Riverdale has taken the pop culture world by storm since it premiered in January – and apparently the Marvel Comics world.
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Spoilers for U.S. Avengers #12 below!
U.S. Avengers #12, which was released late last month, saw the titular team searching for a settlement of Skrulls. They found the villains in a land called “Glenbrook” – where they appeared to be reenacting their own version of the Archie Comics world.
The issue introduced an array of Skrull characters, including Ritchie Redwood, Bugface Brown, Becky, and Vanessa. Sound familiar?
Throughout the issue, Bugface explains how the Skrull society got to this point. The settlement serves as a “melting pot” for the more pacifist members of the Skrull race, and it most recently adopted “Redwoodism” – a way of life inspired by the fictional world of The Ritchie Redwood Show. Apparently, “Redwoodism” involves essentially LARPing as the show’s characters, while adopting the sort of ’50s Americana seen on Ritchie Redwood.
But as the issue goes on, the Skrulls are provided with new episodes of the Ritchie Redwood reboot – which provides them with more diverse characters like Sabine, a teenage witch, and openly gay Keith. Some of the Skrulls begin to adopt this more diverse mindset, but are imprisoned for being seen as traitors of Redwoodism.
While this Riverdale analogue being inside Marvel Comics is certainly unexpected and amusing, it does parallel something very real along the way. In a way, almost all of the current Archie Comics pantheon subverts the quaint source material, from the main Archie reboot to the horror-influenced Jughead: The Hunger to the recently-released Betty & Veronica: Vixens.
But either way, it does make you wonder how the Skrulls would respond to some of Riverdale‘s more extravagant plot lines, from the maple syrup blood feud, to Betty Cooper’s strip tease in the most recent episode.
Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.
