Enduring American comic character Archie Andrews dies in the just-released July issue of the Archie comics, taking a bullet to save a gay friend. The death of the character was signaled by Archie Comics in April but it has now emerged he intervenes in an shopping mall assassination attempt on senator Kevin Keller, the magazine series' first openly gay character, who's pushing for more gun control in the series' fictional Riverdale setting. The plot twist appears in Life With Archie, a spin-off from the original series which depicts the characters in their adult years. The Keller character, Archie's best friend who is married to another man, is central to one of several socially-relevant themes which had been included in the Archie comics in recent years. The Archie series launched in 1941 and featured the exploits of a suburban American teenager and his friends.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 16th July 2014 - 6:39pm