It was bound to happen, but given Archie’s history of clean-cut  (if not socially conservative) idealism, I’m still quite surprised by this news. Not to mention the fact that the company is known for its aggressive lawsuits regarding any sort of parody and satire of Archie characters … especially those with anything to do with sex.

Still, this could be a positive thing that further normalizes homosexuality, increasing acceptance in society; or it could end up smacking of tokenism like most black comic characters in the 1970s (Hey kids! I’m Black Lightning! I have the powers of lightning, except I’m black! Oh, here comes my friend Black Racer. He has all sorts of celestial powers. And he’s black!).

But I digress. The linked article makes a number of great (and funny) observations on the subject– “there’s not much point in inventing the telephone, if you haven’t built two.”

If nothing else, this is an indication that things have come a long way since implying that Smithers was gay in early episodes of The Simpsons. Plus Reggie finally has the opportunity to come out of the closet.

That’s right. Jughead was just a red-herring all along.

It's okay to be gay, Reggie!