Relationships
Reggie is Archie Andrews's rival, and he has a perennial crush on Veronica. In one story, it is said that Veronica was the only other person to evoke any kind of emotion on Reggie other than himself. The fact that she loves Archie makes Reggie jealous, so he enjoys making Archie's life miserable by playing practical jokes on him, sometimes going as far as making everyone turn against Archie.
Reggie's main love interest throughout the comics run is Veronica Lodge.
Ironically, many of his schemes backfire and allow Archie to be the victor. Sometimes, Reggie's ego is his own downfall, as he can sometimes be overheard bragging about his scheme. While Veronica often does date him, she sometimes does so only to make Archie jealous. Despite the rivalry, he and Archie are generally amicable and remain good friends, and often spend time together pursuing dates or practicing athletics. In Archie's Double Digest #201, during the possibility of Archie moving, he eventually had to admit he would miss Archie, whom he called his best friend.
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. In reality, however much they deny it, they are good friends who care about each other. However, their relationship is rarely stable when Archie is not around, as Reggie and Jughead have very little in common.
Reggie is insanely jealous of anyone else but him being in the spotlight, and will sometimes deliberately cause them trouble to get what he wants. During the Baby Tales storyline, for example, at a baby shower for the Jughead Jones's family, he was infuriated that they were the stars of the evening. He tried to change this by making fun of Jughead's family. This infuriated everyone in the room, until Ethel Muggs, who had come 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.
In another story, Reggie deliberately breaks an expensive vase of the Lodges and frames Archie for it; so he can take over his date with Veronica. He continues this horrid behavior at school, causing all sorts of messes, framing Archie for it, landing him in trouble with the teachers and principal. Betty Cooper helps Archie with cleaning a store room, when Reggie attacks her. For that, she summarily thrashes him.
Veronica scolds Betty for nearly ruining "Reggie's aristocratic profile". When Archie criticizes the spurious contention, Veronica yells at Archie to shut up, blasting him with her "aristocratic mouth" to coin Jughead's phrase. Eventually, Reggie is thwarted when Jughead removes the rotor from his car, which strands him and Veronica, to the humor of the police.
Other than Veronica, Reggie is romantically interested in Midge Klump, who is the girlfriend of one of Reggie's athletic teammates, Moose Mason. This infuriates Moose, and Reggie has received some unkind, sometimes almost brutal, 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 very rare occasions, however, Midge does date Reggie out of her own choice, having prevailed upon Moose not to interfere, because she is known to get frustrated over the direction her relationship with Moose goes.
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 to be her date, not because he pities her, but because he genuinely likes her. In one memorable story, Reggie is genuinely touched when Betty knits him a sweater as a thank-you gift. They proceed to date, where Betty comes to discover the gentleman in Reggie. However, when they start to kiss, Reggie whispers Veronica's name whilst Betty whispers Archie's. They laugh it off and revert back to being friends, but smile meaningfully at each other at the end of the story. In the newer Life with Archie series in which it looks to a future where Archie marries Veronica, Betty and Reggie are portrayed to be a loving couple. In one Archie comic Reggie tried to date who he thought was Veronica-but was actually Midge in a wig! This resulted in Reggie being pounded up as usual by Big Moose.
He is also known to date Cheryl Blossom occasionally. The two have very similar personalities, and at one point, before she began dating a boy named George, tried going out together. Like Betty and Veronica, however, Cheryl mainly uses Reggie as an alternative to Archie.
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.
Read more about this topic: Reggie Mantle