What happens when your partner breaks up with you? You get wasted of course! That's what Armstrong does when his friend and partner Archer breaks up their team after Armstrong sleeps with his sister. In this issue appropriately entitled The 3,000 Year Binge Armstrong's brother, Ivar, takes his distraught brother on a pub crawl through the ages (Ivar is a Timewalker) to visit forgotten eras and drink history's finest beers. I love that that's pretty much the entire issue a pub crawl with eternal superheroes! They start off in Thebes in 1336BC as Armstrong watches his younger self fight off an assassination attempt while necking Ancient Egyptian booze. I loved this scene particularly because Fred Van Lente continues to write Ancient people with 21st century sensibilities and vernacular so when one assassin asks another what their reward is for killing Armstrong, he's told that they'll be assured a luxurious place in the afterlife, which he considers for a moment and concludes that this sucks! Taking in Renaissance Vienna, Georgian England and culminating in almost-prohibition-era Chicago, Armstrong and Ivar get into a bar brawl (because what's a pub crawl without a fight?) and get swept up in a beer flood in the streets of London! It's just a really fun issue that has nothing to do with the main Sect Civil War storyline the series is supposed to be doing and focuses on getting the team back together, but not before Armstrong makes an ass of himself. Plus the "Beer Stats" panels are really fun, showing Armstrong's various stages of drunkenness, his blood/alcohol level, and how many pints he's had (with a warning not to drink 54 pints of beer as this will kill regular non-super-powered humans!). The brilliance that is Archer's War Journal continues as Dark Archer (as he's now called) sits in a McDonald's, bitterly describing Happy Meals as he contemplates his grave mission, before being alerted to Armstrong's condition in the past and has to take care of his unconscious partner. The team are back together and are as resentful of one another as ever (or at least one of them is)! Time to take on the Sects! Archer and Armstrong #15 is a super-fun issue in what has consistently been a hugely entertaining series. The odd couple pair continue to have great moments together and apart, and I really hope Van Lente keeps up the Archer War Journal in future issues it's too good to end! Khari Evans kills it in this issue, drawing the hell out of the multiple eras in Van Lente's script and makes the comic look as amazing as it always does. Another great issue in the series, this comic rocks!
Published by Valiant, Archer and Armstrong #15 by Fred Van Lente and Khari Evans is out now