Pureheart The Powerful

Archie Comics will probly never be labeled as 'innovative' or 'progressive', but I'll be danged if they ain't done every variation of the Archie gang that they could possibly ever think of in the hopes of 'keeping up with the competition'. Archie as cavemen, Archie in the future, Archie faces the supernatural, the Archies as rock stars, Archie as an older married man, Archie as a little kid, etc, etc, etc. If there was a trend in comics, they jumped on it.
As you'd imagine, this blatant genre-hopping meant that they cancelled more titles than most other publishers ever even tried to publish.

Regardless, I absolutely love this stuff. Maybe in the same way I love how THE SIMPSONS do random episodes where they're all out of character (usually at Halloween).

Keep pluggin', Archie Comics, keep pluggin'.

This story is from the early Marvel Age, when Lee, Kirby, and Ditko were the tops in comic sales. So, naturally, the Archie crowd got super powers for short time.

by (uncredited) Frank Doyle and Bill Vigoda (credits from the GCD database)
from ARCHIE AS PUREHEART THE POWERFUL #2, November 1966










*