Time to start catching up.
This comic suffered from a number of problems. The first is something I mentioned as seeming to be endemic of Archie comics in the 80s - the teenagers don't actually act like teenagers. I mean, yes, when an older teen is placed in a position of authority, as they are in this summer camp story, they can certainly be counted upon to act in an authoritative manner. But not all the time, and certainly not to the point of unflappable altruism that the Archie gang achieve in this story.
Oh, and, yes, the whole issue is a single story - always a tough sell when it comes to Archie comics.
The second problem is that the story really had very little to do with the Archie characters. They were background actors in their own story, so to speak. The main tale revolves around the trials and tribulations of three or four of the young people at the camp. While the main Archie characters offer facilitation of this story, the story isn't really about them. It's about these random kids that we'll likely never see again, and have never met before this moment. Were this not an Archie comic, were it simply a story someone wanted to tell about the changes young people can undergo at a summer camp, then it would have been a fine story. But because it was under the aegis of Archie comics, there's a certain expectation of those characters actually being front and center.
And they weren't, which made for a disappointing end to my 2 weeks of Archie.
Onward!
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