Archie Horror is always something I enjoy looking at for this time of year and much like last year, I am looking at another YA anthology they released. Whereas last year’s focused on campfire stories and the monsters one would find in the woods, the anthology I’m looking at this year is all about evil toys. Evil dolls in particular, taking dolls and making them evil is nothing new, it is another way to take an aspect of childhood and strip it of the innocence we associate with being a kid. One of the earliest examples of an evil doll can be found in The Twilight Zone.
However, the stories in this comic pull from a more well known killer doll and a newcomer to the genre as the first story is a riff on M3GAN and the second borrowed slightly from Chucky.
It’s funny but while I’d say neither of these stories are scary, they have dark elements whereas the wraparound story is quite horrific especially in how it ends.
Cover
This cover really does a good job selling the creepiness compared to the cover from last year where it was fun, there are very few hints of fun in this cover looks weathered as though you are going into an attic in your grandmother’s house that you hate going in.
The first story, Love Evernever focuses on Evelyn Evernever who before this I only knew from the Riverdale TV show where she was part of a cult. Here though, she’s an outcast at school as people call her a creepy doll girl. She has her doll, Minerva that she loves dearly. And yeah I get it, the bond between owner and doll is special. I have a favorite plushie and would be distraught if anything happened to him.
This story starts off in a fit of jealously as Veronica sees Archie helping young Evelyn as she almost forgot her doll before heading back class and if you know anything about Veronica, well. Things only get worse when Archie (he’s barely a character in this anthology) gives Evelyn a smooch as she realizes she forgot her doll, Minerva.
In a rather horrifying scene, we see that Minerva had been smashed to pieces by Moose. Yeah, Ronnie put him up to this. She is a mean girl after all.
This only serves to isolate Evelyn even more and as we learn as the comic goes on, she made a deal with an unseen figure who would later star as a main character in a story in this comic to bring Minerva back to life. Well, things backfire and she ends up as a doll herself.
This is such an eerie way to end the comic but she’s become the thing she desires most. Again, this is a common trope of horror stories where the protagonist becomes a doll in the end with no escape.
Something you’ll notice with these stories is that revenge is a major focus by characters that believed they have been wronged. We also see this in the second story, CH3RYL. Yeah, you can tell what movie this is riffing on.
We follow Midge who wishes to have a girl best friend as she explain to Moose.
This story deals with Midge constantly being bullied by Cheryl on the cheer squad and making her feel like she isn’t good enough. That’s where CH3RYL comes in. (This is confusing). The robotic doll becomes very protective of Midge and if you’ve seen M3GAN, you can see where this is going. CH3RYL says she isn’t a doll but c’mon. Also the more she learns about Midge, the more protective she becomes as she has a Midgemeter.
CH3RYL plays on the fears of technology and AI and how they can learn so much about us without our consent by just observing us. This is a very true fear and also a more adult fear imo.
The robot learns more about Midge and helps her to grow confidence in herself. Things come to a head at a sleepover at Cheryl’s house for the cheer squad where CH3RYL confronts for Cheryl as Cheryl has constantly been calling Midge, a Smidge. And she didn’t like that, so she kills the girl and takes her life.
Midge is starting to miss her actual friends like Moose but the robot doesn’t want Midge to have any friends but her and also takes Moose’s life blaming him for planting the idea of Midge needing other friends in her life. However, his death also ties back to what he did to Evelyn’s doll.
Our last story is the lightest and the shortest. It’s also my least favorite as I have no true attachment to these characters. I know Archie Horror likes bringing back obscure characters from Archie’s long history. One of my favorite one-shots from Archie Horror, Strange Science does this in a beautiful way of reimagining a long forgotten character, Dani and imagines her as a trans girl and while the comic wasn’t scary when I read it, it was hard as she traveled into a dream where her younger self was still that scared little boy.
This is a beautiful and cathartic moment, I’ll probably look at this next Pride as looking at this month feels wrong. I know I’m getting sidetracked but there isn’t a lot of substance in this story as it’s a quick story about a character named Chester Pluckington who finds an evil doll, he says he’s an action figure but c’mon. And he thinks it’s a birthday present from his boss, a mad scientist named Doctor Doom (insert Marvel joke here). It was actually a birthday present for the mad scientist’s son, Young Rouge but Chester decides to kill him.
Sadly, it happens off panel. Now, we’d gotten hints that Chester had a part to play in what happened with Evelyn and Minerva. In a make a deal with the devil deal, Chester promised that Evelyn would have her doll again if he brought her the person who did this. She thought she had as she brought him Moose but learned too late it was Veronica who put him up to this and because she brought the wrong soul, she now ended up as her doll.
My Final Thoughts
This comic unlike the first YA anthology leans more into the horror whereas the first was more light horror, the stories aren’t very light here and it has such a downer ending but then again, Goosebumps was known for unhappy endings. While I prefer horror that instills hope, there is room for all types of horror on the table.
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