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00:00 RJ3000, issue 13.
00:03 Somehow I'm supposed to believe Archie was allowed to sit right next to Veronica in detention,
00:08 apparently unsupervised until Grundy just came back into the room.
00:12 Otherwise, she wouldn't be standing in front of the entrance.
00:16 I wish there was an explanation for why she left the room for no reason.
00:20 Grundy brings Archie to Weatherby, as I think that the story's lazy for both that and not explaining why these two were in detention.
00:28 It's especially bad for Veronica because it's not like her to get detention.
00:33 Weatherby is glad he's gotten an excuse to send him to super detention, which shows him a video of a computer simulation of Weatherby.
00:40 Archie sees Betty out the window and gets grabbed by robot arms from the monitor and duct taped,
00:46 because the writer has an unrealistically pessimistic fear of the future.
00:51 I can believe this would happen because the idea is that nobody would ever believe the teenagers about this
00:56 and they wouldn't be allowed to bring their cell phones here, and even if they came here wearing a wire,
01:01 it'd still be accused of just being an act their friends put together.
01:05 But it's obvious that we should've been shown what Archie did to deserve detention in this story,
01:10 because then it would be entertaining to watch.
01:13 It's depressing to see Archie sit in the corner singing like Rotor once did.
01:18 Weatherby plans to lock up and shut down his new detention system.
01:22 Why didn't he have it programmed to shut down automatically?
01:26 The door gets closed, and I have to assume someone spitefully closed it on him, because there's no reason it'd close otherwise.
01:33 His key's in his office, and we finally get to see him have to deal with this.
01:38 But for all we know, Archie really deserved this.
01:42 So this isn't really karma.
01:44 Why does he wonder who has the nerve to tell him to shut up when he'd remember who it was?
01:49 He eventually gets called fat and thinks he hurt his own feelings.
01:54 He hits the device, and somehow says he destroyed it instead of simply damaging it.
01:59 And as to wonder why he isn't screaming in pain from his fist hitting metal,
02:04 a giant robot tells him to sit down, and unrealistically kicks him too, and traps him here with robot arms.
02:12 I wish I could see this happen to Eggman.
02:14 Naturally, he never anticipated that he could get trapped here.
02:18 So of course the AI was never programmed to not bother him.
02:22 The next morning, Archie hears some crying and opens the door to the detention room.
02:27 See, wouldn't this have been way more cathartic for people to see Starline go through?
02:32 The writer said he deserved what he got, but with that logic, that was incompetence to write instead of something more sadistic.
02:39 Plus it's obvious that practically every villain in I.U.W. Sonic deserves to die.
02:45 Weatherby says he was trapped there all night, and conveniently, he plans to get it reprogrammed,
02:50 which would only make sense if he assumed he'd get trapped there again.
02:53 It's not explained someone trapped him there on purpose, like Ms. Grundy.
02:58 Maybe it's the kind of door that naturally closes itself after a little while.
03:02 This whole plot could have been avoided if they had doors that opened automatically upwards like Futurama.
03:08 He sees his reflection, and somehow runs through a wall.
03:12 And somehow Ms. Grundy thinks he's just scared because he had too much caffeine.
03:18 In the next story, Betty and Veronica both offer each other a manicure because they're selling it door to door.
03:24 I already saw the concept of a main character going door to door in the Jetsons comics.
03:29 I guess we're supposed to assume they aren't literally saying the "TM" in the name of their manicure, because that'd be stupid.
03:36 She says that her dad thought she needed to know the value of money because she overspends.
03:42 The panels leading up to this were pointless.
03:45 She says she's given a bunch of the manicures to herself, which you should know that isn't giving her more money.
03:52 Just making it take longer to get it done.
03:55 Why is Betty telling her that she wants to win a dinner for two at the best salesperson prize and invite Archie there when it's obvious that it'd get her motivated more to win?
04:04 Realistically, they're always told to get lost.
04:08 Eventually, Veronica forces the manicures on Jughead and Hot Dog and plans to charge the manicures to her own account, asking herself why she didn't think of this.
04:17 When she'd know it's because her father wouldn't think that taught her the value of a dollar, because he'd have to pay it off if it's charged to her account.
04:25 And she's not earning money, she's losing it.
04:28 Veronica wins, only for her father to come here out of nowhere and say she's not allowed to get the award because she's his daughter and he owns this company.
04:38 I wish he said she's not allowed to get an award because she bought the manicures.
04:44 Because if she legitimately earned the victory, she should still get the reward.
04:49 He has a better reason to ruin her victory when he shows her the overcharged credit bill.
04:54 Somehow I doubt $17,500 is a lot of money to a rich person a thousand years into the future.
05:02 Inflation would have skyrocketed by then, so this would be barely any money for her.
05:08 Betty thanks the disappointed woman for giving her the tickets.
05:11 It turns out Veronica's dad closed all of her credit accounts and the story ends with her glaring at Archie and Betty while using a device to give someone a manicure.
05:20 Aside from the fact that she's using technology to give a manicure effortlessly, this plot had nothing to do with sci-fi.
05:28 What was it doing here?
05:30 In the next story, Reggie thinks he and Archie will be Betty's class picnic partners, even though their teacher selects their partners by computer.
05:38 But Reggie reprogrammed it so they'd all be put together.
05:42 Surprisingly, Betty doesn't disapprove.
05:45 But because of the computer failure, Grunty's gonna select partners out of a hat.
05:50 How is Archie's visiting cousin enrolled in his school?
05:54 And I guess Betty only tells Veronica that their love interests are paired up with beautiful girls because she wants her to be unhappy.
06:01 As usual, she's not Betty.
06:04 Veronica has to do a three-legged race and she thanks Archie's cousin for flattering her.
06:09 And wins the race, as her partner Dexter talks like nobody actually would to make fun of people from the South.
06:16 And Betty has a hard time keeping an egg steady in anti-gravity, and sees Reggie hit his partner with an egg trying to pass it to her with a spoon in his mouth.
06:25 So she and Dilton win and get medals.
06:28 Then Dexter politely asks if he could get more soda, and Dilton asks Betty if the breeze is bothering her.
06:34 And Veronica says they're being gentlemen, and Betty wishes their own boyfriends were so gallant.
06:40 Too bad she'll never want to date Dilton.
06:42 When a heavy labor robot ox is on the loose, Dexter tackles it, grabbing it by the horns, halting it.
06:49 Betty says that was amazing, and he says he does it all the time on the farm.
06:53 Conveniently, Dilton somehow already knows Dexter completed in-robo rodeos and won a medal.
07:00 Veronica thinks he saved their lives, and she kisses his cheek, and so does Betty.
07:05 Dilton warns them to run for shelter from the rain.
07:09 He knew it rained because he was paying attention to the signs in the sky.
07:13 Anyone could tell it rained just by looking at the clouds.
07:17 But they weren't feeling like being observant because they were too distracted by other things, while Dilton's genius.
07:23 The guys wish they could make it up to them when it's not their fault the rain happened.
07:28 Veronica says they can take them horseback riding on a dude ranch, and Dilton thanks them.
07:34 Reggie apologizes to Veronica for his screw-up at the start of the story, and the story ends with a happy ending for Betty and Dilton at least.
07:42 Which just makes me sad that these two never get to keep having good people to date because of status quo.
07:48 You'd think Betty would be dating Dilton instead of Reggie because he's nice like her.
07:53 But she naturally assumed he'd just use big words and show off his intelligence the whole date.
07:59 And he's lucky the writer liked him enough not to do that.
08:02 The old 50s Dilton would've.
08:04 The next story starts out with some tough guy trying to force Midge into a date with him because he's stupid, and Moose telling him to fight him later.
08:12 When the Moose I know would fight him now.
08:15 The comics thankfully spent most of its portrayal of him making him a harmless idiot instead to damage control.
08:21 But still, just the fact that it was written like this as if there's any tension at all implies that it'll somehow lose, or have a chance of losing.
08:29 I wouldn't want Moose hitting anyone who talks to Midge at all, but getting violent whenever someone tries to get her to date him is supposed to be his character.
08:36 So it seems off that there's any tension at all.
08:39 It gets revealed that not only is the jerk pointlessly from the Terraform to Jupiter, but Moose is injured from Rocketball and it'll be days before the computer cast heals it.
08:50 Midge doesn't want him to get hurt, and Dilton offers him a solution.
08:54 Somehow the solution, the Dilton fight in his place, was accepted by Moose even though his whole logic for agreeing to the fight was that he'd look chicken for not showing up.
09:03 He chooses mental arm wrestling as their contest.
09:07 As it turns out, they weren't guaranteed to have to fight after all.
09:10 They use headbands to generate hands, and Dilton predictably wins.
09:15 It's satisfying to see him threaten him, but it gets undermined when he just ends up saying, "Well, I'll think of something."
09:22 Betty calls him "Wonderful" and Moose calls him "Buddy."
09:26 Dilton trips and gets laughed at anyways.
09:29 It's sad and it's weird at first because it punishes them for saving the day and undermines how he was being badass.
09:36 The first story is by Dan Parent.
09:39 The second story is by Kathleen Webb.
09:41 So is the third story.
09:43 And the fourth story is by Rich Margo Poulos.
09:47 RG3000, issue 14.
09:51 RG orders a bracelet for Betty from the Home Shopping Network, which is pointlessly from a terraformed Saturn, and it warps to him.
09:58 Somehow, instead of his dad being mad because of all the money he's spending with his credit card,
10:04 he asks what happened to the spirit of Christmas when it's immediately obvious to anyone that giving gifts is the spirit of Christmas.
10:11 It looks like this will be a bad story.
10:14 At least if he isn't proven wrong.
10:16 He jealously says that kids have it too easy now because in his day, his generation liked to go out to buy gifts even though they didn't have to.
10:24 They definitely didn't have to because even we have home shopping.
10:28 He says it's fun to rush through crowds.
10:31 Yeah, right.
10:33 He mentions stomping for hot cocoa.
10:35 You could have that at home.
10:37 He mentions watching skaters and carolers along the way.
10:41 You could use Google Images to see them.
10:44 But the teens who just shop at home aren't going to put aside the time to do that, so he barely has a point.
10:50 RG says even Santa uses teleportation now.
10:53 This implies everyone believes in Santa since he isn't told to stop believing in him.
10:58 Why won't Santa have always used teleportation?
11:02 Somehow, the parents of every single one of RG's friends is dealing with the same jealous bitching.
11:08 Mr. Logically seems to justify it because she says she bought too many gifts since he's the one paying her credit card bill.
11:15 Betty's mom says she doesn't appreciate the value of personally selecting a gift even though selecting a gift on a home shopping site is personally selecting it.
11:24 Because you see it.
11:26 What she should say is that she doesn't get to feel it before buying it.
11:30 But even then, who cares?
11:32 Shouldn't these idiots know that it's better that we have home shopping because it saves money on gas, which is better for the environment?
11:39 Jughead's father jealously bitches that on his day, he had to astroski to school almost 7 miles.
11:45 Why didn't he just use the school bus?
11:48 I assume his parents were also in work by morning, so they couldn't drive him there.
11:52 Or they were abusive.
11:54 He says he used to jetpack to the mall.
11:57 Why does RG's mom think he'd appreciate Christmas season if he had to go through the tedium of shopping by hand?
12:04 That'd just make him hate it and be thankful when it's finally over because it'd make shopping take longer.
12:09 What unlikable idiots.
12:11 I hope this writer found out home shopping was better and regretted making this story.
12:16 Veronica says that shopping at this time of year is outdated.
12:19 Hopefully most people know that by now.
12:22 Betty expresses pity for Santa for having to deliver house to house himself.
12:27 Jughead must just be joking because you only get frequent flyer miles by riding an airplane.
12:33 Jughead throws a snowball at Veronica for apparently no reason, so I have to assume it's because he usually hates her for the same reasons we do.
12:41 It's just confusing because he's usually stuck in permanent smile mode in this comic for some reason.
12:47 She gets back at him with snow, and the story gets boring by focusing on Santa.
12:51 Since when does he have a borderline list?
12:54 And why wouldn't Reggie and Veronica be outright on the naughty list?
12:58 I have to assume people only get on the borderline list if they have the same amount of intentionally done good and bad deeds, but that's so unlikely.
13:06 It also turns out he's got an entire TV channel only he would watch that shows him a blizzard covering half of North America, which destroyed the planet's teleportation satellite.
13:18 Satellites are in space, how does a blizzard destroy it?
13:22 I guess a witch did it.
13:24 You'd think the teleportation would be rewired to a different satellite right away because why couldn't any satellite do if all it's doing is relying on GPS?
13:34 We didn't need this as an excuse for the teens having to go shopping themselves, but it's a lot less annoying than their parents forcing them to do that like I expected.
13:43 There's just no way that all of them would've put off some of their shopping until the last minute.
13:48 Ugh, why is this a multi-parter story?
13:52 Why were we shown Santa telling the reindeer that he needs their help, when that's very cliche and we could've assumed it?
13:59 The only thing interesting here is that they're able to play poker.
14:02 At least it's revealed that he gave them a good pension plan, but still, that was a waste of time.
14:08 Surprisingly, the story skips past showing Archie and his friends doing the shopping.
14:13 Archie complains about all of the pushing he went through, and Veronica looks exhausted and says her feet have blisters on their blisters.
14:20 How am I supposed to be convinced then?
14:22 They see the town Christmas tree lit up close for the first time.
14:27 Archie mentions Santa, and Jughead says that if they leave food out for him, they'll know he showed up.
14:32 In the next panel, oh now they've done all the shopping, and they're all tired, completely failing to make me agree with its message.
14:40 They even have to walk home because all the transportation stopped because of the storm.
14:45 And predictably, they all stock home Santa John thinking they had fun because the writers biased.
14:50 No they didn't.
14:51 Does it look like they had fun?
14:53 Why does the story bother showing Santa's sleigh taking off and stuff?
14:57 There's a lot of worthless padding in this story.
14:59 Predictably, his friends find out the food is gone.
15:02 Naturally, Archie says his parents could have eaten it.
15:05 And then he sees Santa, which could have easily not happened.
15:08 Thus ends that garbage story.
15:11 You're never gonna convince me that risking getting injured by crowds in a crowded store is a fun, good thing that everyone should do every winter.
15:19 Try giving this message to anyone who got trampled or something when shopping.
15:23 It's just intolerant and elitist to force on people a message that they aren't celebrating Christmas right because they aren't blindly following tradition instead of being smart.
15:31 And having more free time.
15:33 In the next story, Archie hasn't decided on the topic for his sociology assignment.
15:38 Why did Dilton change his hairstyle?
15:41 He doesn't suit his personality.
15:43 Archie says he'll relay his research straight into his dick joke texts.
15:47 He's told that while it may be able to read his brainwaves and compile his ideas into reports, only Archie can control the content.
15:54 Archie would know that.
15:56 Dilton wonders how Archie's gonna make a visual presentation.
16:00 He says his model has an adapter to hook it up to the Computo Holo Simulator.
16:04 Too many technical terms that I'm not familiar with.
16:07 Eventually, Archie goes to his classroom, and his visual presentation includes showing what he wants for his future.
16:13 Including the fact that he wants to be rich and have both Betty and Veronica as himself.
16:17 His dream involves hoping that Jughead would be the mascot for a restaurant when it's instantly obvious, as they point out, that he'd prefer to own the restaurant over having such a humiliating job.
16:28 The dream shows Archie surrounded with beautiful women with Moose keeping them away from Archie.
16:34 And Midget somehow openly angry with him because, God forbid, his dream caused Moose to be surrounded by women.
16:41 Even though she knows he's faithful to her.
16:43 This is a horrible, spiteful story.
16:46 If this writer hates Archie so much, he should've just had a story full of slapstick against him instead.
16:51 Which is how Archie's stories are usually supposed to be.
16:54 Because suffering that doesn't involve slapstick usually has no chance of being entertaining.
16:59 Let alone funny.
17:01 The video shows off that Dilton would be the brains behind Archie's empire, figuring out the profit for his many companies.
17:08 Despite the fact that he's supposed to be a good person, and so he likes benefiting his friends.
17:13 Dilton doesn't like the idea of doing all the work for someone who sits back and relaxes, and somehow no one points out that that's how literally every job for someone as a boss is.
17:23 Like if an engineer has a boss, then that's how his life is doomed to be anyways.
17:28 The dream shows Archie kick Reggie because he's a servant.
17:32 And Weatherby is shown scrubbing the bottom of a desk in detention because he's faculty.
17:36 And there's a reference to ultraviolet graffiti somehow.
17:40 And predictably, somehow Weatherby had seen this, even though he had absolutely no reason to be in a random classroom instead of busy in the principal's office.
17:49 So everyone's mad, and all the slapstick against him is censored in a worthless dust cloud of nowhere.
17:56 When the franchise was all about showing slapstick from the beginning.
18:00 And occasionally it still does, so it's not... forced not to show it.
18:04 If you hate him that much that he wrote this story, why didn't you show the slapstick?
18:09 And Weatherby acts corrupt by pretending this never happened to him, even though he's obligated to enforce the rules of the school.
18:15 Betty's out of character by not feeling bad for him as the horrible mean-spirited story ends.
18:20 This writer was working something out.
18:23 It's blatantly obvious the main character should've been Reggie.
18:26 While it is frustrating that Archie dates Veronica, he usually has Betty as his love interest in this comic anyways,
18:32 and Reggie's clearly more unlikable than him.
18:35 Archie may have been unsympathetic in this story, but that doesn't excuse it.
18:39 In the next story, Dilton referring to aliens isn't enough to make Archie's problem unique.
18:44 He's got two dates for tonight, again.
18:47 And fortunately, the comics self-aware enough that Dilton says this happened over a thousand times.
18:52 The dates are on separate counts.
18:54 Still, why should that matter when he has a fast-flying car?
18:57 He must have one, because we saw a flying car in the sky in the first panel.
19:02 So Dilton offers to help him.
19:04 But there's a reason I started thinking of him as "Don't Trust Dilton".
19:08 Usually his inventions are contracted by the writer to backfire out of jealousy.
19:12 He offers him his portable wrist teleporter, and insists that he's got all the glitches removed.
19:18 I do love that the comic has continuity, though.
19:21 It's best for a comic to have that while staying episodic so that it's harmless to the creativity, hence.
19:27 And doesn't drag out the drama.
19:29 Archie wonders how to use the device, and Dilton's instructions are complicated.
19:34 There's no reason it'd be that complicated.
19:37 It cuts ahead in time to Archie at the mall with Betty.
19:40 Fortunately, it's explained that Dilton pre-programmed the coordinates for his teleporter.
19:45 But the fact that it's on a timer system is probably gonna backfire.
19:49 There's no reason it'd be that way instead of Archie just having to press a button.
19:53 But apparently, there's no way he could teleport himself without turning a dial halfway to the left and pushing something twice.
20:00 But if he's pushing something, that'd mean it's a button.
20:03 So why can't Dilton change the device so he'd only have to push it once?
20:07 I guess that's the only way it can work, because Dilton would've changed it for himself to be more convenient.
20:13 Someone as accident-prone as Archie, or anyone really, would probably lose track of time eventually and get warped in front of his girlfriend.
20:20 He says he's got a craving for a food that'd never be called sent.
20:23 Betty's uncharacteristically selfish by telling him to hold gifts and wait a minute, even though there'd be no harm in her just putting them on the floor.
20:31 If it couldn't have Betty be as mean as she was in the 50s, I'd rather have her make tons of interesting plots where she schemes to try to get Archie away from Veronica.
20:40 At least she was interesting then.
20:42 And he warps to near Veronica, who conveniently starts smiling in the very next panel and apologizes to him.
20:48 She says she's nervous because robot waiters aren't here yet, and asks them to serve.
20:53 But the next panel has him get warped to the women's dressing room of all places somehow behind Betty, when he wasn't there when he warped away in the mall last time.
21:02 Betty thankfully stops being annoyed in the next panel.
21:05 Why did she tell him to help her try on hats when she wouldn't need help?
21:09 These are her hats, so why would she want him wearing one?
21:13 I wish it was a different girl entirely, 'cause she's acting like Veronica.
21:17 Why would she be so mean as to force him to wear a hat just so the ridicule that Veronica calls "hat" stupid?
21:23 She tells him to ask one of her dad's biggest business clients to dance.
21:28 She would've heard him say "I believe that."
21:31 But somehow she doesn't, because in the next panel, she's happily dancing with him.
21:35 I guess she forgave him.
21:37 Nine minutes later, Betty bitches at him, accusing him of trying to embarrass her when it's instantly obvious he wasn't trying to do that.
21:45 'Cause she's not blind, and she should know how demanding Veronica is.
21:50 So she'd instantly understand that he felt pressured into a date with her regardless.
21:55 So I assume Betty's responsible for a few of these people being on the floor.
21:59 She seems mad, and the story ends with Archie inexplicably getting warped to a domed moon station.
22:06 The writer was really jealous, my god.
22:09 What a terrible story.
22:11 He should've been written to do something actually wrong at the start of the story, and then I'd think he deserved all of this.
22:17 He should've been Reggie instead.
22:20 The first story is by Dan Parent.
22:22 The second story is actually by Paul Costigula, which is the same name as the Archie Sonic writer.
22:28 Too bad I'd have to especially hate Archie to enjoy it.
22:31 So he should've been Reggie instead.
22:34 The third story is by Bill Gallaher.