Reggie Mantle

Archie Comics character
full name = Reginald Mantle III


caption =
creator =
gender = Male
first appearance = "Jackpot Comics" #5, Spring 1942 (as "Scotty")
"Jackpot Comics" #6, Summer 1942 (as Reggie)
hometown = Riverdale
school = Riverdale High School
job =
family = Ricky Mantle (father)
hobbies = Various sports
main love interest(s) = Midge Klump, Mina Lee, Veronica Lodge
radio actor(s) =
cartoon voice(s) = John Erwin
the archies instrument = Bass Guitar, Electric Guitar

Reginald "Reggie" Mantle III is a fictional character in the Archie Comics book. His full name is given as "Reginald Mantle", but he is usually called by his nickname "Reggie", and sometimes refers to himself as "Mantle, The Magnificent." The character was introduced in 1942. Like Jughead and Jellybean, he has been named after people in his family.

__TOC__

Fictional history and character

Reggie at one point says he was born in Texas, and he comes from a fairly well-to-do family, although certainly nowhere near the level of Veronica Lodge's. His father Reginald "Ricky" Mantle Jr. owns a newspaper-publishing company with varying names, one of which is "The Riverdale Gazette". Reggie seems to show journalistic aspirations himself, often working as the editor of the high school paper,Blue and Gold. He's quick to use the term "freedom of the press" to defend controversial or inflammatory articles. His mother's name is unknown. Two of Reggie's cousins have been introduced, May and Regina. (See below). Reggie is a very talented athlete who excels at football, baseball, basketball and hockey.

Reggie is vain and thinks of himself as God's greatest gift to women (this may be the reason why Veronica likes Archie more than him). Reggie is also a bassist for "The Archies" and occasionally lead guitarist after Archie, and naturally thinks of himself as the most important and talented member of the group -- and has gone to great lengths to prove it, such as hiring groupies to scream his name during concerts.

In spite of his evident upper-middle class status, he's remarkably cheap, and the first time his schoolmates remember him inviting them to a party, he had filled the room with vending machines from which to obtain the party food.

Although Reggie constantly teases and pulls pranks on the group (with some of them related to 'leaf' jokes), his antics are completely harmless. On certain occasions when he's feeling generous or whenever it really matters, Reggie shows a kinder side where he will come to the aid of his friends or total strangers... although he prefers to keep these good deeds secret. In one comic, it showed he had a close childhood friendship with an elderly woman named Mrs. Finklehoff.

Somewhat of a fashion plate, Reggie also has the distinct trait of being the character (even when compared to Betty and Veronica) who updates his hairstyle the most to match current trends. To name a few, he has worn his hair with sideburns, slicked back, short, shaggy, and, in the early '90s, even a few ponytails.

Relationships

Reggie is Archie Andrews's rival, and he has a perennial crush on Veronica. The fact that Veronica loves only Archie makes Reggie jealous, so he enjoys making Archie's life miserable by playing practical jokes on him. Yet many of his schemes against Archie tend to backfire and allow Archie to be the victor. Veronica also tends to use him primarily to make Archie jealous. Despite the rivalry, he and Archie generally respect each other and remain good friends. Like the rest of the characters, he is eternally in Riverdale High School.

Although he and Archie are rivals, but generally amicable, sometimes he will deliberately cause trouble for him, or others, to get something that he wants that he doesn't have. He is insanely jealous of anyone else but him being in the spotlight. During the Baby Tales storyline, at a prom like baby shower that the entire school, including all the students, faculty and staff, threw for Jughead and his family; he was infuriated that they were the stars of the evening (being that Mrs. Jones was pregnant with Jellybean) and that he was out of the spotlight. He deliberately tried to make Jughead and his family's moment in the spotlight, his, by making fun of his family. This infuriated everyone in the room, until Ethel Muggs, who had come to the festivities dressed as a stork; hooked the flyline from her costume on to Reggie's tuxedo, which caused him to be hung up for the rest of the evening, to everyone's amusement.

He has also framed Archie for breakage at the Lodge Mansion, and then makes his move on Veronica. This kind of cruelty occurred when Reggie deliberately breaks a Chinese vase, and frames Archie for it. After Archie, who was innocent of this particular breakage, was thrown out, Reggie immediately moved in and did everything possible to make Archie the goat. Among other tricks, he set up a booby trap in Archie's locker, with a bucket of water, and deliberately lied to Miss Grundy about who did it; making Archie to clean the floor, then startling him enough to cause him to hit Mr. Weatherbee in the face with said mop. This caused Archie to work in the store room, or else be strung up on the flagpole by his thumbs. Here, Reggie made a huge mistake, thinking Archie was in the store room, he threw a paint tarp on the person, hitting that person with a board and kicking that person, and was stunned to discover it was Betty Cooper, who had taken over for him while Archie was eating lunch! She summarily thrashes him.

Veronica, who in this story was acting as abominably as Reggie was, berates Betty for being unladylike and "nearly damaging Reggie's Aristocratic profile". When Archie snidely disputes Reggie's attributes, saying that Betty dropped him on his head, Veronica blasts Archie with her "aristocratic mouth". The pranks continue, culminating with Archie attempting to put a curse on Reggie for all the previous foolishness. Reggie disguised himself as a count, and with Veronica's help, pushes a local horse, to make them believe that he transformed into the creature. The curse against Reggie ended up going towards his car, when Jughead removed the rotor, causing him and Veronica to be stranded! This four-part story appeared in Jughead's Double Digest #12.

In the First Archie's Double Digest, another story shows Reggie trying to effectively turn everyone against Archie once again. He has him bound and gagged, after watching a movie in which a man uses mental manipulation against his wife; he uses the same trick in the movie against Archie. All in an attempt to discredit him and to take over as the president of the Student Council. At first, the trick works like a charm, until Reggie's overinflated ego ends up being his downfall, where he brags about his deceit to Jughead, who had a microphone hooked up to the PA system. Upon hearing his bragging, the entire school is infuriated, Archie is absolved, gets his job as President of the Student Council back again, and Reggie is sent to the school psychologist to see why he is the way he is, to his disgust.

He is also interested in another girl, Midge Klump, who is the girlfriend of another member of Archie's gang, Moose Mason. This infuriates Moose and Reggie has received some unkind, almost brutal to say the least, treatment from Moose at times. But Reggie never gives up on his attempts to date Midge, often thinking of ways to get past Moose by taking advantage of the latter's low intelligence or any other weaknesses. On at least one occasion, however, Midge does date Reggie anyway, having prevailed upon Moose not to interfere; and, on another occasion, when Archie openly asks Moose's permission to date Midge (and Moose furiously forbids it), Reggie goes out with Midge on the sly.

His most successful relationship was with an albino Korean girl named Mina Lee. He showed his rare humble, compassionate side to her and bought her a pet caiman (she named it "Reji" after him). Reggie found a job at the zoo for Mina, and she taught him Korean. She later was expelled because she brought Reji to school. It is unknown if Mina will have another appearance.

Other than Mina, Reggie is mainly attracted to Veronica and Midge, but he occasionally seeks to date other women, including Betty Cooper. Their relationship usually consist a playful banter between them. Whenever Betty is down because Archie forgets that he had a date with her, Reggie always steps up the plate and offers her to be her date, not because he pitied her, but because he genuinely likes her [http://www.archiecomics.com/library/bettyhistory.html] .

Sometimes, Reggie targets Jughead Jones instead, thinking that he is too lazy or stupid to do anything about it, and receives some payback when Jughead proves that he is smarter than he looks.

Reggie's pranks are usually harmless, meant to embarrass his victims rather than actually hurt them. In one incident when he tried to humiliate Chuck Clayton during a sledding contest, Reggie dug a pit for Chuck to fall into when he landed. Reggie filled the pit with sawdust to soften the blow so Chuck wouldn't be hurt, adding crankcase oil to make it stick and covering it with snow to conceal it. As Reggie told a friend who was helping him with the prank, "I'm not cruel, dum-dum, just clever!" As per usual, his prank backfired when he ended up jumping the farthest on the sled, landing in his own pit.

In another story, Reggie is sent by Mr. Flutesnoot to Mr. Weatherbee's office for putting a tack on a chair as a prank. Defending himself, Reggie disdains such a simple prank, pointing out to the principal that his pranks are more elaborate and better thought out. The Bee writes a note to the teacher explaining this, but when Reggie returns to the classroom with it, he discovers he still has a lot to learn about pranks--Mr. Weatherbee wrote the note in disappearing ink! In one "Archie" comic Reggie tries to impress the whole school with amateur movies which were directed/written/and staringReggie Mantle. Unfortunately for Reggie, the "movies" shown were actually the Mantle's "home movies" of Reggie's childhood-after an accidental switch! In another "Archie" Comic Archie tries to get revenge on Reggie by sending an obnoxious door-to-door salesman to Reggie-only for Reggie to received a $100.00 prize for being that salesman's 1000th customer! On an episode of 1970's "Archie's TV funnies" Reggie tried to produce a "Reggie Mantle Comedy Show"; after one showing-it was cancelled!

In one story, mirroring the George Orwell novel 1984, we see the serious side of Reggie. His father has printed a story about U. S. government waste and incompetence, in a complicated matter dealing with Mr. Lodge's companies; and a judge, apparently acting under pressure from military brass, ordered Reggie's dad jailed until he reveals his source. Reggie is furious and looks for a way to get his father released. The opportunity presents itself in the form of a contact between the judge and his pretty young secretary. Reggie has a camera, and snaps a picture, telling the judge he'll get it printed unless the judge releases the elder Mantle.

In another story, Reggie portrayed the super villain known as The Punster who tells people puns to paralyze them. He is also an enemy to Archie's Ashly Ashford/Ratman character.

Reggie's Relations

In one story, Reggie introduced his "country cousin" May Mantle (he called her that because she lived 20 miles out of town) to the gang. Although sixteen years old, she is mistaken for a pre-teen because she is so petite. She attends the next school dance. Right away she attracts attention--and Reggie is proud; this time he has a right to be. Dilton is at the dance, but the taller girls turn him down. May dances with Dilton all evening.

Recently, Reggie's other cousin Regina has come to Riverdale. She seems to be the female version of Reggie, a wise-cracking smart aleck with a penchant for annoying practical jokes. However, after she conned Jughead into taking her out on a date, she told Reggie that it was the "best date she ever had in her life," possibly setting up a romantic relationship between Regina and Jughead.

In an Archie's Weird Mysteries episode titled "Cinemadness", Reggie had a niece named Amy. Nothing is known that Reggie had an older brother or sister.

Reggie also had an uncle named Mike, who is a car salesman.

Publications

Reggie has starred in his own titles:

*"Archie's Rival Reggie" #1–14 (1950–Aug 1954)
*"Reggie" #15–18 (Sept 1963–Nov 1965)
*"Reggie And Me" #19–126 (Aug 1966–Sep 1980)
*"Reggie's Wise Guy Jokes" #1–60 (Aug 1968–Jan 1982)
*"Reggie's Revenge" #1–3 (Spring–Fall 1994)

Trivia

*In the Spanish versions of the comic book, Reggie's name is Carlos.
*The most common accessory associated with him is the mirror. A lot of jokes in the comics are on how he loves himself more than any girl, earning him the nickname "Reggie 'I-Love-Me' Mantle".
*Reggie is the only male in the Archie Comics history to have distinctly different hairstyles, including hippie sideburns, slicked back '50s hairdo, even a ponytail in the early '90s
*Reggie's favorite color is royal purple.

Friends

Archie Andrews, Moose Mason, Dilton Doiley, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Jughead Jones, Big Ethel, (also known as Ethel Muggs), Midge Klump, Nancy Woods, Chuck Clayton, and other characters from the Archie Comics.

External links

* [http://www.geocities.com/jughead_p_jones_12/reggie_mantle.htm Trivia on the character]