In "Reason to Get Excited," I spotlight things from modern comics that I think are worth getting excited about. I mean stuff more specific than "this comic is good," ya know? More like a specific bit from a writer or artist that impressed me.
Today, we look at the adorable centerpiece of the recent Jughead Time Police miniseries by Sina Grace, Derek Charm, Matt Herms and Jack Morelli.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
The whole storyline kicks off when Jughead accidentally screws up a pie in a pie contest and gets banned for life from competing...
He luckily figures out a way that he can avoid getting banned for life - simply INVENT A TIME MACHINE!
I just love the absurdity of it all, that Jughead is so one track minded that he can actually (with help from Dilton, of course) create a time machine because he is so determined. It's really clever by Grace.
Okay, so once he has established the ability to time travel, Jughead is called to the future by January McAndrews, of the Time Police. He aids her on a case...
But we see that she is secretly working for someone else....
It's the Jughead from the classic 1940s Archie comics!
That Jughead discovered time travel, too, and he got tired of the fact that his timeline wasn't the coolest, so he began altering time to get the best aspects of the various other Jugheads, until one of the timelines collapsed, causing the Jughead from that world to become a hard-boiled time traveler (like Cable). However, our Jughead explains to him that there is no need to be like that, since they are all driven by their friendship for their closest pals and gals because that's at the cneter of all Jugheads...
Things don't look great, though, when the evil Jughead brings a bunch of different Jugheads to take them down...
In the end, though, Jughead appeals to the other Jughead by reminding him of the same thing he explained to Cable/Dark Knight Returns Jughead - friendship is more important than anything...
And so the day was saved by the thought of friendship and tasty burgers. I'm not crying! YOU'RE crying!
This was such an adorable series. I would love to see a sequel by the same creative team.
Okay, this feature is a bit less of a reader-interactive one, as I'm just spotlight stuff in modern comics that specifically impressed ME, but heck, if you'd like to send in some suggestions anyways, maybe you and I have the same taste! It's certainly not improbably that something you found cool would be something that I found cool, too, so feel free to send ideas to me at brianc@cbr.com!