By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (penciler/inker), Cliff Rathburn (gray tones), Rus Wooton (letters) & Sina Grace (editor)
The Story: How will Rick respond to the plot against him.
Five things:
As always, this is a FULL SPOILERS review….
1). This was a really “meh” story cycle. This climax and aftermath to the plot against Rick by the existing residents of Arlington was really blah. The hope I’m clinging to is that we’re just not at the finale yet and something BIG is right around the corner, but I don’t see anything imminent building. Last issue, the attempted coup against Rick got off to an incompetent and premature start when Glen overheard the plotters and the big reveal in this issue is that Rick let the guy live rather than executing him on the town square. It just isn’t clear what the point of this story was rather than to kill time for a few issues. On one hand, it really would be awful if stress like this were a daily occurrence, but it wasn’t that interesting to read about. I really am starting to think that Kirkman has too much on his plate between TWD, the TV show, all the ancillary TWD properties (novels, board games, video games), Invincible, The Infinite, etc.
2). Everyone seems to be pretty stressed. Rick’s feeling stress, Andrea’s feeling stress, the plotters of the failed coup are feeling stress, Maggie and Glen are feeling stress. It’s just STRESS everywhere. I think the idea behind this storyline is that now that the humans are “safe” behind the walls of their enclave, they can focus on just how screwed up their lives are going to be since they aren’t worried about being eaten by zombies. Some folks are going to be “glass half full” people like Rick who sees an opportunity to build something better. Some are going to be like the rebel leader who reveals that he was a loser in life before the zombies and that it gnaws at him that he’s a loser now as well. Actually, this last bit is an interesting addition to apocalypse fiction. So much of that genre focuses on the idea of rebirth and that “you can be who ever you want to be now”. That’s a huge appeal of the genre: That you can put all your loser tendencies behind you and be a new man after the apocalypse with all the ladies, big guns, no crummy boss, no credit card debt, etc. But Kirkman shows that in reality, if you were a loser before, there’s no reason to think you wouldn’t be a loser afterwards too because the smarter and more charismatic folks who out-competed you before are still going to be there (even if there are fewer of them).
3). Interesting angle with Abraham. Even though the coup failed, if there was anything last issue pounded home, it was that these civilians have NO hope of out-competing a group of hard-asses like Rick’s gang. So, how do you fix that problem? Well…..you’d have to co-opt one of them onto your side. And….what’s the most time honored way to do that? Well….probably to have a woman sleep with the muscle of the dominant group and whisper things in his ear. Abraham vs. Rick would be kinda interesting. Not sure I’d completely buy it given that Abraham is a career military guy (and NCO) who seems content to let Rick give orders that he follows (which is how most NCOs are, it’d be different if Abraham were an officer), but Kirkman might be able to convince me that this is a big deal.
4). Romance! How about that final panel, huh? This has kinda been building for a number of issues and it’s a real testament to Charlie Adlard’s art that you could just tell that Rick and Andrea might end up together. Think abou that…..there was nothing overt in the script, but there were little tidbits that Adlard dropped in the body language and looks that the two gave each other that indicated romantic interest. What’s funny is his art was giving me the exact same vibe between Michonne and Rick, but Michonne was barely even in this issue (which is a huge crime!).
5). Great issue for Adlard. Adlard always does a nice job on this comic, but this was one of his strongest issues in awhile. Not sure what it was, but it seems like he’s using a tighter style for the faces and going a little heavier on the inks. I like it a lot and hope he sticks with it because this style makes the faces more consistent from panel to panel.
Conclusion: This is shaping up to be the weakest TWD storyline ever. There’s still a lot of good dialog and character stuff and Kirkman may pull a rabbit out of the hat, but we need something cool to jiggle up life in Arlington. Have Michonne decide she can’t take it and run off on her own…. Have a serial killer on the loose in the community…. Have the stress get to someone such that they decide everyone would be better off dead and blows up the fence…. Have them try to sail a boat to the Bahamas to see if island living would be zombie-free…. TWD is like a shark: it needs to keep swimming forward to stay alive.
Grade: C+
– Dean Stell
Grade
Conclusion