The US comic book character Archie started out in 1941 in the days after the bombing of Pearl Harbour. He was a cartoon version of the Andy Hardy films, sentimental comedies that celebrated ordinary American life, with Mickey Rooney in the starring role.

The films ended in 1958. Rooney died in April. Archie outlasted both.

Archie Andrews (for that was his usually forgotten surname) died on Thursday in the July issue of Life with Archie.

For a comic that sought to venerate American values by celebrating ordinary lives, Archie's was an all too familiar American form of death.

He took a bullet for his gay friend, the newly-elected Senator Kevin Keller, introduced as the first openly gay character in the comic four years ago.

‘‘Archie is not a superhero like all the rest of the comic book characters,'' Jon Goldwater, the publisher of Archie Comics, said. ''He's human. He's a person. When you wound him, he bleeds. He knows that. If anything, I think his death is more impactful because of that. We hope by showing how something so violent can happen to Archie, that we can – in some way – learn from him.''

Assassination was all so very far from the Archie of old, a 17-year-old fictitious character renowned for his all-American wholesomeness, his divided passion for rich, glamorous Veronica (Lodge) and sporty girl-next-door Betty (Cooper), his friendship with Jughead (Jones) and friendly rivalry with Reggie (Mantle).

Archie and friends first appeared in Pep Comics #22 on December 22, 1941.

The cartoon characters were created by publisher/editor John L. Goldwater, written by Vic Bloom and drawn by Bob Montana. They were based partly on people Goldberg met while travelling in the American midwest during the great depression, and Montana’s friends during his school days in the Massachusetts town of Haverhill.

The Archie universe was centred on fictional Riverdale, a small town that lived up to Sinclair Lewis’ 1920 observation that main street American was ''dullness made God’’.

Indeed, small town America was big in the golden era of comic books – for instance, Clark Kent started off his earthly existence in Smallville – but unlike the Superman characters who littered the cartoon comics of the era, Archie was different, a flawed everyman who somehow muddled through.

Archie Comic attempted to keep Archie contemporary. He had his own radio show in the 1940s. In 1968 at the height of bubblegum music, a fictional band based on the cartoon, the Archies, topped the US  charts with Sugar Sugar. In 1990, the film Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again, portrayed the characters at their high school reunion 15 years after graduation.

With the internet closing in, Archie’s creators tried to reboot him for the 21st century in 2010. In January that year he passionately kissed a black character, Valerie, on the cover; in April Riverdale High School welcomed its first openly gay student, Kevin Keller, and in May Archie married Veronica after a 68-year courtship.

Killing super characters has become a profitable sideline in the comic trade. Superman went to heaven in 1992 and received such blanket coverage that DC Comics gratefully resurrected him. Spider-Man’s alter ego Peter Parker and Steve ''Captain America'' Rogers also went to hell and back.

In fact, although Archie died this week, the dead man is the older Archie who married Veronica in 2010. Other, freckle-faced teenage renditions of Archie will continue to have eternal life in Archie Comics' series.