By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (art), Cliff Rathburn (gray tones), Rus Wooton (letters) & Sina Grace (editor)
The Story: Our protagonists split up with some staying behind to guard their compound and some heading off to warn Hilltop. Bad guys lurk everywhere…
The Review (with a SERIOUS SPOILER): 1. Brutal… Just brutal. – It’s been a LONG time since we got a death this gruesome in TWD. Consider the deaths of big characters and they’ve mostly been clean deaths. Lori shot, Dale died in bed due to wounds, Allen died due to wounds, Abraham shot with an arrow, etc… The only death in this series that compares to the death in this issue is Tyrese. He was a beloved character who got beheaded over a series of panels right in front of his friends. Tyrese wasn’t just killed, his body was desecrated and dismembered.
There are a lot of parallels between the death of Tyrese and that of Glen in this issue. Both were brutal. Both resulted in a body unfit for an open casket. Both happened right in front of friends and loved ones who were helpless to do anything. As the scene with Glen’s death began, you kinda thought he was just going to get beaten up. Negan had made some proclamation about not wanting to kill anyone since he just wanted half of their stuff, so I thought Glen might just get seriously fucked up. But then that first blow happened… And you could see that his skull was dented in. Then he gets blasted in the face– teeth flying, his face ripped–and I wondered, “Ugh, what kinda doctor will they need to fix THAT.” Then, WHACK, SPLAT, WHAM–and I realized that Glen was not making it out of this. That page where they show his ruined head… Just brutal and nasty…
2. What does this death mean? – I’ve said before in these reviews that Glen and Maggie kinda represent HOPE. They’re the young couple that showed that – even in the zombie apocalypse – young people will fall in love and make lives together. That’s just what people do. In this couple, you could see the beginnings of a new world. When you put the HOPE of Glen and Maggie together with the Alexandria enclave and the fact that the zombies have been reduced to “dangerous, but manageable,”you could really see how the world could rebuild.
Now, Glen is dead. That couple with the hope for tomorrow is gone. Even if Maggie is pregnant, she’s only having one baby with Glen. That ain’t enough to rebuild society. And mirroring this we have the protagonists in a bleak situation with Negan. You really can’t see a way out for them. It hasn’t looked this bleak for our “heroes” since they were held captive by the Governor.
It’s also interesting to see the faces of the companions as Glen is getting pulverized. Rick is open-mouth, shocked and helpless. This guy has had a lot of “failures” as the leader, but this one had to really hurt. He took the group down this cavalier path (“Don’t worry! We’re bad ass and we’ll take care of this Negan guy.”) and it’s lead to THIS. Can he recover his confidence? Will anyone ever have confidence in him again? Remember, Glen is who saved his ass during his first visit to Atlanta.
Carl just hides his face, but Negan has it right: he’s a future serial killer (if he isn’t one already). Maggie is just shielding Sophie. Maggie will be fine, but what about Sophie? Her mother already tried to commit suicide in front of her once and then fed herself to a zombie, and now her adoptive “father” is beaten to a pulp in front of her. Heath is just shocked; he hasn’t had to see stuff like this in a long time. And Michonne just looks angry. Look at her–no tears, no wincing, no shock… Michonne looks like the one who is going to get revenge.
And, my money is on Michonne being the one to get payback. She’s already been reduced to a “dead woman walking” by everything that happens to her. There is no one you can threaten to call her off. She’ll kill Negan before this is all over.
3. Turning into Mad Max? – Was the big zombie battle in issue #84 the end of the zombie threat? Since then, the zombies have been just annoying pests, like stray dogs rummaging the garbage cans. Did you notice that right before Rick gets ambushed by Negan’s men, Michonne had casually beheaded a zombie? Is that the symbolic end of the zombie threat (at least for awhile)? Now, we’ve got Negan filling the role of Big Humungous. Will the zombies come back? Who knows, but having just recently reread the Governor/Prison-era TWD, it was a high point of the series. The sense of dread and danger is something that has been missing for a long time.
4. Meanwhile, back at home… – If anything didn’t really fit in this issue, it was the attitude of the bad guys about to attack Alexandria. It really did sound like Negan wants these folks alive so they can gather stuff and give it to him. That makes sense as dead people generate no loot. And if Glen was killed as payment for the folks that Rick’s gang killed, why then attack Alexandria and wipe out a bunch of people who could gather things for Negan? Even then, it gives me the heebie-jeebies having Andrea in this much peril. Can’t say I really care about anyone else inside those walls, but Andrea would be a bitter loss for the series.
5. Michonne gets some lines!!!! – As noted above, Michonne was pretty deadpan about what happened to Glen. She’s really been through the wringer in her character arc. First she shows up with the zombified boyfriend. Then she is raped and beaten by the Governor. Then Tyrese is killed. Then Morgan dies. I can’t imagine she has much room for HOPE anymore. She knows how the story ends for her and seems to accept it. But it was still an interesting scene to see her acknowledge Rick’s leadership. True, Rick has gotten a lot of people killed over the course of the series, but Michonne seems to realize that it may not be his fault. She’s a tough survivor and understands that all decisions are likely to produce some bad outcomes.
6. Adlard’s art. – As noted above, Adlard wrings a lot of emotion out of this issue. Just his drawings of Glen’s misshapen head and then splattered head really made my stomach churn. But, he also got a lot of emotion out of Rick’s gang and captured the swagger and confidence of Negan. Just a great issue for Adlard.
Conclusion: This was the brutal issue that we knew was coming. Powerful and filled with images that will stick with us for a long time.
Grade: A-
– Dean Stell
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