Some thoughts about Betty and Veronica #1

Betty and Veronica will have to fight for the same cause, or at least that's what one of them thinks.

Pop is about to close his restaurant due that a popular franchise is buying it but Betty believes there must be a way to keep it. However, she will have to deal with her usual rival to do so.

I have been interested in the release of this series for a while. Betty and Veronica have always been characters I found intriguing, not really because they were just Archie's girlfriends (because he's barely interesting by himself) but because the relationship between the two is pretty strange. They're supposed to fight for the same guy but at the same time they can get along just fine aside from a few dumb moments where they need to get into the dull love triangle trope. Now, this book is handled by Adam Hughes, does it deliver in its premise?

Nope! Not at all. In fact I find hilarious how much it fails.

The major problem that you will find since the early pages is the dialogue, is So. Damn. Weird. Is like the author is trying to be funny but only manages to make the characters sound awkward, all of them talk in unnatural ways with strange lines in every frikking word balloon and the worst part of this is that every character here speaks that way! There's barely any distinction concerning what comes from their mouths and that ultimately affects the characterization as well due that all of them sound basically the same, all of them sound crazy!

The pacing can also be problematic since Hughes tries to be witty by adding two pages full of word balloons that is making fun of themselves but despite of their self-awareness it still feels like a waste of pages and time. Is not funny, is not smart, is just pointless and dumb.

Finally, the idea of Betty and Veronica fighting is as old as time itself. Mind you, this time at least they're not fighting for Archie but I would have prefered a story where they actually get along to see how their personalities contrast and showing that despite their differences, they still can be friends.

But hey, I guess catfights are more appealing.

Hughes' artwork is pretty good with attractive characters and creative layouts but the storytelling can be a bit clumsy at times with characters moving and acting in strange manners.

Yeah, this seriously disappoints and I'm not expecting much from future issues. This is what happens when an author tries to sound clever but lacks the actual skills to pull it off.