This issue offered a mixed bag of goodies and one big stinker as well. As I generally prefer to end on a more positive note, I’ll get the negative out of the way first. The previous issue ended with a phenomenal and completely unexpected cliffhanger when Rick and company finally made it back to their prison home only to find it utterly overrun with walkers. The situation looked bleak indeed, and no doubt many readers braced themselves for the reveal in the next issue that many main characters who had been at the prison did not survive. But then within a few pages of this week’s issue, I feel like the walker threat was almost immediately discarded. The only character who died was Otis (and really who cares?), and everyone else is just fine and totally capable of easily dealing with legions of walkers. It just seemed like the prison being overrun by the dead would be a more terrible blow than it turned out to be. The previous issue depicted it as a major cliffhanger while this one demoted its threat level to a minor and completely manageable annoyance. I feel like it was concocted just for the sake of providing a cliffhanger and then cast aside when it was no longer needed. Kirkman possesses a mastery in the art of cliffhangers that few others do, but he jumped the zombie shark a bit on this one. However, one lousy cliffhanger among dozens of epic ones is not a bad track record by any means. But make no mistake. It was a lousy cliffhanger.

Okay, now that I can stop playing the part of a whiny critic, we can talk about the good parts of the issue. Michonne’s Gollum/Sméagol-like dialogue with herself seems to be getting worse after the horrors she endured at Woodbury. Obviously, talking to herself (or her deceased boyfriend or whoever she is in the mood to talk to at any given time) is a coping mechanism meant to help her deal with a lot of suppressed pain. She is not the type to easily open up to other characters, so she finds some relief by opening up to herself. Herself she can trust. It’s safer that way. Lonely, yes, but also safer than letting someone else in. It is worth noting that she has been carrying a lot of pain ever since we first met her. Her time spent in the roles of tortured victim and torturer in Woodbury did not produce necessarily new wounds in her, but they scraped maliciously against the ones that were already there. What makes Michonne one of the most captivating characters in this series (and quite honestly fiction in general) is that she is simultaneously a hard-as-nails survivor capable of mowing down hordes of flesh-eating assailants while also being incredibly wounded on the inside. Such a perfect blend of strength and vulnerability is rare, and Kirkman should be proud of Michonne perhaps first and foremost among all his worthy creations.

Speaking of vulnerability, the ever-capable leader Rick Grimes is forced to really confront the brutal truth that he is now technically at the mercy of a physical disability. Moving forward, Rick now only has 75% of his limbs, and that percentage certainly does not help his chances of survival in the zombie apocalypse. One of the most compelling elements of The Walking Dead series is that its main protagonist is a man with a serious disability from really quite early on in its run. Normally, we do not see heroes (especially central protagonists) with disabilities in series such as this. Thor loses an eye in Ragnarok only to gain it back in his next outing in Infinity War. Luke Skywalker loses a hand to Darth Vader only to have it replaced by a robotic one before the credits roll. Heroes in most cases can certainly get hurt and may even end up temporarily disabled, but seldom do those disabilities really last. Whether through magic or science, the limb that is compromised is usually restored. Not so for Mr. Rick Grimes. He must continue to lead his group and protect his family while also dealing with the ever-present reality of his disability. It was a bold move indeed and not an easy one to commit to, but it adds an intriguing new dimension of depth to the journey of Rick Grimes.

As for Martinez . . . Damn! He seemed like such a likable dude. Like Rick and the others, I really wanted to assume the best of him. I wanted to trust him. However, a bitter pill must be swallowed by Rick (and us readers) as he realizes how incredibly lethal trust can be in the fallen world he now inhabits. Perhaps Martinez was able to shut his heart off from attachments more successfully than he led us to believe. It seems he feels no sense of sympathy at all for Rick’s group if he is willing to turn over their prison’s location to the sadistic Governor. Speaking of the Governor, one wonders what the man did to inspire such loyalty from a much more decent specimen of a man such as Martinez. For now, we will just have to wait and see and hope that Martinez can be stopped before his dastardly deed is completed. But hope is always fleeting in this series, so we should brace ourselves for more pain and heartaches to come. Oh, and let’s hope some better cliffhangers present themselves as well! more