The new Archie reboot comic has diversified the approach to the titular character and his friends for the past few years, and now they’ve taken things one step further. Jughead Jones, Archie’s friend best known for his love of burgers, has been confirmed (or for older readers, reconfirmed) as being asexual.
In Comic Book Resource’s preview for the fourth issue of his solo comic (which releases this week), a conversation between Jughead and a fellow student just up and reveals it without going into it any further:
Jughead being asexual has been something writer Chip Zdarsky has commented on in the past; over the character’s 75-year history, he thinks that “there have been sporadic moments where he has dabbled in the ladies, but historically he has been portrayed as asexual. They just didn’t have a label for it, so they just called him a woman-hater.”
And this isn’t the first character in the Archie universe to fall on the LGBTQA spectrum, as that honor falls to gay character Kevin Keller. Still, most comic book characters that are sexually diverse tend to be mostly gay or lesbian (there are bisexual or transgender characters, such as Sera in Marvel’s Angela: Queen of Hel series). As one of the few asexual characters in big comics, this change is a welcome one.
