By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (art), Cliff Rathburn (gray tones), Rus Wooton (letters)
The Story: Rick’s big plan keeps inching along and the Spencer storyline pays off.
Review (with SPOILERS): Much like last month, this issue is divided in half, with one portion of the comic being much more captivating than the other.
The first part, showing Rick & Allies gathering troops to attack Negan, reminded me of waiting for my health bar to refill while playing a video game. You know, before you run into the big boss battle, you run off to the side, go prone in the corner and let your AI troops battle the bad guys while your health/armor refill? Rick has some troops, Andrea trains some snipers, Jesus picks-up some fighters in an old school bus… I guess we did need to see this or else there would have been complaining: “Where did all these people come from?”
Still, it wasn’t the most exciting thing we’ve ever seen.
There are a few nice character moments. I like seeing how content Michonne is now that she has someone to flirt with and I enjoy watching Rick and Andrea acting like a long-time couple. They almost seem like normal people.
Another shoe also drops in the political science analysis of these various colonies in Northern Virginia. I’d mentioned before that it was interesting that while Rick, Negan and Co. were applying face-paint and engaging in tribal warfare, the citizens of Hilltop were just paying their “taxes” to Negan and getting on with life. Hilltop is actually re-establishing a civilization with production of goods and services, places for children to play and go to school, etc. You can’t have all those niceties of society if the tribe is at war all the time like Rick is. Well, one other interesting thing about Hilltop: their leader (Gregory) is a spineless little pervert just like some modern-day politicians in “nice” societies. Go to the nasty parts of the world and their leaders are probably some properly HARD men (i.e. Rick, Negan, Jesus, etc.), but in civilized society you have politicians like Gregory who try to look up a pregnant lady’s hospital gown while she has a pelvic exam (shudder). After all the subtle political analysis in TWD over the last year, I think it’s safe to say that you’ll never see Robert Kirkman fawning at a real life politician.
And then Negan shows up and things get cool. What I love so much about Negan depiction is how Kirkman and Adlard capture that feeling of being totally off balance. Have you ever been around someone life this is real life? Even if they aren’t evil, you’re just totally on the back-foot the entire conversation because the person is jumping around from topic to topic and mood to mood. You never know what will happen next and it can make those people exhilarating and exhausting. They’re like the human equivalent of a haunted house.
THAT is what Negan is like, and I’m amazed that these creators are able to capture the frenetic feeling in the pages of a comic. There is one great example of this in the comic as we see that little weasel, Spencer, come over to chat with Negan. For the bulk of the page, it’s just panels of Negan talking about how much he loves Alexandria and how he bets they have a pool table somewhere and how Spencer is his new best friend! And then he abruptly shifts gears and say, “What the fuck did you WANT, Spencer?”
And then Kirkman makes you turn the page. That pause while you’re turning the page is where you imagine Spencer going -GULP- because the conversation that HAD been going so well has now taken a turn for the unpredictable See, this is one of those moments where you appreciate a gifted comic book writer like Kirkman. It isn’t just that he has clever ideas sometimes and writes pretty good dialog. He understands little mechanics like how to use a page turn for subtle dramatic effect. You see lots of writers use the page turn for a BIG REVEAL, but not many do it just to add the impression of an uncomfortable half-pause in a conversation.
Of course, the other big thing is what actually happens to Spencer. We’ve seen Spencer sulking around Alexandria for months. Basically he really liked Andrea and hated Rick because Andrea ended up with Rick. It’s a totally reasonable thing to imagine. Look at the crazy things that spurned people do in our everyday society, and that’s in a world where the gender ratios are still roughly 1:1. In real life, not getting a date with the girl you wanted just means you have fall back to hitting on her less desirable friend; in TWD, there probably isn’t a “less desirable friend” because the gender ratio is out of whack. It’s pretty easy to see how violence could happen.
I guess I’m a little surprised that Spencer ended up in a pile of his own guts. The way Kirkman had built him up as this lurking threat makes it seem weird to burn him this way. But it was effective. It reminded us again that Negan is a pretty brutal and volatile guy. It also showed how confident he is. Negan already knows that Rick hates his guts. It takes a pretty powerful leader to have someone as hateful and disruptive as Rick as an underling. Maybe Negan has more sand in him that we think.
The conflict between Rick and Negan is going to be very interesting.
Conclusion: Half of the issue reminds me of waiting for a status bar to fill. The other half reminded us what a crackling character Negan is.
Grade: B
– Dean Stell
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Conclusion