In 2017, Marvel Comics’ U.S.Avengers sent Sam Guthrie/Cannonball to Glenbrook, a bizarre fabrication inspired by the Archie Comics town of Riverdale.
Way back in the 1940s, Archie Comics (originally M.L.J. Magazines) introduced readers to the idyllic small town of Riverdale, as well as the core gang of Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge and Jughead Jones. Archie and his friends have endured throughout the decades and has been reinvented multiple times along the way, including the recent television drama Riverdale, which premiered early in 2017 on The CW. It was later that very same year that Marvel Comics offered its own bizarre take on Riverdale and its inhabitants, courtesy of the shape-shifting Skrulls.
Writer Al Ewing and artist Paco Medina’s 12-issue Marvel series U.S.Avengers concluded in the fall of 2017 with the two-part “Cannonball Run” storyline, which revolved around Citizen V (formerly Sunspot), Red Hulk, Dr. Toni Ho, Squirrel Girl, Tippy-Toe and Enigma trying to locate their missing teammate Sam Guthrie/Cannonball. Sam had been lost deep in outer space — so you can imagine his surprise when he finds himself in the picturesque “American” town of Glenbrook.
Not long after arriving in Glenbrook, Sam is introduced to red-headed teenager Ritchie Redwood. Ritchie is an obvious parody/homage of Archie Andrews, closely resembling the rebooted version of the character introduced in 2015, which served as the basis for KJ Apa’s version on Riverdale. Shortly thereafter, Sam meets Ritchie’s friends, including his love interests, Becky and Vanessa. The other residents of Glenbrook appear to be deeply afraid of Ritchie, referring to him as “your majesty” and “my liege.” This provokes anger from Ritchie, who reminds the others to “stay in character,” lest they meet the same fate as one Bugface Brown.
Ritchie brings Sam into the fold, making him serve as Glenbrook High’s new geography teacher, “Mr. Guthrie.” The mutant isn’t playing along, however, and attempts to escape, at which point he is violently apprehended. Things finally start to make sense when Sam is thrown in prison, where he meets a Skrull named Bugface.
As it turns out, Ritchie and Bugface are brothers. Moreover, “Glenbrook” is actually Kral X, a planet in the Kral System — an offshoot of the Skrull Empire dedicated to recreating pop culture from Earth. Under the leadership of Ritchie and Bugface’s father, Don Scarpone, the Skrulls of Kral X had an affinity for old-timey American gangster movies. While on a mission to seek out signals from Earth in order to find new inspiration, Ritchie — who was Don Scarpone’s second-in-command at the time — discovered a new obsession: The Ritchie Redwood Show.
Marvel’s apparent answer to the Archie Comics universe, The Ritchie Redwood Show was an old Earth TV series that chronicled the suburban adventures of Glenbrook teens Ritchie, Becky, Vanessa and Bugface. After falling in love with it, Ritchie began to convert his fellow Skrulls to Redwoodism. He even got two Super-Skrulls on his side, who proved vital in defeating Don Scarpone. Ritchie then banished his father and his loyalists from Kral X and began to reshape the planet in Glenbrook’s image with Bugface by his side.
However, the tension between the brothers began to brew after Bugface discovered that while the original Ritchie Redwood Show was canceled decades prior, it had been rebooted multiple times since, with episodes from more recent incarnations introducing new characters and plot points. Ritchie tried to give the new material a chance — or, as Bugface puts it, he “tried to try” — but ultimately became a Ritchie Redwood purist, rejecting the modern content. The final straw was when Bugface returned to his Skrull form and suggested changing the canon outright, resulting in a full-blown civil war.
With the help of his Super-Skrulls, Ritchie handily defeated his brother and had him imprisoned. From then on, he became a dictator, forcing everyone to stay 100 percent on-script — even going as far as to use machines to prevent the other Skrulls from transforming — and banning any Ritchie Redwood material not seen in the original series. Any and all dissidents were to join Bugface.
Sure enough, when Sam meets Bugface in prison back in the present day, Ritchie’s brother isn’t the only one there. The other political prisoners are Bugface’s Time Cops (a play on Jughead’s Time Police): Clay, Nina, Keith, April Flowers and Sabine the Sorceress.
Clay, Nina, April and Keith appear to be based on Archie Comics characters Chuck Clayton, Nancy Woods, Cheryl Blossom and Kevin Keller, who were introduced in 1971, 1976, 1982 and 2010, respectively. Sabine, meanwhile, is clearly based on Sabrina the Teenage Witch. While Sabrina was a fairly early addition to the Archieverse, making her debut in 1962, Sabine was apparently told by Ritchie that having her around Glenbrook at any time other than Halloween was “too much.”
What Ritchie probably didn’t count on when he threw Sam in jail was that the U.S.Avengers would not be far behind. The superhero team soon arrives in Glenbrook to rescue their comrade. Meanwhile, Sam breaks Bugface and the others out of prison. After the U.S.Avengers manage to defeat the Super-Skrulls, Ritchie tries to take on his battleform in order to fight them himself. Ritchie is thwarted when Bugface uses his own anti-transformation machines against him.
It is at this point that Bugface lets his brother in on the greatest irony of all: by ruling with an iron fist and using cruel methods to make sure everyone else stayed in character at all times, he conducted himself in a manner completely antithetical to everything Ritchie Redwood is supposed to represent.
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