Wow, I did not realize how much I wanted to write that headline until I did.

In one of the stranger crossovers this year, Archie Comics and DC Comics are teaming up to release a six-issue miniseries entitled Harley & Ivy Meet Betty & Veronica. The book will be co-written by Paul Dini, a co-creator of Harley Quinn, and Marc Andreyko, writer on Wonder Woman ’77 and organizer of last year’s hit IDW anthology Love is Love. The series will feature art from one of my favorite creators on DC Bombshells, Laura Braga.

The story is summarized as follows:

HARLEY & IVY MEET BETTY & VERONICA starts with a plan for free college tuition for all Riverdale residents. The town just needs to build a new campus by draining the wetlands that lie between Riverdale and Gotham City.

The only snag? A certain botany-obsessed super-villain.

When Poison Ivy enlists her bestie Harley to kidnap both Veronica Lodge, daughter of Riverdale’s most important citizen, and her friend Betty, she’s counting on some assistance—and mayhem. Are these two teams of BFF’s headed for disaster?

While the concept behind the crossover boggles my brain, I certainly have to admit that it is pretty cool. Archie Comics Publisher/CEO Jon Goldwater latched onto the idea right away, saying that “It made tons of sense to have them crossover with DC’s own female powerhouses, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. What you’ll get is a fun story that honors the history of both pairs and adds to it – which is what all great crossovers do. We’re excited by this partnership and we can’t wait for the fans to see what Paul, Marc and Laura cook up.”

It is worth noting that Harley & Ivy Meet Betty & Veronica features four female leads but is solely being written by male creators. Braga is a welcome addition to the artistic side, but one wonders why women won’t be contributing to the scripts of this series.

DC’s crossover with Archie Comics follows hot on the heels of their team-ups with other comics publishers including BOOM! Studios (Lumberjanes/Gotham Academy) and IDW (Star Trek/Green Lantern, Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). For the number hungry, Batman/TMNT debuted to an incredible 134,526 copies sold in the direct market. Its 6th issue sold 64,911 copies to stores, which is pretty incredible considering the fact that most series see a 50% or great drop just between issues #1 and #2. Lumberjanes/Gotham Academy also did pretty well, beginning with around 20,695 copies sold to the direct market and ending at issue #6 7,919 copies sold to shops. Those numbers don’t include trade sales to book stores, Scholastic, or any number of other avenues where a title like Lumberjanes/Gotham Academy is likely to move much higher units.

Given the amount of coordination and rights wrangling involved in making collaborations like these happen, it’s clear that these crossover books are worth their weight in gold for all parties involved. Harley & Ivy Meet Betty & Veronica is definitely the most “out there” of these crossover books so far though, so it will be interesting to watch and see how it fares both critically and financially.

Harley & Ivy Meet Betty & Veronica #1 hits shelves October 4th, 2017.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

8 COMMENTS

  1. “It is worth noting that Harley & Ivy Meet Betty & Veronica features four female leads but is solely being written by male creators. Braga is a welcome addition to the artistic side, but one wonders why women won’t be contributing to the scripts of this series.”

    Virtue signaling at its finest. You are the only one who wonders why women wont be contributing to the scripts. These two sentences are why journalism is a failed enterprise in 2017. This level of reporting is appalling. You have taken a simple story about a press release and made it about YOU and YOUR ideals. Terrible excuse for a writer/reporter.

  2. Hi Adam! Thanks for commenting. If you’re willing to refrain from ad hominem attacks moving forward, I’m happy to talk about this with you.

    With that paragraph, my goal was to contextualize this book in a way that other sites or writers might not. I only asked a question that I think is worth raising– why does a book with four female leads and no male ones have no female writers? Obviously I have personal opinions about whether or not this was the right decision, but I never said whether the publishers were right or wrong to make the choices that they did.

    Does even asking the question indicate that I am taking a position? Perhaps. But if that is the case, I don’t think it should be. It would be SO much easier to just copy and paste the press releases that we get in our emails and call it day. But you could visit any site for that. Hell, you could just follow DC’s official blog if that’s all you wanted.

    If you’re coming to the Beat, I think you’re looking for context. You’re looking for new ideas and new positions. That’s what we hope to provide. I simply asked a question to open up room for dialog. Not to insult your values or anyone else’s.

  3. The logic of asking that question “why does a book with four female leads and no male ones have no female writers?” is lacking. It’s a question that only someone with an agenda would ask. It leads to only women should write women and men should write men, or at the very least that women should be involved with writing women at some point during the creation/writing process. So no man can ever have a story with a female character without a woman’s approval? That’s where we end up eventually.

    My values aren’t insulted. What I am insulted by is this level of “analysis.” It’s not analysis, context or even opening up a dialogue. It’s a writer with an agenda inserting their personal hang ups into a story that should just be about the co-creator of an arguably iconic character coming back to his creation for a story with another publishers’ famous creations. You take those two sentences out and you have a perfectly fine article. But leave them in, you show bias, unnecessary bias. You want to have that discussion about that particular aspect of the story, a well reasoned argument article is much better suited than a two sentence aside.

  5. I don’t think you need female authors to write a good story featuring females. Bruce Tim did well with female characters for the most part. But there was also the Bruce/Barbara pairing in Batman Beyond and the Killing Joke, both moves that I don’t like. Still the Wonder Woman/Bionic Woman has been ok so far. But I wonder if this story really needs 6 issues?

  6. I wonder why a women wasn’t assigned to write the article, what with it being about female characters and all.

  7. This sounds like a good crossover. I do wish they could have have Amanda Conner as a writer since her work on Harley Quinn is so fun.

    I don’t know why everyone is mad that the author asked about why there is no woman on the creative team. It’s a good question, and why I read The Beat. Adding your take on a PR release is pretty common.

  8. I agree with Alexander — since half of this team-up are villains, it should be co-written by an evil woman — perhaps Ivanka Trump or Chelsea Clinton.

Comments are closed.