"Mr. Inferno", "The Big Put-Down", "The Temptation of Jughead"
"To" much? We are apparently in a "make no alterations" spot in reprinting this one.
I don't think the conjecture on the famous "Betty and Veronica sell their souls to the devil", that it was originally written for Madhouse, is accurate. The basis for the claimant is that the story does not read like the material published in the regular comics and that it fit the material published in Madhouse. The problem is that both premises are wrong. The Devil is just one more supernatural or cryptid entity that walked through Riverdale in the early 1960s. And this was not Archie's Madhouse's style. Loosened code -- the Betty and Veronica sell their souls tale had the identity as "Mr. Inferno". The better To play with the expressions on "devil". To be sure, the story where the devil tempts Jughead for hamburgers mentions no devil, but gives more sets and fixed details.
Also coming round to egg on the gang, apart from Archie, talking down Riverdale High and refusing to express school spirit.
Not that the the devil visage was unknown in Archie Comics -- see that Devil and Angel on the shoulder motif -- and enter frequent the angelic Betty devilish Veronica, and see to the Reggie Devil. Mr. Inferno, now placed in as a "key story", gets bumped in for Archie versus The Predator 2, where a meta-narrative gets them to pull out of this eternal high school (stuck on that for three quarters of a century, right?) and, urm... (spoiler warning) get on to their New York City lives as a loving lesbian couple. With a non speaking Archie Predator creature in tow, so I guess it is a trio still.
And so is that current period of Archie -- sell off the characters for use in other properties. Last batch -- Minor Threats, Clerks, and Army of Darkness. Here I guess it is amusing to skip from the first Predator crossover series in the Archie house style to the different art style and tone for this second Predator series. Archie Versus Predator was cute and clever, looking at part 2 I shrug -- but hey! They brought in a reference point from the historical comics! (And The Army of Darkness crossover has the look to it of an Archie house style variant for Afterlife With Archie). Surely the series will drag in some old Archie story or reference.
