1988: THE LOST ARCHIE COMICS ADVENTURE LINE IN COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE

From September 1988: An issue of COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE with details of a universe untravelled: Plans by ARCHIE COMICS to reboot their superhero characters for the 1980s.

They eventually settled on the name Spectrum Comics as the vehicle to retool and relaunch their heroes for the evolving Direct Sales market.  Ultimately, they decided they didn't want to take the company - or their characters - in that direction and abandoned the whole shebang, making it a fascintaing road untravelled.  The characters next appeared, now licensed to DC Comics, in the Impact line early the next decade.  Copies of most of those books can still be found in 50p boxes across the land.

1994: COMICS INTERNATIONAL ANNOUNCES PUNISHER VERSUS ARCHIE

From April 1994:

Guilty pleasure alert! I'm really rather enjoying the CW's RIVERDALE at the moment... regardless of the facts that I've never been interested in the 1950s Americana of the Archie comic books and that I'm way above the weekly target demographics for the show.

It's a lot darker than the comics have traditionally been and twists and subverts the familiar tropes throughout. Even if it has swiped at least one plotline from DAWSON'S CREEK. Archie himself is a bit of a dope (albeit with a great body which the writers connive to expose on a regular basis) who's saddled with the least interesting plotlines but the rest of the town is swirling with murder and secrets like a teen TWIN PEAKS.

Here's COMICS INTERNATIONAL announcing whst seemed to be one of the most preposterous crossovers in comicdom... at least until Archie made a habit of bumping into the Predator or encountering Sharknados.