Walking Dead, 73-84

The Walking Dead, issues 73-84. Robert Kirkman & Charlie Adlard.

As was suspected in my review of the previous hardcovercollection, things in the new community have turned bad, and then gotten worse. This seems to happen whenever Rick takes over leadership in the community from someone else. 

Rick becomes the sheriff of the new community, with Michonne as his deputy. I like this step in her character growth, showing that she is more than just a warrior. Rick’s first major act in this position is to take on an abusive husband, which eventually leads to the man’s death. As a prize, Rick seems to have claimed the widow for his own. By the end of the arc, Douglas has all but abdicated leadership to Rick.

In this volume, Andrea moves from sharpshooter to legitimate hero at one point, although at the end of the arc, I think she may still be in the watchtower. I hope someone comes for her soon, it must be getting lonely up there.

Carl calls out his dad on his “talking” to Lorie on the phone, and it seems to have shocked Rick out of his delusion. I have heard a long-term theory that The Walking Dead will eventually turn into Carl’s story, and may not be Rick’s story much longer. I can understand how readers get to that conclusion. There was a specific scene involving Carl and Morgan that leads me to believe that Kirkman may be planting that type of seed. 

Except that in the last issue in the arc, Carl is shot, and appears to have lost an eye. And in this series, it may end up worse for him than that. Again, Robert Kirkman has successfully brought our expectations to one point, only to deliver us something very unexpected.

This series appeared on a recent Buzzfeed list of “sixty comicsthat everyone should read.” And rightly so. It is a legitimate modern classic.

That Buzzfeed list was, by the way, discussed on 3 episodesof Shortbox Showcase, a podcast I co-host with my daughter, on our RelativelyGeeky podcast network.

Source: public library.