You gotta' love the mid 60's when thanks to the craze created by the Batman TV show, every comic book character between two covers suddenly found some skintight duds and launched onto the street to fight crime, admittedly some pretty bizarre crime.
The last place you might've looked was Riverdale, where Archie, Veronica, Betty, Jughead, Reggie, and the rest of the gang had spent decades in high school fighting the good fight. But the Archie gang probably hasn't lasted as long as it has by ignoring opportunity, so Pureheart the Powerful was born. In fact Archie had been dreaming of being a superhero from almost the very beginning of his career as this vintage Pep Comics cover shows.
Then he became Pureheart the Powerful. Pureheart or Captain Pureheart as he'd later be known, was soon followed by Jughead as Captain Hero, Betty as SuperTeen, and Reggie as Evilheart. Veronica didn't get a dual identity until the 90's when the characters were revived briefly, where she became Vanity.
Now the gang is back in a reprint volume by IDW. I picked it up last week, and it prompted me to look up the covers from the Archie run which featured the superhero characters. Archie comics is planning some new adventures too it seems. Check out this link for details.
Here's a gallery, with perhaps a few surprises for even those who are very familiar with the classic campy run.
And then in the 90's there were these guys.
That's a fun bunch of comics.
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