"I'm going to go back in time to make sure your parents never meet. I'll eliminate you from history completely! You'll never exist! A Riverdale without Archie Andrews! That'll be the sweetest revenge!"
— Vinnie Wells, Archie's Weird Mysteries, "Alternate Riverdales"
Archie Andrews and his friends began life in 1941 as a family-friendly comic. However, since around the turn of the 21st century, the franchise has become Darker and Edgier, with plenty of vile villains.
Licensed titles from Archie Comics (Mega Man; Sonic the Hedgehog; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures) can be found at their respective pages.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Comic Books
- Afterlife with Archie: Doctor Howard Lovecraft and his associate, Doctor Arthur Machen, are the seemingly kindly administrators of a hospital for the mentally disturbed. In truth, Lovecraft and Machen are servants of the Great Old Ones, having once tried to master them, but upon realizing the futility of such an act became the willing servants of the dark Outer Gods. They use the patients at the asylum as sacrifices for their masters. and when they realize young Erich Zann can use his music to repel them, they cut his fingers off and leave him to be taken by the monsters. Finally, revealing their intent to allow all humanity to become food or slaves to the Old Ones, they offer Sabrina the Teenage Witch as the bride to great Cthulhu himself.
- Jughead: The Hunger: This interpretation of Reggie Mantle proves to be a far cry from his mainstream counterpart. After nearly being killed by a transformed Jughead, Reggie discovers that he gained the powers to transform into a werewolf. Reggie slaughters every doctor in the room before attacking and forcibly turning Veronica, Mr. Weatherbee, Moose, and Cheryl into werewolves, convincing them to form a pact with the goal of killing Jughead. Reggie has Jellybean, Jughead's younger sister, kidnapped, and sends a message to Jughead that if he doesn't come to their hideout, she'll be killed. Having his pack attack and viciously murder countless innocents of Riverdale while waiting for him, when Jughead arrives, Reggie and his pact attack him, and try to force-feed Jughead the innards of their slaughtered victims, Reggie threatening to feed Jughead's own sister to him next. While fighting Jughead, Reggie boasts about how he's embraced being a werewolf and that he takes pleasure in preying on the weak. Reggie then tells Jughead that after he kills him, he'll kill Jellybean anyway, and then hunt down and kill every family member of Jughead's, all to spite him.
- Vampironica: Sir Francis Lodge is an elder vampire and ancestor of the Lodge family. A privateer in the 1580s, Francis attacked ships to slaughter all the crews to feed himself until his crew committed mutiny. Washing up on what would be Riverdale, Francis killed multiple natives and then settlers, fighting a bloody war with the werewolves before being supposedly killed. Returning in present day to hunt down Veronica and drain her, Francis is willing to slaughter any teenager in his path.
- Chilling Adventures Presents...
- Betty: The Final Girl's "Be Mine Or Die": The unnamed Serial Killer has stalked and murdered 9 girls throughout Riverdale in a variety of ways, from poisoning them to burning them alive. Sending a message to his latest target, Brigitte Reilly, the killer breaks into her home when she's alone and hunts her down. Upon catching Brigitte, the killer ties her to a chair, ecstatic to torture Brigitte to death with a knife in order to "make her his Valentine".
- Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe of Horrors: Pop Tate proves to be far more sinister than his mainline counterpart. Regularly having citizens of Riverdale kidnapped and murdered, Pop uses their corpses for dishes to serve to cannibalisic humans and monsters alike. If an employee does a poor job serving the monstrous out-of-towners, Pop allows them to murder and feast on said employee. After attempted dine-and-dashers Nick and Sherry work off the money they owe him, Pop rips out their souls and traps them in coins for the jukebox, having inflicted the same fate to several other teens who crossed paths with him.
Live-Action TV
- The Trash Bag Killer (TBK) captures and mutilates women while they are still alive, cauterizing their wounds until they expire. With a trail of bodies in multiple states, TBK only frees Betty out of a belief she'll become a murderer herself and later stalks and torments her, fixated on killing everyone around her until Betty finally breaks and accepts him.
- Season 6:
- Percival Pickens is a centuries-old Satanist sorcerer from the Rivervale universe hellbent on ruling the town with enslaved ghosts. Transported to the Riverdale universe, Percival begins corrupting the townsfolk, even going back in time to make it a place of racist hatred. When defied by the heroes, Percival summons Biblical plagues, culminating in killing many of Riverdale's firstborns, and when finally damned to hell, spitefully sets Bailey's Comet to destroy the town.
- "Chapter 98: Mr. Cypher", "Chapter 115: Return to Rivervale", & "Chapter 116: The Stand": Louis "Lou" Cypher, the Devil himself, comes to Rivervale intending to rob the town of its beacon of hope, Pop's Choc'lit Shoppe, and damn its residents. A vicious trickster, Cypher makes Betty see visions of her family in Hell to coerce her into joining his army and spares Veronica only on the promise of being given a soul per week, while ultimately hoping to conquer Heaven with his forces.
- "Chapter 100: The Jughead Paradox": Dilton Doiley of Rivervale is an unassuming physicist hoping to observe the effects of universes colliding. Trying to keep Jughead in the dark about the destructive event, Dilton means to let billions perish just to view the phenomena.
- Season 7: Clifford Marion Blossom is the corrupt Mayor of Riverdale in the 1950s timeline. Secretly a Soviet agent, Clifford uses his maple syrup farms to hide a research facility for a super weapon, uncaring for the radiation caused by his work painfully killing his workers. Clifford has any who discover his crimes killed and even threatens to murder his own daughter should she defy him.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
- Faustus Blackwood, High Priest of the Church of Night, succeeding the more progressive Edward Spellman, takes the church back to its barbaric roots while aiming to raise himself in the eyes of Lucifer. Upon the realization that Lucifer intends to elevate Sabrina Spellman and not himself, Blackwood attempts to murder the entire coven, with no hesitation about killing his own illegitimate daughter Prudence, nor in sacrificing his twin children for more power. Allying with Pagan deities to end the world, Blackwood makes himself the herald of the ancient Eldritch Terrors, killing many people and using their power to create an Alternate Universe where he rules Greendale and any opposition is tortured and executed. Attempting to gain the power of the Void within Sabrina, Blackwood cares nothing if almost all reality burns as long as he gets to rule the remainder.
- "A Midwinter's Tale": Mr. Bartel is one of the single most terrifying demons in the series. Bartel poses as a friendly Santa so he can lure in "beautiful" children, like Susie (later Theo) Putnam. Once Bartel has them, he has them dipped in hot wax and uses dark magic to preserve them forever in "beauty" while they are terrifyingly alive and conscious, with one statue still able to shed tears. Bartel has a massive collection of such statues, bragging how he makes them himself while intending on having Susie/Theo join them.
- "Drag Me to Hell": Friendly ice cream man Jimmy Platt is a depraved Satanist who bargained away his soul and is instructed to buy it back with that of an innocent. Deciding there's nothing more innocent than a little girl, Jimmy proceeds to abduct and murder the children, eating their hearts every seven years. Upon learning Sabrina is in charge of hell, Jimmy intends to blackmail her for more life, or he will simply allow the girl to die before trying to murder another little boy anyways to extend his existence.
Western Animation
- "Mega-Mall of Horrors": Calvin Gianni Avericci was an insatiably greedy shopaholic who made a Deal with the Devil, getting all that he could ever want in exchange for becoming a demonic servant of the Underworld, charged with providing it with a steady stream of young, innocent souls. Traveling from town to town, Avericci sets "Mallhalla" up overnight, lures teenagers into it using hypnotic music, and gives them credit cards that they can use in the mall's various stores, which are all stocked with whatever their hearts desire. Once a card's credit limit is reached, Avericci has its owner "pay up" by turning them into an immobile — yet fully aware — mannequin, which he places on display in Mallhalla for days or even weeks before sending it to Hell. Avericci's music lures all of the young people away from local businesses, causing them to go under, and erases everyone's memories of the abducted teenagers, making it seem like they never even existed. Within weeks of arriving in Riverdale, Avericci manages to turn every one of its teenagers into mannequins, except for Jughead Jones, who he decides to simply kill when Jughead proves able to resist the temptations offered by Mallhalla.
- Time-Travel Trilogy: Vinnie Wells was just a two-bit thug until he got a hold of the Chrono Field Generator, a time machine which he tried to use to rob the Riverdale Bank. After being thwarted by Archie Andrews, Vinnie teams-up with his future self, and together the two torment Archie by repeatedly altering history before creating a timeline where Archie is a pariah and Young Vinnie is God-Emperor of Earth. Old Vinnie then tries to stop Archie from being born, but instead accidentally erases his own past self before becoming lost in the time stream while fighting Archie. Eventually escaping back to present day Riverdale, Vinnie decides to simply destroy the town and kill everyone in it using a time-displaced Tyrannosaurus rex. When the beast corners Archie, Vinnie taunts the teen by describing how happy it makes him that Archie's last thoughts before dying will be of how he failed to prevent his family, friends and beloved Riverdale from meeting the same grisly fate.
