By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (art), Cliff Rathburn (gray tones), Rus Wooton (letters) & Sina Grace (editor)
The Story: A finale to the Larger World story-arc hints at possible future conflicts.
The Review (with SPOILERS): Yea!!! We have a direction for the story leading up to issue #100! That’s good and it’s in keeping with the “TWD formula”: For the most part, we’ve always seen the big blob of crap coming before it hits the fan. That doesn’t mean that Kirkman has foreshadowed every tiny event, but we’re usually able to smell it coming. Consider the Governor or the trouble between Shane and Rick or the zombie herd that attacked Arlington. None of those things just happened out of the blue, we had a few issues to anticipate the danger and think about what horrible things might happen when all hell breaks loose. When TWD is at it’s best, the surprises are all in the details, not the general theme of the story.
The last story arc really suffered from a lack of direction and danger. I guess there was a chance the the inhabitants of Hilltop would be cannibals or otherwise hostile, but we’ve already seen those types of stories and readers are cynical enough to know that Kirkman is unlikely to run the exact same play twice. So, that left us with an overly long trek for the band to arrive at Hilltop; and it was boring.
As it turns out, Hilltop isn’t that much different that Arlington in that the folks inside are mostly sheep. Not many folks with sharp-teeth in this joint! About the only difference between Hilltop and Arlington seems to be scale: Hilltop is big enough to be self-sufficient; Arlington is not. Actually, just that difference in scale illustrates how TWD has played the with theme of TRUST. Obviously in the world of zombies, you can’t make it all alone. So, you have to trust people. Actually, you have trust a LOT of people if you want to have all the skills and labor supply that a self-sufficient society needs. Rick trusts Andrea not to slit his throat as he sleeps, but that isn’t enough. It isn’t even enough that he (mostly) trust the denizens of Arlington. To make it work, he’ll have to trust all of Hilltop too. However, bringing that many people into your tent means you’ll inevitably get some rotten apples (which means rapists, cannibals and murderers in this world).
And, the threat is clear: There is another group of people who seem to be hard-core baddies. They’re basically running a protection racket: Give us your food and we’ll keep the streets safe. Is it really surprising that organized crime would arise in the post-apocalypse? What’s also super cool is that we haven’t seen these baddies. We just know their leader’s name: Negan. Doesn’t that just sound awful? And we get the stray comment about a captive that “If Negan has Crystal, she’s already dead…” We also learn that the Hilltop-gang doesn’t even know where Negan’s base is! Holy crap! And, bad-ass commando/karate guy Jesus is scared of them. Did you get the sense that Jesus was remotely afraid of Rick’s group???? Me neither…
Combine all this mystery about Negan with the provocative imagery we’ve been shown for the upcoming issues of TWD that feature things like a bloody chainsaw and you just know that someone isn’t coming out of issue #100 alive. I guess over the next few issues, we should apply standard horror movie rules and watch out for whoever seems to be too happy, and perhaps be a little concerned about Rick’s sudden optimism and that public kiss on the cheek he gave Andrea.
The only big complaint with this issue and the general direction of the story is the timing. Why couldn’t this story have been running since Rick’s gang found Arlington about 20 issues ago? What was the point of the whole Arlington story-arc? Carl got shot and developed amnesia that quickly went away. Rick found a new girlfriend who suddenly died and was never talked about again. No one from Arlington is really a useful supporting character. Maybe the nurse? The black dude with dreadlocks who hasn’t been seen in 9 months? Hopefully Kirkman has learned his lesson and he’ll get the story right this time.
And how freaked out is Maggie back at Arlington? Remember, she was supposed to be babysitting Carl before he stowed away with Rick. He’s about as well supervised in the comic as the TV show!
The art is once again very strong. This isn’t an easy issue to draw. Nothing very energetic happens, so Adlard has to wring some energy out of talking heads. Thankfully, he is very good at that.
Conclusion: Even though nothing really happened, TWD has a positive direction and a looming danger for the first time in year or so. That’s good enough.
Grade: B
-Dean Stell
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