Archie and his friends have been gracing the funny papers since it’s first appearance in Pep Comics #22 on December 22, 1941.  That’s a really long time, and pretty damn admirable for any title.   It looks one Archie, the main character of this long running series, dies this week.  We’ve known that since the big announcement earlier this year, but we didn’t know the how or the why.

Archie put himself in the path of a bullet meant for best friend Kevin Keller, the first openly gay character their comic universe.  “He dies selflessly,” said Jon Goldwater (Archie Comics publisher and co-CEO) during an interview with Associated Press. “He dies in the manner that epitomizes not only the best of Riverdale but the best of all of us.”  Wednesday’s issue has Keller as a newly elected senator fighting for tighter gun-control laws. The gun epidemic comes to Keller’s attention after his husband is shot trying to thwart an in-progress robbery. Archie Comics isn’t identifying who the assassin is before readers see it in print, however. The following issue will jump ahead one year and show fans how Archie’s friends and Riverdale honor the red-haired comic icon after his heroic death. “Archie is not a superhero like all the rest of the comic book characters,” Goldwater told the AP. “If anything, I think his death is more impactful because of that. We hope by showing how something so violent can happen to Archie, that we can — in some way — learn from him.”