One of the central conceits in Archie comics is that Archie is dating two girls, Betty and Veronica, at once. Veronica is the one Archie prefers to date, but since Veronica is frequently unavailable (physically, emotionally, or otherwise), and because Betty makes her attraction to Archie obvious to everyone--Archie included--Archie dates her when he can’t date Veronica. But the direction in which this love triangle’s arrows point is clear: Betty’s arrow points to Archie, but Archie’s arrow almost always points to Veronica. As a message for adolescent girls (who, I readily acknowledge, are the primary demographic that reads the Archie comics), this conceit is pretty awful. I can only assume that most girls identify with Betty (friendly, conscientious, largely invisible to the boy she has a crush on) rather than Veronica (self-centered, impossibly rich, the object of several boys’ affections). The message Betty’s actions sends to these girls is, essentially: Keep chasing that boy who likes someone else. If you're persistent, he will grudgingly date you whenever that other girl isn’t available. Self-esteem be damned!
To be fair, Betty’s love for Archie is frequently exaggerated for laughs, as the Archie comics are ostensibly humor comics. There’s one story in which Betty’s father is freaked out by all the Archie “memorabilia” Betty has in her room (dolls, posters, and pillowcases, etc., emblazoned with Archie’s face) as if he were a famous movie star instead of a normal teenager. At times it seems as if Betty is infatuated with Archie in the way that girls of the ’50s were infatuated with Elvis, girls of the ’60s were infatuated with the Beatles, girls of the ’70s were infatuated with Davy Jones, etc.
Furthermore, Betty--despite being the “nice” girl--isn’t above scheming against her rival, Veronica, in order to score a date with Archie through dishonest means. Yet by and large, Archie pushes poor Betty aside whenever Veronica deigns to spend time with him.
When I was reading Archie comics as a kid in the late ’70s and early ’80s, this always bothered me. My answer to the age-old question (“Do you prefer Betty or Veronica?”) was always Betty. She’s a sweet girl, just as cute as Veronica, but without Veronica’s spoiled attitude. I couldn’t understand why Archie was her only romantic option. Of course the supporting male characters in the books weren’t viable options (asexual Jughead, who prefers food to girls; obnoxious Reggie, who prefers Veronica exclusively; dumb jock Moose, who already has a girlfriend; brainiac Dilton, who may not be asexual like Jughead but who is certainly out of Betty’s league; all-around nice guy Chuck, who like Moose has a steady girlfriend), but surely another character could be introduced to provide Betty with someone other than Archie to crush on? As far as I’m aware, though, this never happened, and Betty was left to pine for Archie eternally. As such, my favorite Archie story is the one in which Archie finally acknowledges how his actions have the ability to hurt Betty’s feelings.
“The Last Kiss” (by Frank Doyle and Bob Bolling), which I read in Archie’s Double Digest 10 (reprinted from Life with Archie 120), begins with Archie dropping Betty off at home after a date. It's only 10 o'clock, but Betty and her parents are leaving early the next morning to visit Betty's grandparents. After Archie drops Betty off at home, he runs into Veronica on the street and offers to drive her to her car, which is a few blocks away. Betty (whose father has just sent her out for motion sickness pills for tomorrow's drive) happens to see this and is, understandably, devastated--because it appears as if Archie ditched her so he could start his “real” date with Veronica.
Poor Betty runs back to her father, who consoles her after she explains why she's so upset.
Mr. Cooper, who seems to have had about enough of Archie’s insensitive treatment of his daughter (for the past thirty years!), storms over to the Andrews household and starts yelling at Archie’s dad. But Archie, who’s already home (since he wasn’t actually on a date with Veronica--he was in the kitchen eating a piece of cake), comes running and explains the misunderstanding to Mr. Cooper.
Chagrined, Mr. Cooper apologizes, but everyone agrees that they can’t tell Betty the truth or she’ll be mortified that her father confronted Archie. So instead, Archie wakes up early the next morning to surprise Betty at the state border....
...Where he gives her what I have to admit (considering that he dresses up as a state inspector and goes through this whole routine about how Betty is smuggling contraband via her lips) is a pretty romantic goodbye kiss.
Naturally, this dispels Betty's hurt feelings, and she spends the rest of the eight-hour drive dreamily thinking about Archie and that kiss. Order in the Archie universe has been restored.
Does this one story make up for, as I mentioned above, thirty years of mistreatment? Probably not. But it’s still my favorite Archie story.
