'Riverdale' Introduces The Dark Circle in "The Noose Tightens"

Spoilers ahead for tonight's episode of Riverdale, titled "Chapter Thirty: The Noose Tightens."

Tonight on Riverdale, the Red Circle -- a group of doe-eyed defenders of Riverdale's status quo -- became the Dark Circle, a group of black-clad avenging angels.

As a pair of gangsters made a move against Hiram and Hermione Lodge's empire, Archie Andrews rallied a group of would-be vigilantes to scare them off, referring to themselves as the Dark Circle in a move that called back to real-world publishing events.

Earlier this season, Archie put together a band of (mostly bare-chested) allies which he called The Red Circle, a nod to the long-running line of superhero comics which have recently made their way back to Archie Comics.

Originally the heroes of MLJ's superhero line -- Archie Comics's predecessor -- the Red Circle characters made their way briefly to DC Comics in the '90s, but have returned to Archie in recent years and were relaunched about five years ago as Dark Circle.

The Red Circle on TV was composed of members of the Riverdale wrestling team, wearing ski masks and threatening those who would do harm to the people of the Riverdale community.

In recent years, the Red Circle characters were reinvented as Dark Circle heroes, with an edgier look and feel. While the comics have been published irregularly, The Black Hood being the only title consistently published in the recent past, the reinvigorated and reinvented line has served as a way to bring Archie's clean-cut, family-friendly image a sense of danger that appeals to direct market consumers of Marvel MAX and Image-style super-books.

Here, the Dark Circle is, again, an edgier and more violent variant on the Red Circle. Bombing the car of a pair of dangerous mobsters, Archie brings together the teens of the Riverdale wrestling team under an agreement: protect Hiram Lodge's interests, and he will help Reggie Mantle and Josie McCoy get elected to head up the student body.

Whether their loyalty will hold when the mob comes back to town -- and whether that promise will hurt his relationship with his running mate and girlfriend Veronica Lodge -- are very much open questions at this point...!

Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.