Archie Comics to Kill ... Archie*

The bad news for fans of Archie: The comic book icon is going to die. The good news: He's going to die only in the "Life With Archie" series that is set in the future, reports CNN. The regular series with the usual crew at Riverdale High will continue. Archie's demise will come this July in the second last issue of the series. "Archie dies as he lived— heroically," Archie Comics CEO Jon Goldwater tells CNN's Henry Hanks. "He dies saving the life of a friend, and does it in his usual selfless way."

For those unfamiliar, the "Life With Archie" series explores Archie's life after high school and into adulthood. Typically, one storyline has him married to Veronica and a second has him married to Betty. News of the death makes Alyssa Rosenberg of the Washington Post a little sad because it doesn't seem to mesh with with "the franchise’s core purpose," she writes. "Superhero and crime comics teach us about all the ways we can die. Archie Andrews, in all his bumbling, indecisive, lovelorn foolishness, has always been a character who taught us how we want to live." (Click to read about other Archie storylines that made headlines of late.)