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00:00 RG3000, issue 8.
00:03 For once, I have to talk about the cover.
00:05 While I like that RG can warp to a transport booth he didn't want to because he dialed the wrong number,
00:11 there's no way these people would still be carrying spears and arrows and quivers this far into the future.
00:18 It's condescending to them.
00:20 I also don't like that RG said "punch up" instead of "punch in",
00:24 because it seems like he said it wrong.
00:27 But anyways, the first story starts with RG complaining that any time Mr. Lodge throws a lavish dinner party,
00:34 he invites Reggie instead.
00:37 It makes sense because not only is RG a clumsy idiot while RG isn't and can act like the rich snobs around him,
00:44 he blends in better because he can afford to own his own tuxedo.
00:49 He's not a good person, but neither is Veronica, and dating a good person won't make her become one.
00:54 And with him not being a clumsy idiot, Veronica's happier with him.
00:58 So I don't blame her for not inviting him.
01:00 Sure, he doesn't deserve to have a great time with the girl, but it leaves RG free to date a nice girl.
01:07 But since he's an idiot, all he wants to do is prove to Ronnie that he can mingle with high society so that he could get in the party.
01:15 And what does this have to do with sci-fi?
01:18 At least it kicks in when Jughead goes away because he forgot to recharge his anti-gravity goat.
01:23 It's for the best that Jughead didn't get to help him because anytime he comes up with an idea for him to help with her, it backfires.
01:31 RG sees a rented droid catering truck and plans to crash her party by wearing a helmet from a heavy workload armored suit.
01:40 He goes into the kitchen as I'm just waiting for his plans to backfire,
01:45 but I don't mind if it does because I'd rather have good times with a nice girl.
01:49 Of course, RG gets told to serve some hors d'oeuvres because he wanted to be mistaken for a serving robot.
01:56 He sees a robot light a match with his finger to warm people's shish kebabs.
02:01 Mr. Lodge thanks him for giving him a shish kebab, and somehow RG accidentally blasts fire out of the suit's finger.
02:09 RG wants to find the button that'd get him out of his armor, because apparently he can't get out of it a different way.
02:16 That wouldn't require the suit to be functional, so if it got damaged, he'd be trapped.
02:21 He's somehow able to release a net by accident and fire electricity out of the suit's head, damaging stuff.
02:28 It's both stupid and amazingly brave of Veronica to ignore the warning that she'd get hurt and stand up to him,
02:36 because for all she knows, he's a dangerous robot.
02:39 But apparently if she lived on Mobius, she'd fight robots too, if they crashed her party.
02:44 She hits buttons on the suit and finds out it's RG in there.
02:48 She could've easily hit one of the dangerous buttons.
02:52 Why did she think she could damage a robot by punching it though?
02:56 But as usual, I'd gladly take it being convenient over realistic but overly dark.
03:01 We see RG getting punished by being told to peel a bunch of potatoes and mince the onions.
03:07 Veronica expects him to understand why she never invites him to these parties, even though she isn't explaining herself.
03:14 All it'd take is a few more words.
03:16 "You're accident prone!"
03:18 He plans to leave the room to explain himself to her again when he should know that's a waste of time,
03:23 especially since she's Veronica.
03:25 But his idiot's blow was worth it because it lets him see jewel thieves scaring the guests into putting money in a bank,
03:32 causing him to scare the thieves in his robot suit, saying that help's arrived.
03:37 It's dumb that Veronica called Reggie a coward for trying to make sure people with weapons didn't hurt him.
03:43 And her, by the way.
03:45 Sure, he's scared, but it's smarter than her.
03:48 RG just talked because he wanted to look cool, but it's okay this time because he was safe in the robot suit,
03:54 and in all the time he was talking, the thieves were too scared to attack.
03:58 He hits the thieves a bunch, and I love that we see him impact one of them, even if it should've been every time.
04:04 Veronica calls him wonderful, and Mr. Lodge tells them to forgive them for doubting him, even though they're right to doubt him.
04:11 He did damage his house.
04:13 He also tells Reggie to give Archie his tuxedo.
04:17 The story ends with it being revealed that it was all just a daydream because Archie never left the room.
04:22 Which makes sense, because there's no reason he would've bothered leaving the room to reason with someone he knows is unreasonable.
04:30 And it was very unlikely that the thieves would show up here.
04:33 Because of rich people having a party, guaranteed that they'd be mugged, they'd never throw parties.
04:40 And it's also more believable than Mr. Lodge saying all of that is if he forgot every memory he had with him before this.
04:47 But it's still sad to make it all a daydream.
04:50 In the next story, Veronica gets a call on her video phone when she's in bed, and she overreacts to Archie seeing her with bed hair, even though she still looks good.
04:59 He makes it harder to believe that she's in bed by saying it's 10 AM, and decides not to ask her if she'd go for a ride around the moon with him.
05:08 She's smart enough to assume that Archie thought she looked just as pretty as usual.
05:12 With the crazy hair we see her have in this comic, it fit right in with one of those styles.
05:18 Betty's uncharacteristically rude by calling her just to comment on her having messy hair, and taunts her that Archie asked her out.
05:26 To be fair, I think she was just as vindictive about Archie in the 50s comic, where she was always scheming to get him and failing.
05:33 It just seems out of character for a more modern Betty whose trade is unbelievably charitable to a fault.
05:39 I guess Mr. Large heard her complain about video phones, because he shows her a telephone when he'd normally think she'd want to be interested in the antiques he buys for his collections.
05:48 She somehow thinks the dial phone is unsanitary, even though it involves just as much physical contact to use as the video phone.
05:57 She likes the idea of being free of the problems she just had in the morning, so she requests a phone for her bedroom, and he agrees.
06:05 How would it work when there aren't any phone lines anymore?
06:09 I guess we're supposed to assume the video phones work on phone lines.
06:13 He says her device would send her a thousand years backwards.
06:17 Later on, Veronica wants to show Betty her new dress, but can't because Betty's in quarantine at home with the Venetian flu, and she doesn't have a video phone.
06:26 So Betty uncharacteristically mocks her for being behind in the times.
06:30 It doesn't seem fair that Veronica's brilliant solution still backfired on her, and it comes off as the writer jealously punishing her because she only got the phone because of her rich dad.
06:41 It's in character for her to be mean to her when it comes to competing with her for Archie, but not for no reason.
06:48 If she's gonna be mean, at that point she's just Veronica if she weren't rich, and what's the point of that for the rival for Archie?
06:55 Why'd it take until the next week for Betty to find out that Veronica's new phone doesn't have a viewer?
07:01 And then it turns out Archie's in bed with the Venetian flu too, but at least it tells Veronica he has another date for her.
07:07 It's instantly obvious that it'll be ugly.
07:10 So the story ends with Veronica abandoning her phone and revealing that she has a receptionist to answer the phone for now.
07:17 The problem is she's pretty, so won't she just distract Archie with their looks by accident?
07:22 He isn't reacting that way.
07:24 So the fact that she has a weird text bubble has to mean he's off-put by the fact that she has a robotic voice because she's a robot.
07:32 I'm glad she still got to improve her life in the end, because usually the main character of a "be careful what you wish for" plot doesn't get that,
07:40 even if she's not likable enough that this is enjoyable.
07:43 Because thanks to that, you can still be jealous of her from assuming that her wealth is why she has this receptionist.
07:49 In the next story, Archie tells his friends that a new mall's got a personality analyzing lounge, which visually displays a person's flaws in a funny way.
07:58 And that's not going to get put in a mall because it publicly humiliates people who go on to complain about it,
08:04 and anyone who really couldn't take it would band together with the others to pressure the mall staff into getting rid of it.
08:11 Why would Archie and all of his friends be desperate to use a machine that's going to humiliate them in front of people?
08:16 Which wouldn't be worth being told their good traits by an unbiased machine.
08:21 A machine either has this idea of what good traits are from its programmer, or being told what the majority of people think are good traits.
08:28 And the problem is that it can be easy to talk about a flaw in a different way to portray it as a good trait instead.
08:35 So what determines whether the machine calls it a good trait or not?
08:38 For example, being fearless is bad in some contexts where it can only cause bad things to happen, but awesome in others.
08:46 Hot Dog pushes all of them into the machine, and they wonder what's happening as they feel a tickling sensation.
08:52 The device was designed for only one person at a time, so one of them has the sense to ask if everything's alright.
08:59 It's unprofessional to give no hint as to who's talking.
09:03 Veronica says she still feels like herself, and Archie reasons that they can always return here individually.
09:09 And Jughead wants to take in more of the sights here, so it makes sense combined with them being just teenagers that they'd think it's worth the risk to put off coming back here individually to return to normal right away.
09:21 But as long as the plot doesn't go too dark, it'll be worth it.
09:24 So Dilton rudely points out that a woman's beautiful in an annoying way, which is really only rude because it'd make her uncomfortable if she's not interested.
09:32 So the potential of this machine wasn't lived up to, because so far, instead of doing what it was hyped to, it was just a flimsy excuse for a personality switching episode.
09:42 Which is more interesting, because we already know what their flaws are.
09:45 It scanning multiple people doesn't justify them switching personalities, because there's no reason to temporarily steal a person's personality.
09:53 So it wouldn't have them lose it so that it even could give it back to the wrong person.
09:58 So this kind of plot would only be properly justified if they were cursed by a witch for fun.
10:03 Archie has Dilton's personality, and by this point I'm wondering why nobody's even pointing out the fact that clearly personality switching's occurred.
10:12 I suppose it's just barely believable, because everyone here knows why it would happen, and that they could fix things easily.
10:20 So there's no actual stakes.
10:22 It's not like it's close to the mall's closing time, and they have a test tomorrow.
10:27 Veronica confuses me by saying she's never seen Jughead so hungry, and commenting on him wolfing down his food, when nobody would be able to notice a difference.
10:37 This has to be another universe where Big Eater isn't a trait of his.
10:41 Instead, Jughead hands his trademark favorite food to Hot Dog, who thinks of it as his favorite food.
10:47 I guess it just assumes for no reason that Hot Dog got his personality, because otherwise he'd definitely hand it to one of his friends instead.
10:56 This is supposed to imply that Hot Dog is a bigger eater than Jughead, which has never come off as the case before.
11:03 And I wish that there was a text box establishing that this is the case because it's another universe, because it comes off as the writer not knowing Archie.
11:11 If this was really the only trait he could come up with for Hot Dog to make it come off like Hot Dog switched personalities with someone else, he failed.
11:19 Especially by giving it to Jughead of all people, making him barely make an impact.
11:23 He's more of a troublemaker than a big eater in this comic.
11:27 Honestly, I can't even come up with a personality trait for Hot Dog myself other than that.
11:32 All I can say about him is that in the Saturdays cartoon, he knows Sabrina's a witch and is worried about it.
11:38 You could showcase this to which better by having Jughead hate Castle all of a sudden.
11:42 It's revealed to that yes, the characters can notice that one of their friends changed personality.
11:47 Realistically.
11:48 So what took so long?
11:50 We get to see Betty say that even in this supposedly tacky outfit, she's the most beautiful one here.
11:56 Which is entertaining.
11:58 And so is Veronica saying to Betty, "You just want to keep them wrapped around your finger."
12:03 And she says she does.
12:05 And asks her why that would bother her sociopathically.
12:08 Archie says a stilted interjection.
12:10 No one would say an interjection that involves an astronomical term because it just sounds geeky.
12:16 Archie states the obvious to try to explain why they're in trouble when they should already know.
12:20 And he should know that they do and are planning to return to normal anyways.
12:24 He's right, what's the big deal if they switch personalities?
12:27 If they've got plenty of time to undo it easily.
12:30 It's not like any of them got a personality that ruined their lives.
12:33 Instead, they immediately rush to getting the personalities back.
12:37 Archie lampshades that Hot Dog and Jughead's personalities are so alike that it'd be hard to tell that their personalities were switched.
12:45 And it's hard to tell he is just being sarcastic because he looks sincere.
12:50 And I have to guess that he's just making himself look sincere to joke around.
12:54 Why would he sincerely ask this when they all knew right away that he switched personalities with Hot Dog?
13:00 My point is, if the writer knew how pointless it was to give Jughead Hot Dog's personality, then why did he do it anyways?
13:07 It would've been more interesting if Archie got a big eater personality trait and Dilton's trait was given to Jughead.
13:14 In the next story, it bores me by introducing new characters by having them introduce themselves to the audience in little bubbles.
13:21 Which doesn't keep me invested and get me to want them as the focus.
13:25 Especially since the second one's a jerk.
13:28 Reggie makes a doodle on a tissue because he's bored in art class and when his pen somehow breaks,
13:33 his art teacher's assistant thinks he's a genius who could be just what she needs for the art show.
13:39 And this is why I don't get art.
13:41 He gets to explain to her that he can't draw, but somehow all he says is that this is just doodling,
13:47 instead of simply explaining that his pen broke and sprayed ink on it.
13:51 It's so lazy to have a story be forced to happen.
13:54 She says no talent's required for an art show and all it takes is good publicity and ego.
13:59 She has confusing art with writing for Sonic.
14:02 So first she thinks he's needed for his talent, and then she says she doesn't even need talent and still wants his help.
14:09 I have to assume she's doing this to intentionally piss off the teacher because she looks mad.
14:14 Since when are there assistants for high school art teachers?
14:18 I don't remember that.
14:20 Jughead tells off his dog that he keeps telling him to stay away from his work,
14:24 after his dog just put his paw prints covered in black paint on his painting.
14:29 He has human intelligence, so I guess he was trying to improve what he thought was a disaster.
14:34 Predictably, the teacher loves the art and plans to make Jughead a star.
14:39 She looks like a bumbling idiot because Jughead tells her "I didn't",
14:44 so she has no excuse to interrupt him and not get it.
14:47 And even says right beside her that Hot Dog had a hand in it, so she'd hear him.
14:52 She has to be intentionally ignoring him because she just wants a student of her own to show up the assistant and she's taking a risk here.
14:59 Hot Dog really does have human intelligence because he's somehow mad at Jughead for being given the credit for his art change.
15:06 Jughead puts a helmet on to visualize.
15:09 And somehow, despite this kind of technology existing,
15:13 he's surprised and disappointed by his own painting,
15:16 even though he'd know what it was going to look like because he imagined it first.
15:19 So his helmet is faulty.
15:21 Reggie is thankful that he got a bunch of robots making paintings, after some he bought them.
15:26 You'd think everyone would be unemployed in this universe if it's so easy to buy and put the work in anything.
15:31 And how did the art teacher get Jughead's nickname wrong twice?
15:35 How did she make it through college?
15:37 Jughead gets the chance to tell her Hot Dog made his art,
15:40 and now she hears him, so the panel where he told her earlier should have not had her in it at all.
15:45 Even then, he would have followed her and told her the truth as soon as possible.
15:50 She thinks she'll look like a fool because the world's not going to accept a dog artist,
15:54 so she expects Jughead to cover for the dog for now.
15:58 Eventually, the story resolves itself when Jughead confesses that Hot Dog made his paintings while they hug,
16:04 and the rest of the story is just a waste of time.
16:07 The first story is by Robert Lauren Fleming.
16:11 The second story is by Kathleen Webb.
16:14 The third story is by Rich Marco Poulos.
16:18 And the final story is by Dan Parent.
16:21 *sneeze*