Archie Meets Ramones – Review

Well, this was a little bit…unexpected.

A mashup between one of the most influential punk bands of all time with – Archie? Archie, as in, the comic books you’d find on stands at supermarkets?

Yes, friends, this is indeed the collision that we see with Archie Meets Ramones. And although it is incredibly cheesy and unnecessary, at the end of the day, it’s just good, clean, fun. One part of me sees this as harmless – but the other sees it as a letdown, and truly attests to the commercialization of the band and what being punk rock is in 2016.

I love the Ramones. They’re one of my favorite bands of all time. I’ve been listening to them since I was an early teen. When I first heard them, I saw a band that played by their own rules. Their recordings sucked. The guitars sounded bad. Sometimes Joey’s voice was a bit out of pitch. But to me, it didn’t matter. It was rebellious, and to me, it was super cool. I soon found out a sick sense of humor that came from the band – and if anyone has read DeeDee’s Chelsea Horror Hotel novel, you’ll know exactly the sick kind of humor that I’m talking about. It wasn’t exactly safe material for kids. Maybe more common is Rock and Roll High School, in which the school literally explodes at the end. There’s always been a humorous weirdness that has permeated through the band – but not here.

No, Archie Meets Ramones is about as family-friendly and harmless as you can get. The Archies travel back in time during a battle of the bands contest and meet the Ramones, who instruct them on how to be a better band. Which would probably not be what the Ramones would have done, anyway. In reality, the Ramones were a rambunctious crew, even in their own circle. Joey and Johnny barely spoke for most of their career, and the rest of the band had their own issues with drugs and other vices. There was a grit to them.

In 2016 we see the Ramones of being this nice, polished band. Their anger and outlandishness is buried underneath their now-iconic leather jackets and ripped jeans. The whole point of the Ramones, to me, seems to be missed by the masses who only seem to know Blitzkrieg Bop. And to me, that’s a shame. There is so much more to this band than people give them credit for. They weren’t always this popular. When they were still alive, they struggled throughout most of their careers and were ridiculed often, which has been highly documented in books written either by them or about them.

The only dangerous thing about Archie Meets Ramones is the fact that it further paints the band as bubblegum rockers with no edge. Besides that, it’s a pleasant affair. Nothing really out of the ordinary. The Ramones here teach Archie and company to play fast and not care about what people think. Which is sort of punk rock – I guess. It’s really much bigger than that; however, I understand what year it is.

The most I can do for this band, to give back for all of what their music has done to me, is to try and preserve their legacy. Archie Meets Ramones does nothing for the band besides stamp their name on a comic book and show their likenesses, which, really, seem kind of dull here. The book focuses mainly on Archie’s group, while they go back and forth and take advice from the Ramones. And then, of course, the Ramones play Blitzkrieg Bop.

I don’t know. I guess for a kid this could be a fun comic book. Maybe I take the band too seriously, but for me, good clean fun takes the “fun” out of the Ramones.

The Geeked Gods Score: 2/5. Okay.

The principle of the whole comic would be fine if things were taken up a notch. But this is Archie – the Ramones would have been better suited to pair up with Deadpool or something less safe.

Publisher:  Archie Comics

Writer:  Alex Segura, Matthew Rosenberg

Artist:  Gisele Lagace

Colors:  Ma. Victoria Robado,  Digkore Studios