In 2015, after the successes of Afterlife with Archie and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Archie Comics launched the Archie Horror imprint and published its third horror title, Jughead: The Hunger. The mini-series Vampironica and Blossoms 666, along with the previous three titles, make up the Archie Horror imprint thus far, and the talent behind the imprint know their horror genres. They successfully merged Lovecraftian horror, zombie plagues, witches, vampires, and even the devil with the teens from Riverdale. All attempts have been home runs when it comes to thrills and chills, and each miniseries provides new insights into Archie and his pals. Nowhere is this truer than in cursing Riverdale's favorite loner, Jughead, with lycanthropy.
In the one-shot comic that launched Jughead: The Hunger by Frank Tieri and Michael Walsh, two big secrets are revealed. One: that Riverdale's most popular outsider and eating machine Jughead Jones is a werewolf. Two: that girl-next-door and Archie's sweetheart Betty Cooper is a clandestine werewolf hunter. After the success of the one-shot, Jughead: The Hunger went to series. That's when it was revealed that those secrets are generational. Betty and Jughead's families have been hunting each other for ages. Betty's aunt, Elena, who leads the Cooper Clan of werewolf hunters, even had a doomed Romeo and Juliet-like romance with Jughead's uncle Jonah Jones. Today, she keeps his heart in a jar on a shelf.
Discovering that he's a werewolf is the ideal way to explore certain pre-existing aspects of Jughead's personality. An interesting element that occurs through all of the Archie Horror titles is that all the classic traits of the Riverdale teens get seen from fresh angles. For Jughead, his outsider status is magnified. Usually, he's just a misunderstood teen loner working out his teen angst as he struggles to find his place in the world. With the realization that he is cursed to turn into a werewolf and driven to kill, his desire to be alone becomes rooted in the safety of his friends and family. His melancholy is likewise given the weight of the generational curse on his shoulders, and his keen ability to know just a bit more about the folks in Riverdale than they know about each other is because he is now aware of the generational blood feud between the Coopers and the Jones.
In the first story arc of the ongoing series written by Frank Tieri with art by Pat & Tim Kennedy, Jughead's cousin, Bingo Wilkin, invites him to embrace his animalistic side, but Jughead clings to his humanity. Betty Cooper understands this and goes against the demands of her family to instead find a way to save him from the curse. As with the ways in which Jughead's personality is woven into his condition, Betty's position draws on her long comics history. She's always been taken as the perfect girl next door, but that stereotype masks someone who is determined, moral, and willing to brave hardship for her friends. Where Tieri's story triumphs is in applying extreme pressure to everything that defines these characters.
With Jughead: The Hunger, Archie Comics has created a modern misunderstood monster that is a nod to the classic Universal monster movies. What makes those movies so enduring is not the make-up effects or the thrills and chills, but watching a very human struggle with an extraordinarily heavy weight on their shoulders. How would someone deal with a curse? How would someone protect the ones they love from such a thing? Jughead: The Hunger successfully picks up where those movies left off and explores those same questions while giving the reader new insights into how much Jughead really cares about Archie and the rest of the Riverdale teens.