under their rules, and saw in infrared. He judged this one to be a teenager, one of the young hunters, and Dilton added that police had found a mass grave at the Spellman house.
The general's plan was to dress someone as Veronica for bait, and the only one skinny enough for a size six was Jughead, who agreed in exchange for all-you-can-eat buffets. Moose, Reggie, and the rest of the boys charged downtown with guns while Archie stayed behind with the girls and Dilton, and the Predator blew up a car and cut through the ambush party one by one. A soldier wounded it with a grenade after telling it he had brought it a birthday present, and the Predator fled, leaving Jughead staggering out of the wreckage still in Veronica's dress.
The Vending Machine
Jughead walked back through the ruins of Riverdale to the high school, where one of Dilton's booby traps nearly took his head off. He told the others that Moose, Kevin, Chuck, and even Midge were dead, and that he was wearing all that was left of them. Dilton reported that both Riverdale police cars had vanished at the Spellman house along with the house and the mass grave, leaving only goats, and two of the girls left for a beach house a hundred miles south while the rest followed Dilton to the A.V. club room.
The wounded Predator moved through the school's vents, leaving a trail of green blood. Jughead stopped at a vending machine, pried out a chocolate bar with the jaguar knife, and joked that one more second without sugar would have finished him, while the Predator stood right behind him. Archie went back for his friend and slipped in his blood, then found Jughead's head and spine displayed inside the broken machine, screamed that his friends were kids rather than warriors, and swore to kill the Predator.
Robot Archie
In the A.V. room, Dilton confessed what it was like to be him in a school that was all about dating, and revealed that his app store earnings had made him a millionaire. He had used the money to build a giant Robot Archie in his friend's likeness, because everything in Riverdale was always about Archie. Dilton climbed into the cockpit and asked Betty and Veronica to think of him as Archie for a little while, promising to save them from the Predator and cuddle with them afterwards.
The robot glitched on start-up and fired a rocket that nearly hit Veronica, and Archie fixed a loose wire with a wrench just as the Predator crashed through the window. Its cloak was damaged, so it fought the robot in plain view while Archie hit it with the wrench, until the robot's kill switch engaged and it began shouting to kill the Predator and then to kill everyone. In the chaos the Predator drove its wristblades into Archie, and Betty and Veronica tried to stop the bleeding as he went down.
The Predator Unmasked
Dilton called 911 to report that he was the hero, only to be connected to the Border Patrol, and the Predator impaled him and took his spine. Archie lay bleeding while Betty and Veronica were cornered, sure that they were actually going to die. Instead, the Predator pulled off its cracked mask and showed its face, stripped Dilton's skull, and spat. The chapter, titled "Full Metal Varsity Jacket," had ended with the two girls kneeling beside the bleeding Archie in the wrecked A.V. room, and the hunter's choice to unmask in front of them rather than kill them came as a complete surprise.
Veronica demanded to know what they had ever done to it. The Predator dropped the jaguar dagger at Betty's feet, mimicked her name as "Be-ty," and walked out, leaving the three of them alive. The scene is the first clear sign that the hunter's interest in the gang centered on Betty rather than Veronica, the girl her curse had targeted. It also meant that the dagger, which had broken in Greendale and reformed itself, was back in Betty's hands with the curse still unfinished.
Lodge Manor
Betty woke up in a bedroom at Lodge Manor, hoping it had all been a dream, but the dagger kept coming back to her no matter where she left it. Remembering Sabrina's warning that the curse needed as many lives as Betty had cursed, the girls knew someone else still had to die. Veronica explained that her father had built a panic room after a Russian arms deal went sour, complete with a self-destruct that could blow the Predator to kingdom come.
They set the self-destruct for fifteen minutes and put Archie on a Lodge Industries medical machine in the panic room, where Veronica mashed buttons until the screen read that the patient was stabilizing. Veronica kissed Archie and told him he still had to pick a steady girl, then dressed Betty in a pink ruffled gown because neither of them could die in department-store clothes, and armed herself with an Uzi. The Predator arrived as if for dinner, and Veronica's gunfire did not stop it from tearing through the house and shredding their dresses as the girls fled toward the panic room.
The Panic Room
The Predator grabbed Veronica at the panic room door, and Archie, mutated into a hulking caveman because the machine had been set too high, punched it for all his friends. With under five minutes left on the self-destruct and no way to stop it, the Predator took a mace and an axe from the Lodge family's wall of weapons, one of many times a Predator has used human weapons. Archie took up an axe of his own and fought it for Jughead.
Veronica grabbed the jaguar dagger, meaning to end both curses with a single stroke, and was stabbed before she could use it. The Predator held the dying Veronica while Archie kept fighting, and Betty snatched a katana from the wall and attacked it to protect Archie. The Predator slashed Betty as well, leaving both girls badly wounded on the floor of the panic room. Betty had charged with the sword shouting "Not my Archie!", and even with Veronica dying beside her, it was Archie she was fighting to save.
Archie's Last Stand
The Predator killed Archie, shattering his head in front of the two girls. Betty screamed that it had killed her Archie and drove the jaguar dagger into it, while Veronica swung the mace and remarked that her father had said it was not a lady's weapon. The dagger left the Predator collapsing in a puff of skull-and-crossbones smoke, while the alarms of the Lodge Manor self-destruct began to clang through the house.
Betty and Veronica mourned Archie together, and Veronica told Betty that she was the bravest, smartest, and prettiest of them and would get over Archie. The dying Predator looked at Betty and repeated, "Be-ty go. Be-ty lives." Its words confirmed that the hunter had fallen for Betty, the same girl whose curse had started the killing on Los Perdidos. Both girls were bleeding from their own wounds beside Archie's body, with the countdown nearly over, and Betty still held the dagger that had brought the hunter to them.
Escape From Lodge Manor
Betty refused to leave without her friends, and the girls stayed in the armored panic room as the countdown ran out. Lodge Manor blew apart in an enormous fireball shaped like a heart, taking the last of the battle with it. Of the gang that had flown to Los Perdidos, only Betty, Veronica, and the dying hunter were left inside the panic room when the smoke cleared. Her last cry before the blast, "Not without my friends!", made it clear she would rather die beside Archie and Veronica than escape alone.
The explosion closed the story that had started with a curse on a volcano and spread through Pop's, Greendale, Riverdale High, and the Lodge estate. Most of Riverdale's teenagers, its police cars, Pop Tate, and Sabrina were gone. The jaguar dagger had finally taken the lives it was owed, and Betty and Veronica had survived the hunter that came for them. Moose, Kevin, Chuck, and Midge had died in the downtown ambush, and the Riverdale police had vanished at the Spellman house along with the mass grave, leaving only goats behind.
Some Version Of Archie
When Veronica came around, Betty had used Mr. Lodge's machine to heal them both, and had found that the Predator dragged itself into the panic room to be with them. Following the body reconstruction manual's list of desired traits, red hair, freckles, and green eyes, she rebuilt the hunter with Archie's face and dressed it in his R sweater. Betty told Veronica that this way they would never have to live without some version of Archie, and the story ended with the girls hugging their new Archie Predator.
Key Characters
- Archie Andrews fixed Robot Archie with a wrench, was run through by the Predator's wristblades, came back as a muscle-bound giant from Mr. Lodge's machine, and was killed in the panic room.
- Betty Cooper cursed Cheryl and Veronica with the jaguar dagger, stabbed the Predator with it, survived, and rebuilt the hunter in Archie's image.
- Veronica Lodge was the curse's main target, fought the Predator with an Uzi and a mace, was stabbed with the dagger, and survived after Betty healed her.
- Jughead Jones won the trip, played bait in Veronica's dress, survived the downtown ambush, and was killed at the school vending machine.
- Dilton Doiley ran the yearbook polls, booby-trapped Riverdale High, built Robot Archie, and was impaled while calling 911.
- Sabrina Spellman identified the curse and tried to break it with a spell, and the Predator took her head and spine in Greendale.
- Cheryl and Jason Blossom went to loot the jaguar shrine and became the hunter's first trophies.
- The Predator was a young hunter that came to Los Perdidos, followed the gang to Riverdale, fell for Betty, and ended up rebuilt as an Archie look-alike. It is never named.
Editions
Dark Horse and Archie Comics released the four issues monthly from April 15, 2015 to July 22, 2015. The 128-page hardcover collection, released on November 4, 2015, lists the chapter-break art as Fernando Ruiz and Rich Koslowski with Jason Millet for chapter 1, Dan Parent with Millet for chapter 2, Gisèle Lagacé with Maria Victoria Robado for chapter 3, and Andrew Pepoy with Millet for chapter 4. Dark Horse also sold a variant of the first issue by Eric Powell, and the hardcover reprints other covers, including Francesco Francavilla's incentive and Books-A-Million covers, Colleen Coover's San Diego Comic-Con cover, and covers by Darick Robertson, Pepoy, Dennis Calero, and Patrick Spaziante for the first issue.
Later issues had variants by Robert Hack, Dustin Nguyen, Kelley Jones, Paul Pope, Faith Erin Hicks, and Joe Quinones, along with pinups by Tim Seeley, Richard P. Clark, and Fernando Ruiz with Anwar Hanano. Rich Koslowski drew a hardcover-exclusive pinup of Betty and Veronica demanding to know which of them the Predator would murder at the prom. A softcover edition followed in August 2019, the same summer that the sequel, Archie vs. Predator II, brought the Predators back to Riverdale.
Behind The Scenes
In the hardcover's introduction, Archie Comics chief creative officer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa traced the book to Archie Meets the Punisher in 1994 and to Archie Meets KISS and Archie Meets Glee. He wrote that the idea came up at Archie's first creative summit in Mamaroneck, New York, where publisher Jon Goldwater answered the doubters with "Never say never," and that Dark Horse and Fox agreed quickly. The team chose the traditional Archie house style over the darker tone of Afterlife with Archie, and Aguirre-Sacasa called de Campi's script "bizarre, almost Dadaist."
The sketchbook pages show Ruiz "Archifying" the Predator, first drawing it in detail and then simplifying it and exaggerating its expressions, and note that the cuter the Predator was, the more disturbing it became. The art was made traditionally, with Ruiz mailing pencils to letterer John Workman and inker Rich Koslowski before Dark Horse scanned the pages for colorist Jason Millet, the only member of the team who worked digitally. The book also shows the promo art first seen at New York Comic Con, which became the cover of a 2015 convention ashcan, and Wikipedia records that the series won the 2015 Ghastly Award for Best Limited Series.
Several moments nod to the films, such as Dutch's Beach Bar at the resort, a reference to Predator, and the hunter's choice of armed teenagers as prey puts it among the Predators who hunted kids. Its clumsy rampage also earned it a place among the incompetent Predators, and the Archie hybrid returned on pages such as the shortest Yautja. Archie vs. Predator is one of the Predator crossovers that matched the hunters with characters from other publishers.
Conclusion
Archie vs. Predator is Alex de Campi and Fernando Ruiz's 2015 crossover for Dark Horse Comics and Archie Comics. It follows a young Predator from a spring break resort to Riverdale, where it killed Pop Tate, Sabrina, Jughead, Dilton, and finally Archie. Betty and Veronica survived, and the comic ends with the hunter rebuilt as some version of Archie. The book was drawn in the traditional Archie house style, and Betty's jaguar-dagger curse drove most of the killing.
External Sources
Tag Categories: Predator Comics | Alien And Predator Crossovers
