Villainess Review: Morgan le Fay (Jughead's Time Police)

I've written about a number of villainesses on Vocal, usually from TV, film, or some true crime stories. For this story, it's a first--delving from the world of comic books. In this case, it's from Archie Comics. Why? It's simple. Riverdale will kick off its seventh and final season. I beamed when I learned about this show seven years ago. I've been an Archie Comics fan for 30 years, and when I learned about a show centered on the Archie characters, I was in! These were not the characters I grew up reading, but I was all in because of that!

I have my mom to thank for my Archie Comics fandom; I received an Archie comic book for my seventh birthday, and it ended up leading to spending the remainder of my elementary school years collecting Archie comic books and digests. I've read a lot of Archie comics for years, and it's included a lot of their themed alternate universe settings. Stories I recall include Archie 1 (which takes place in prehistoric times), Archie 3000 (taking place in the future), The Man from R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E. (an homage to the spy movie/TV craze in the 60s; I still vividly remember reading one story where Veronica was a villainess in it), The Mighty Archie Art Players (basically a Broadway-type play in print, with the characters acting out different roles), among many others.

The centerpiece of this review is Jughead's Time Police, which centers on Jughead Jones (my all-time favorite Archie character) being part of a futuristic scientific agency known as the Time Police. His partner in his quest was January McAndrews, a deputy in the Time Police, and yes, if you recognize part of that surname, you should; she's Archie Andrews' descendant from the 29th century. Only six issues were released, but it's the second one where business really picks up.

The second story, "A Riverdale Jughead in King Arthur's Court," saw Jughead and January travel to the year 1275, as there was a lot of havoc being wreaked in that period. They come face to face with said havoc maker very quickly. Enter Morgan le Fay (yes, that's the name; based on the evil sorceress in stories from that time period), who--as January revealed--was once part of the Time Police and was in charge of patrolling the time stream to search for time disruptions that could raid history. Instead of doing her duty, Morgan turned heel and decided to raid the future, and as January (who stated that she knew that hiring Morgan was a mistake) also revealed, the weapons Morgan stole were from the 34th century, and she was planning to become the most powerful woman in history.

Morgan fired her shot at the pair, which held them at bay for a bit before Jughead deflected her latest attempt. She escaped, but she later unleashed a mother tyrannosaurus (which wasn't supposed to be thawed until 2022; thank goodness that was nipped in the bud) to wreak more havoc. Yikes! The duo acquired the help of famed magician Merlin, who founded the Time Police and was also Jughead's ancestor, to refreeze the dinosaur, which was followed by Morgan appearing and taunting the group, which included a young King Arthur. Morgan escaped and collected her latest haul, but she was confronted by Jughead and January, who appeared in the 29th century and arrested the villainess. However, that's not the last we see of her.

The sixth and final issue, "Bring on the Jugheads," saw Morgan inside her cell, vowing to escape. When the guard returns, he suddenly sees January inside, with January claiming that Morgan escaped and somehow placed her in the cell. The guard frees January, only to be pushed into the cell by "January," who is revealed as Morgan, as she used molecules to disguise herself as January. Now that Morgan was free, she was off to commit her act of revenge against January and Jughead, and it was quite a heinous one. She actually went back in time to plague Little Jughead (a Little Archie cameo), doing so by freezing him in a time zone before being encountered by Jughead and January. Morgan froze the latter and fired her blast at the former, fully believing that she had disposed of both of her foes for good.

Unbeknownst to the villainess, Jughead had actually went back in time, just a few months back to phone himself, and informed him about Morgan and her escape. The pair of Jugheads later went back to another time and acquired a third Jughead, with all three returning back to Little Jughead's home and fighting against Morgan. All of Morgan's attempts to blast the trio failed, and she actually ended up being undone by, of all things, a pie--Little Jughead's pie--being tossed in her face. The slight distraction allowed the triumvirate of Jugheads to free January, which resulted in Morgan being frozen and arrested once again.

Oh man, where do I start?! The entire series was released during 1990 and 1991, and regarding Morgan le Fay...wow!!! So as Morgan's debut unveiled, she was more that just your typical corrupt cop. She was a megalomaniac. She was power hungry. She was ruthless and, yes, even murderous! She was flat out insane and deliciously evil, and I was here for all of it. I loved Morgan's dialogue, I loved her power hungry demeanor, and I especially loved her attire! It was a typical early 1990s look, but it was just amazing as hell and very typical of a bad-ass and powerful villainess. Staying on that subject, there's one woman in particular who I think could play this villainess in a live action setting.

Here's why I have Eve Torres in mind as a live action version of Morgan le Fay. When I first read Morgan's debut story, it was back in 2012--to be exact, around early 2012. During that same time, Eve turned heel for the first time in her WWE career, and she was gaining a lot of steam in very little time as a WWE villainess already. Also, the first thought I had when I read that story: "She looks so much like heel Eve Torres." If some genius who's also an Archie Comics fan, or maybe some of the people involved in Riverdale, ever turned Jughead's Time Police into either a feature film or a limited series, I would love to see Eve Torres as the evil Morgan le Fay. I think she would be golden in that role, and she would act out Morgan's villainous ambition and recite her snappy dialogue perfectly!

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Check out Morgan le Fay's profile on Villainous Beauties Wiki!