Archie Meets the Ramones #1 (One-shot)

   Sometimes you spot a comic book and say to yourself, "No way."

   That was my reaction when I saw the cover of Archie Meets the Ramones.

   Having a meeting between the clean-cut kids from Riverdale and the punk rock icons has to be an inspired bit of lunacy.

   It's a trick for the two bands to meet, of course, considering that four Ramone "brothers" all had passed away by 2014.

   But the two collide thanks to a bit of magical intervention, and the story actually manages to be a bit of fun.

   It offers up the Ramones as a new inspiration for Archie and his friends (if somewhat inadvertently), and the story is something of a primer for the rock scene in the '70s.

   The story by Alex Segura and Matthew Rosenberg is a love letter to the Ramones, as today's readers learn about the classic band along with the (mostly clueless) Archies.

   The art by Gisele Lagace is crisp and expressive - not as grubby as you might expect for a rock band, but still lots of fun.

   And that's the goal here - to have fun with the meeting of opposites on the bandwidth of musical talents, as we see the contrast between one of the all-time great rock bands (though one that never enjoyed huge success on the charts) and a made-up band that somehow churned out one of the biggest hits of all time - despite the fact that they really didn't exist at all.

   (And thankfully, there's no mention of that song - "Sugar, Sugar.")

 Grade: A-

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