Jughead's Time Police 1

From Wackywiki

[edit] Information

Comic

Year: 1990

Publisher: Archie Comics

[edit] Cover

Brace yourself, folks. It doesn't get any more stupid than this.

Now what front cover would you expect to see when you think of "Jughead's Time Police"?

Maybe Jughead wearing a goofy sci-fi cop uniform? Probably someone making a stupid joke?

This is really really far from what I pictured:

This is a picture worth millions of words. I don't even know how to express what exactly is wrong with everything we're looking at, so I'm not going to try. I'll just briefly mention how dumb it is that they have a little blurb telling you that if you want to know what happens inside the comic, you have to read it. If this is the kind of deductive genius they expect of their readers, it means horrible things for their complex time travel story.

[edit] A Yen For Spaghetti

[edit] Chapter One

Argh. I should have expected lots of really terrible exposition. It still kind of hurts. And come on. His time travel device is his stupid hat? Yeah, this is going to be really really bad.

Wait, he doesn't have to study? You don't freaking mean...

Ugh, that is a horrifying abuse of your miracle technology, Jughead.

Ahem. I'm sorry. I guess I jumped the gun. Maybe this comic isn't quite as stupid as I thought.

...no, it probably still is. It's way too early to assume they're going to be clever about how they handle time travel in an Archie comic.

"The River of Time must forever flow!
Why this should be, I do not know!
All I can say is, it has always been so!
To change but a day brings nothing but woe!"

Great idea. Make up your own Green Lantern oath on the spot and then stick it to the wall in your room so your family and friends can see blatant evidence of your super-secret highly-important job protecting the entire space/time continuum.

My favourite part is "Why this should be, I do not know!"

He's in charge of policing space/time and he doesn't even know why it's important.

I think the more pressing question is why Archie has a mullet.

Hey, how can I cram as much exposition as possible into just one sentence? I KNOW!

Seriously. Who the hell talks like this? What exactly do people say when you greet them with, "Hey! Bassist Mark Damon of the Alternative Rock band The Pretty Reckless, my cousin's ex-husband from New Hampshire"?

Beloved? Are these two an item or is that just some weird term of endearment for platonic friendships I don't know about?

Did someone not get the memo on Jughead not being into girls? Or is this just some weird thing about some girl having a crush on him and him brushing it off? If the two are dating, isn't that kind of weird considering she's his best friend's great great great great (etc.) granddaughter? And isn't she interfering with the flow of time by having a relationship with someone 900 years ago? What if they have children they're not supposed to have? What if Jughead's supposed to end up with some other woman and have a family but this relationship prevents that from happening and now people don't exist that are supposed to exist. MY BRAIN!

Oh haha, yeah! Time travel sure is wacky, huh, folks? Actually this panel just raises so many bizarre questions for me. How do these time travelling relationships work? The last time he saw her is probably not the last time she saw him. Maybe in her timeline they're a couple but in his he's only met her a few times. Maybe next time he meets her she won't know him at all. Maybe after that she'll be handing him divorce papers for a marriage he didn't know about.

Why is there a time constraint? These two have time machines. They can take as long as they want.

Okay, so I guess that's how time travel works in this. He gets erased from the timeline but he still physically exists. Kind of like It's a Wonderful Life, I guess. Huh. I never thought of it as a time travel movie before.

I get the feeling these writers watched an episode of Doctor Who once and said "What? This is stupid. He isn't even making time puns."

Also, I have to wonder about this Watchtower. Does it exist outside of time? That would be pretty cool. Otherwise, shouldn't they specify when they're meeting? Or are they going straight there in present day? Well, evidently not because they're using their time machines to get there.

I don't get it. There's no reason they all have to work on it at the same time. Can't some of them go back 100 years and get a headstart? Someone should already have the solution by now because they can go to any time period and spend as long as they need to fix it.

Jughead, you spectacular idiot. You're the last line of defence against ruptures in space/time, probably the most important job in the entire universe, and you're totally flabbergasted that one day you might have an enemy.

The middle of the 21st century? That's good. That means you have about 500 years to fix it even if you don't use time travel. Wait, or are they in the future? How does this work?

STOP IT!

Seriously, STOP saying the word "time" in every freaking sentence! SHUT UP!

Okay, so he wasn't erased from time because of his stupid hat, but he WILL get erased by time despite his stupid hat because... time... displacement... or something.

Bonus points for: "Will this be Jughead's last time travel adventure?" This is issue number one and he hasn't done anything. He has to have a first one before he can have a last one.

Why even try to give it a cliffhanger when the story's going to be continued in two more pages?

[edit] Chapter Two

Seriously? Jughead's one of their best field agents? Then how come he's totally bewildered by everything and you constantly have to explain stuff to him? Oh wait, maybe you went back and grabbed a Jughead from before he was one of the best field agents and didn't know it. See how confusing time travel is? It takes a smart person to write time travel, and being an Archie writer means an automatic F on your IQ test.

Look at this! Right after the panel where you establish Jughead is your best guy, he's gawking at the equipment in the room. It's not even impressive, compared to the giant time computers. It's just a motorcycle, some swords, and... what are those? Wrenches? So is this a garage or an armoury?

Time turbulence!? Whatever. I'll just buy that. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. Got it. But once again, how is Jughead such a great agent if he doesn't understand how to use your most essential equipment?

...what he intended is not a matter of opinion, girl Archie. And you really shouldn't be criticizing jokes when your idea of a laugh riot is constantly throwing out common expressions that have the word time in them just because that's your job. Can you even imagine if police dramas pulled this kind of crap?

"We caught the perp trying to cop a feel, detective."

"Do I detect a note of sarcasm, Quinn? Fill out this paper work, police and thank you."

"That's a cop-out, sir."

So apparently this secret time headquarters is just out in the open where anyone can see with big giant clocks to advertize themselves. And they have a special spray that instantly teaches you an ancient language because... of RNA... wait! Did Jughead just say "Ah so"?

Oh dear Buddha. Yeah, the racism meter just shot from 0 to 78 in two panels.

Jughead, you big dope. Not only is that the lamest thing you could possibly say, it also doesn't make sense. Unless you're in the Matrix, you're already holding hands for real!

Again, how is this idiot their best agent? Ever since you made that remark you've been carefully methodically contradicting it at every turn.

Archie writers are the laziest writers I've ever seen. They don't even name their characters. I'd love to see them write a season of 24.

"Secret Service Agent, President says to escort Ambassador to Secretary of State's office. Oh, and Wife called and said to tell you Sister is sick but she's seeing Doctor tomorrow and is really looking forward to our weekend away with Friend in Location."

Hey, remember how you were waiting here to spring a trap on whoever came back to disrupt time? Well, you forgot to do it, you numbskulls.

Also, apparently Jughead time-travelled in his sleep. Wake-up call, idiots. Jughead should not be trusted with this kind of responsibility!

Also, remember how they said numerous agents were lost in time when they tried to fix this? Jughead may have wiped out a half-dozen or more people because he's an idiot who SLEEPS IN HIS TIME-TRAVEL HAT.

[edit] Chapter Three

No, no, NO! Here's what you do: Since you guys messed up and just let other Jughead ruin time, you need to go back again and this time make sure you stop him beforehand. Under your current plan, the original food is still gone, the master chef still witnessed a man from a different time period trespassing in his kitchen and stealing an important meal, you're attempting to recreate Ancient Chinese food using Ancient Chinese ingredients and tools with your limited knowledge... there are SO many things wrong with this plan.

Oh, and then just go up to the Khan himself and try to pass yourself off as students of the master chef right after he probably just alerted all the guards that there are intruders in the kitchen.

So let me get this straight, great Khan. A very important foreign dignitary has come to your kingdom. The master chef is late in bringing food to your all-important guest, then he disappears, and then two strangers show up with the food claiming to be mere students, and that the master chef is ill. You can come to one of two conclusions here.

Option A. They're telling the truth, and the Khan is greatly insulted in front of his important guest by having the food prepared late and by mere students. Option B. They're lying and are probably spies here to poison Marco Polo.

With just a little bit of investigation, he can talk to "Servant" who directly witnessed the master chef preparing the food, and he can track down the master chef and confirm that he is not ill and that he has never seen these students before. If he CAN'T track down the master chef, that's just as suspicious because if he was really ill, he would be at home resting. Either way, these strangers are lying and probably spies.

Oh wait, never mind. According to the Khan, all is well. It's a good thing that the leader of a powerful kingdom in the middle of a gigantic war across the globe is so stupid that he could be assassinated by a man slowly approaching him with a knife saying "Do not be alarmed. I am just a potted plant."

And way to cutely poke fun at the Khan's culture right in front of him. Jughead has inter-chronological incident written all over his smug stupid face.

Wait, so Marco Polo refuses the food that he would have just eaten if they hadn't come along and tried to make it themselves? And what kind of explorer goes to another country, meets with their ruler, and then insults their food like that?

So to stretch this ridiculous plan even further, Jughead goes forward in time to bring Marco Polo some modern Italian-American food rather than the traditional Chinese food that Marco Polo would bring back to Italy that would later develop into Italian pasta?

And yes, that's not a mistake on my part. Spaghetti and Meatballs was invented in New York City. It's not a traditional Italian dish. I did my research.

Holy crap, that is the most racist thing I've ever seen. Who wrote this?

Okay, Mr. Margopolous. Your tasteful handling of Italian and Chinese culture is even worse than the damage these guys did:

Jeez, can this guy not say one sentence without insulting the Chinese? Also, Jughead, you don't need to explain who the food is for when you order. Actually, I wonder if Jughead said that because Archie writer Rich Margopolous actually does this? Is he the miserable buffoon that calls pizza places and holds up all the customers while he takes the time to explain exactly what he needs the pizza for?

I know I'm harping on that "best agent" thing a lot, but seriously, that one line created more plot holes than all the ridiculous time travel crap. Also, Jughead's eyes are absolutely horrifying.

Another major issue is this new story element they've introduced about how he can't arrive before he departed. This creates so many problems. First, they were standing right there and watching a past version of Jughead eat the noodles and did nothing about it. They DID have some hokey explanation about how they were out of sync with time, which is why they were invisible and had those weird outlines. Fair enough. And it might explain why they didn't resync with time and stop Jughead from eating the noodles.

However, the problems are still manifold. Like, Jughead didn't know they couldn't do that, so he should have tried to stop himself. If Jan knew he couldn't interact with himself, she could have told him to stay out of sync and take care of it herself. And she said simply arriving before he departed would cause a time rift, even if he doesn't interact with the other Jughead, so does that mean that there can never be two Jugheads existing at the same time regardless of how close they are to each other? That means he needs to keep extremely careful track of when he time travels so he doesn't overlap. It means that he can't time travel to any point in the past after which he was born. If he needs to go forward in time to the Time Police headquarters (which he'll need to do many times), he has to make sure it's at a point in time he didn't already go there. And the biggest problem I see is that even if it explains why he himself can't physically stop his former self from eating the noodles, he can still explain to Jan how and when it happened and she can go back to the night before and warn him not to wear his time-travelling beanie in his sleep. PROBLEM SOLVED IN LESS THAN A MINUTE.

What is wrong with Jan's face? Is that her best Chinese impersonation? I don't get it.

Anyway, that's pretty ridiculous that Jughead would tell an Italian explorer that this "Chinese" dish has an Italian name like "spaghetti". Also, remember how Marco Polo's objection was that the food looked like worms? Guess what? They still look like worms. It's the same fricking dish but with sauce and meatballs on it. And since a man who travels the world trying exotic foods is apparently so turned off by the fact that one type of food has the same basic shape as something else that's gross, I wouldn't be surprised if he says the sauce looks like blood and the meatballs look like testicles.

[edit] A Timely Look at the Time Police

What's so timely about it? Considering this is after the climax, it's far from timely. Obviously the only reason it was called such is because they want to squeeze in another time word even though it doesn't mean anything.

Haha, nice uniform guys.

Wait, they just openly recruit people off the streets? This isn't a paper route, you idiots. Did you forget that one of your own agents' carelessness nearly altered time and erased the existence of multiple people?

...wait, you made the careless buffoon your poster boy?

[edit] Spending Time With Jughead!

AAAARGH!

How do you not know how obnoxious this is!?

Why wouldn't we know that!? What do you think we've been reading for the last 18 pages!?

Wait, that's the reason everyone puts up with you? That's why you're one of the best agents? Jughead's pretty much that kid that nobody wants on their team, but he's the kid with the ball so they have to let him play.

Look, if his beanie is so advanced, why doesn't the time police just go into the future where that technology is more prominent and then get some for themselves, rather than putting up with an idiot who accidentally destroys the fabric of reality when he gets hungry?

Oh, and now that I think of it: A time machine that lets you travel in time just by thinking about it? CATASTROPHIC DESIGN FLAW. The more harmful a device is, the more security measures you need to have in place. A pistol has a safety on it. A missile requires people to turn a key before it can be fired. Since a time machine can wipe out the entire universe, designing it so it operates purely on thought is the worst thing you can possibly do. One moment you're on the toilet thinking about how cool it would be to visit the Ottoman Empire, the next moment you find yourself accidentally taking a crap on the sultan's throne and as a result, somehow erasing Albert Einstein.

[edit] Chapter Four

Here's a hero!? For clumsily slapping together a solution to a problem he caused? Didn't they say that some of their agents died?

Oh man. Okay. Let's start with the obvious. Jughead's crappy poem became the Time Police's official oath? That's like if some dumb kid's Nintendo rap made it into a Legend of Zelda commercial, except instead of a commercial for a video game it was a government agency charged with protecting all of reality.

"I'm no Will Shakespeare" is the smartest thing Jug's said so far, assuming you cut off the rest of the sentence before it all goes downhill. He looks proud of himself now but wait until he's old enough to look back and realize how awful his oath was and to know it's been immortalized.

And wait a minute. Why is he only learning the oath now? They let him carry a time hat by himself that allows him to time travel in his sleep when they haven't even taught him their basic oath? Again, it's like he's brand new and doesn't know what he's doing yet, but somehow he's one of their best agents. YES, I AM STILL HARPING ON THAT.

Finally, I have to point out that a slip of paper is not going to survive throughout the ages for future archeologists to find and marvel at its brilliance. That stuff falls apart after a few decades.

Ms. Grundy, if one of your students is suddenly able to write in perfect ancient Mandarin, that's a cause for a bit more alarm than simply walking to a Chinese restaurant and asking the owner what it says. And knowing this comic, I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Wong saw Mrs. Grundy walking in and promptly directed her to the white old lady restaurant.

How do you accidentally write Ancient Chinese, anyway? It's not like the questions were written in Chinese. But then again, this is a guy who accidentally went back in time to the Mongol era and ate Marco Polo's lunch. How are the others in the class just laughing at Jughead's wacky antics rather than being freaked the hell out? Spontaneously learning one of the most complicated languages in the world is not something that anyone should be able to do.

And really? You just HAD to end with another lame "time" joke. Archie Comics, I hate myself for loving you.