This issue was paramount in that it more fully fleshed out just who the various characters are gathered around the campfire. The Walking Dead is all about diverse groups of people joining together and becoming a family. By the end of this issue, we really begin to care about more than just Rick and his family’s well-being. Though Rick is still the undeniable protagonist, we are starting to invest in these other more fully fleshed out individuals as well. Of course, in typical Walking Dead fashion, just when we start to care more about these characters, someone has to die. Each and every moment is precious in the zombie apocalypse, and all it takes is one moment of letting down one’s guard, and it’s all over.

Shane Walsh’s fall into madness was as gradual as it was inevitable, and it is in this issue that all that madness comes to a brutal head. Shane Walsh is someone who on the outside may look like the consummate zombie apocalypse survivor. He’s a big alpha male cop and appears to be a natural leader. However, despite Shane’s best efforts, he is simply unable to make a break from the previous life he has known. His initial plan to camp near Atlanta so that they would be near government aid has some merit, but after a while when it was clear that no help was coming, he should have faced facts and let go of his foolhardy hopes that life could just return abruptly back to the way it was. Enter Lori. I do not believe that Shane truly loved Lori. Lori was a distraction to help Shane overcome his insecurities about his odds of surviving in a new ravaged world. She gave him something to live for. Something to protect. And Rick’s return took that crutch away from him so that all he had to hang on to was his irrational hope that the government was coming. When the compromised safety of the camp proved that irrationality, Shane’s snapping point had been reached. It is a testament to Kirkman that he so fully and believably fleshed out Shane’s self-destruction. It is the first of many self-destructions to come.

It is in this issue that Rick Grimes officially steps into the leader position for the group. His first major act is to galvanize the grip into vacating the camp and heading away from walker-filled Atlanta. While out on the road, he encounters Tyreese, and the two alpha males become fast friends. An issue ago, Rick told Carl that killing another human being should always be different from merely taking out a walker. And yet in this issue Tyreese confesses that he felt no guilt in pummeling his daughter’s near-rapist to death. Way more intriguing than Rick and Tyreese’s hilariously drawn out and way overcomplicated showdown with two roamers is there poignant dialogue about how the post-Apocalyptic world they reside in changes them. Rick shares how his best friend ended up a deranged shadow of his former self, Tyreese talked about how a sweet old man pre-Apocalypse could become a rapist once the dead started rising, and Tyreese even admitted that under some circumstances he does not feel remorse for killing another human being. This conversation begs the question: Are monsters CREATED by the conditions pertaining to the cataclysmic end of society, or were those monsters always there lurking just beneath the surface of a facade maintained by an orderly society? It’s probably a combination of the two possibilities, but one thing is for sure regardless. People change when society crumbles, and not all of them (such as Glenn) change for the better.

This is admittedly somewhat of a filler issue, but it is necessary in setting up what comes next. Some interesting character development does take place, particularly from Donna. She at first has always been a very judgmental sort, and she continuously frowned upon Andrea and Dale’s unorthodox relationship. To be honest, I get her concerns. The age difference coupled with the reality that both Dale and Andrea have both recently suffered devastating losses does not necessarily place them in the best mindset to start a healthy relationship. However, that being said, ideal conditions are no such thing in the zombie apocalypse, and sometimes (right or wrong) sex is a welcome distraction from the horror lurking constantly around them. Perhaps the redeeming part is that Andrea and Dale really do develop genuine feelings for each other, and their relationship is one of the more interesting ones. Donna realizes this, and she is just happy to see Andrea starting to come out of her depression. Her love for Andrea overrides her judgment, which is a pretty beautiful thing. It’s also worth mentioning that Wiltshire Estates represents quite a bit of foreshadowing. It is a gated community not so different from the haven the group will find in Alexandria. However, the sad irony is that very few members of this early group will get to experience life in Alexandria. They must settle for only a very small foretaste of it, and that small taste may prove more bitter than anyone realizes. Sanctuaries in this world just do not come along so easily.

While food may be a scarcity in the zombie apocalypse, it would seem that hope is even more fleeting. The difference in the well-being of Team Family between this issue and the last is staggering. Last issue they all found what amounts to paradise in the zombie apocalypse. This issue they saw that paradise turned into a little slice of hell which resulted in the loss of Donna just when she was starting to overflow with hope. Last issue they had stores and stores of canned fruit available to them. This issue they are diminished to scavenging futilely for food and then must resort to hunting. And now the icing on this sick, despair-ridden cake is that Carl has been shot by a clueless redneck. Rick is worried about Allen’s sanity eroding over the loss of Donna, but what will happen to Rick’s own sanity now that Carl’s life hangs in the balance?

What Kirkman manages to accomplish in a mere 23 pages is truly a testament to his tight storytelling ability. Not only do we meet the rather large Greene family, but he also allows some of the characters we already know to have their moments to shine. A fairly unifying thread throughout the issue is that everyone is quite, well, horny. Even Sophia and Carl have a cute little flirtatious moment. Glenn admits that he sort of had a thing for Carol (which I never ever picked up on until now), but then NFL alpha male Tyreese had to come along and woo Carol off her feet. He sees everyone he knows pairing off, and he is gripped by the fear of being alone. It’s hard enough for a young person to find a romantic partner in a fully functioning society, but the level of that difficulty skyrockets to astronomical heights when that society abruptly ceases. Thankfully for Glenn, Maggie Greene is lonely as well, and she is quite open about her willingness to have sex with him. Is a shared fear of loneliness and a general lack of alternative romantic options the best basis upon which to cultivate a sexual relationship? I’m no expert, but I’m guessing Dr. Phil would say no. However, seeing as how Dr. Phil is probably a lumbering zombie at this point in time, Maggie and Glenn are gonna do what they’re gonna do. Then there’s Julie and Chris, and they’re relationship is just freaking disturbing. Chris seems to be a very troubled young man from a very troubled background. It would actually be somewhat enlightening to know a little bit more about him, but one thing is clear. Chris is suicidal, and he wants to drag a co-dependent Julie down with him so they can spend “eternity” loving each other. They are both (more so Chris) looking at death as an easy escape from all the horrors plaguing their world. Underneath that mindset, however, is a lot of pain and fear that needs to be dealt with before it is too late. Lastly, the entrance of the Greene family (most significantly Hershel) into the narrative brings with it a more spiritual tone than we have seen before. Hershel’s resilient Christian faith will be a continual part of the plot moving forward. It is interesting to note that while societal religious institutions such as churches are no more, faith itself can be found as strong (or stronger) than ever. Despite the seemingly unending barrage of despairs that scrape away at Team Family’s morale, there are moments of grace where some sort of transcendent light shines through. Carl being shot in JUST THE RIGHT WAY to where he was able to survive, and Rick even finding his family in the first place despite what had to be ridiculously slim odds are little moments that perhaps speak to the existence of a loving God who still can work his good will despite the overwhelming darkness and gloom engulfing the world. Like the characters in the book, some will acknowledge that Power of Grace behind the mortal veil while others will pay it little heed. All are on their own journeys and are at different places, and that’s okay. I just know where I’m at when it comes to this. A world overrun by the walking dead does not by any means imply that God too is dead.

The barn scene is one of those iconic Walking Dead moments that sticks with reader long after this issue has been put down. It’s not just a gaggle of walkers streaming out of a barn and killing people. What makes this issue resonate so powerfully is the ideology that placed those walkers in the barn in the first place. It’s easy to initially write off Hershel as completely unhinged when he admits to Rick that they keep their dead ones in the barn. But in just a few short panels and bits of dialogue later, one can completely understand (if not necessarily approve of) Hershel’s reasoning in keeping the walkers locked up. He points out quite factually that they have not the slightest idea what has caused the dead to rise. Therefore, the possibility—however remote it might be—exists that the zombies could potentially one day be cured somehow. If this is the case, then killing a zombie is on some level tantamount to murder. However, as Rick points out, most of the walkers they encounter have suffered tremendous injuries, lost vital organs, and even have their guts visibly hanging out. He also makes a solid point that people always die before they turn. It’s not like people are fine one minute and then in the next minute lapse into a flesh-devouring mental state. There’s no doubt that in order for a person to become a walker, he or she must die. Therefore, if a person cannot be brought back from the dead before the zombie apocalypse, how can they be expected to after it? Dead is still dead, walking corpses or not. Howecer, Hershel is unwilling to accept this bitter pill to swallow because it is his beloved son Shawn in that barn along with several other people he knows. We have perhaps in the barn episode one of the most visceral and poignant representations in literature of how devastating it can be when a man becomes lost in denial over the death of a loved one. His unwillingness to accept the loss of his son leads to the direct deaths of two more of his children Lacey and Arnold. Prolonged and unreconciled grief can have toxic effects on a person and those around them in the world we live in now. That toxicity only increases in the zombie apocalypse. An unwillingness to ever let go of those who pass means we may have to brace ourselves for other losses as well, which Hershel learns all too well.

The conflict between Rick and Hershel reaches its full force in this tense issue. Honestly, I can understand why Hershel is so unstable. The day before this issue transpires he had just lost THREE of his children (granted, one was long dead already, but he never accepted Shawn’s death until the barn disaster). Then he finds Maggie shacking up with Glenn the very next morning. And THEN Rick comes out of the blue and asks Hershel if his group can stay in his house (you know, since more rooms are now available). And THEN Hurricane Lori strikes, and that is the final straw for Hershel. Not only does he almost slap a pregnant Lori, but he puts a gun to Rick’s head. Later on he agonizingly confesses to Otis just how close he was to pulling that trigger. Make no mistake. Rick was almost a goner in this issue. A combination of grievous losses and horrific timing on Rick and Lori’s part created a perfect storm in which Hershel’s sanity became compromised. Rick admits to Allen earlier in the issue that he actually has made out fairly well in the apocalypse so far. He has his wife and child intact, and perhaps that is why Rick appears so often to be in such a stable state of mind. I believe every person has certain tethers that anchor them to their sanity. When those tethers break, it becomes harder and harder to maintain a firm grasp on the good person one tries to be. Despite some close calls, Rick has never been untethered yet. But how long can his luck hold out in a world where each new hope can so easily metamorphose into despair?

This really is a very important issue for the series as it introduces us all to the prison, which will be around for quite a while. As Lori so pragmatically points out to an overly optimistic Carol, she is not getting her hopes up concerning the prison until they all know for sure it can really be the haven they hope so desperately for it to be. The prison may be a paradise, but it is a paradise that will have to be fought for, and this is made painstakingly clear due to the sobering fact that it costs the gang a hefty chunk of their bullets. Say what you will about Lori, but she has some nice dialogue in this one. I really liked that line about how living like today is the last day of one’s life (which is a bit of an overused cliche in our pre-Apocalypse world) really is not all it’s cracked up to be. Living that way comes inherent with a constant barrage of anxiety and fear that death could strike you or anyone you love at any moment. The prison represents a much needed reprieve from such a life, but then again, so did Wilshire Estates, and look how that turned out. Paradise does not come easily in a world overrun by the dead, and yet it is most certainly worth fighting for.

A lot happened in this issue, but it’s hard not to just jump right to the end of it and talk about the slow build that finally payed off in jarring fashion—Chris and Julie. What makes their whole arc so disturbing is that I suspect (and quite frankly hope) that it is one that people have a hard time wrapping their heads around. They claim to love—though I would say it is more of a co-dependent infatuation—one another, and yet they plan to kill each other. I wish we were perhaps given a bit more insight into what they think “Together Forever” actually means, but the finer details of their macabre suicidal pact remains hazy. Like poor Tyreese (and so many real world mothers and fathers), we can only look at the tragedy before us and somehow attempt to make peace with the fact that we will never have all the answers as to why two young people would come to such a grievous decision. One almost gets the sense that Chris and Julie’s story might have ended this way even if the zombie apocalypse had never occurred. The post-Apocalyptic world may exacerbate mental illnesses, but those illnesses were there to begin with. On a brighter yet slightly portentous note, Rick really does seem to have a morality that is worthy of admiration. Going back to get Hershel and the others was not something that by any means had to be done. According to the harsh new way of life governing the fallen world Rick now finds himself in, it would be completely reasonable and understandable for Rick to have just left Hershel (who very nearly killed him the last time they met) to his own fate. Rick is still functioning, however, from a pre-Apocalyptic mode of morality, and the world has not yet broken him down to the point where he considers “doing the right thing” to be of trivial importance. Rick’s do-gooder mentality worked out for the best in the case of Hershel. They even got Glenn back! But is his somewhat naive assumption that the prisoners are safe going to come back to bite him? Lori’s concerns (however harshly worded) undeniably carry an echo of truth. How long can Rick continue to do the right thing and hang on to his morality? As for Julie’s turn at the end despite NOT being bitten, this is actually a huge moment for the series as they realize that potentially any death will result in a zombie emerging from the ashes of their loved ones’ legacies.

Amidst the haunting realization that “We’re all infected,” Rick witnesses an infuriated Tyreese go postal on Chris. This marks the second time that Tyreese explodes into a rage and murders someone. The first time was when he murdered Julie’s almost-rapist earlier on. While both Chris and the rapist’s deaths are no great loss and while we can totally understand where Tyreese is coming from, the look of sheer horror reflected in Rick’s eyes says it all. Like us, Rick knows that Tyreese is a good man, a loving father, and a steadfast friend. Nine times out of ten, he’s a gentle giant, and yet . . . this new and twisted way of life has driven him to murder on not one but TWO occasions. Of all the rather expansive cast right now, perhaps Tyreese is the one who is most like Rick Grimes. And yet, Rick has never murdered someone in raging anger. He has never lost control of the good man he constantly tries to be. Yet. That look of dawning horror in Rick’s eyes is not mere revulsion over the violent sight before his eyes. Rather, it is the sobering realization that if Tyreese can get to a point where he snaps like this, it is entirely possible that Rick could too. The only thing scarier than a flesh-eating monster is BECOMING A MONSTER despite every good intention and effort along the way. Rick going back to put down Shane was almost spiritual in its grandeur. He had to go back to a moment of pain and betrayal and put the walking symbol of all that hurt—zombified Shane—down once and for all. By putting his former partner down, it is in some bizarre way a mercy that Rick is bestowing on Shane. In a sense. Rick is forgiving Shane so that he might put the past Shane represents to rest so that Rick can move on and be a better leader for those who are counting on him in the present. Lori does make a solid point that Rick does have a tendency to leave all the time. While Rick usually has a solid reason to depart, his restlessness (especially around Lori) may speak to him still having issues with what he knows happened between Lori and Shane. Perhaps by going back to Shane, Rick hopes to put all that restlessness behind him as well. We must certainly hope that Rick can do that because the group at the prison is in desperate need of him. Some people say the scene with Negan and Glenn is the most disturbing moment in the comics. Others would say the Governor/Michonne scenes are. For me, the image of two innocent little girls’ heads laying on the floor takes the cake. I’m actually very glad the show did not depict this storyline. I’ll take a barbed wire bat to the head any day over a serial killer decapitating children. An unspeakable evil has been allowed to stalk the prison corridors. It is an old evil that is present even in our world today. It must be dealt with, which might mean Rick may have to be pushed closer to what Tyreese became than he would care to be. But Rick, when all is said and done, will always do what must be done.

Rick comes back from his cathartic Shane trip only to be greeted with an extraordinarily depressing string of bad news. Susie and Rachel have been beheaded, and oh yeah, we kind of lost Tyreese too. If it weren’t so tragic, it would almost be kind of be funny. Rick leaves this group for like a little over a day, and three people die. Things simply fall apart when Rick is not there to oversee everything. This is both a compliment to Rick as a leader and an acknowledgment of the momentous burden that leadership must be to him at times. However, a group that is often so paralyzed without its leader clearly has a lot of potentially fatal kinks that need to be ironed out. When it comes to the quartet of prisoners, the reveal of who the guilty killer was felt somewhat like a Scooby-Doo episode. It’s always the one you would least expect, right? Dexter is a self-professed murderer, Andrew deals in drugs, and Axel committed armed robbery (and is a bit of a peeping Tom as Lori and Carol found out). Thomas Richards was arrested for . . . tax fraud. This is obviously a lie, as it is revealed in the end that he is a deranged serial killer with a fetish for decapitating females. In a series where even the most dastardly of villains can at times garner at least a small amount of sympathy, Thomas Richards is unique in that he is purely and simply evil. He hides between a dorky exterior, false kindness, and a warm smile, but the evil is there, and something needs to be done about it. Thankfully, his decision to screw with Andrea at the end will likely be a very dumb move on his part. The one gleam of hope amidst all the despair is that Tyreese survives! To be honest, his “death scene” last issue was a bit too “Glenn under the dumpster” (TV show fans will get this reference) for me to take it seriously. In this series you must see a mutilated body before someone is definitely dead. I’m glad Tyreese lives, but his admission to Rick that they really are all dead sent a shiver up my spine. He just lost his daughter and is clearly grieving more than he is letting on, but living like one is dead is not indicative of a healthy mindset in the zombie apocalypse. Nothing matters, and that include any grounding of morality. When people essentially declare that they are “the walking dead,” one of two things usually happens. A lot of people die, or a lot of monsters are created from the discarded husks of what used to be good people. The prison was supposed to be a place where life could flourish again for this weary and battered group of survivors. So far, however, the prison has proved every much a curse as it has a blessing. Only time will tell if this changes in time for its potential as a paradise to be realized.

What initially felt like somewhat of a misstep with this Thomas Richards serial killer arc has progressed in this one issue into a moment that will prove a pivotal turning point for the entire series going forward. An issue or two ago, Rick watched aghast as Tyreese pummeled Chris to death. Now, he has nearly killed someone himself in the identical manner. Rick has finally been pushed beyond the event horizon that has slowly and irresistibly been pulling him into its maw for a while now. Going back for Hershel’s people, putting down zombie Shane, and assuming the best of the prisoners were all moral attempts to hang on to his humanity and remain a good person. And look at what came of those efforts. Susie and Rachel were beheaded. Shane’s corpse drew Rick away from his group at a time when everything was falling apart. Two of the prisoners have begun to plot against Rick, and another is a full-on serial killer. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, Rick has certainly been laying the bricks. Rick has come face to face with the sobering reality that the world they inhabit now is not like the one they used to inhabit. The moment one considers morality and personal accountability to be unimportant is the moment a formerly decent person becomes little more than a walking zombie themselves. Rick’s painstaking efforts to hang on to his morality should not be condemned as out of place in the zombie apocalypse. It is of the utmost importance to his and those around him’s continued survival. However, he must also face the unpleasant truth that evil now walks the earth unrestrained by any semblance of control originally afforded by a functioning justice system. What constitutes justice now is a far more brutal norm, and the lines between justice and personal vengeance have the potential to become dangerously blurred. Lori’s concerns about killing are easy to write off as insanely naive, especially considering the present state of things. Locking a serial killer who cuts little girls’ heads’ off up in their new home indefinitely is an insane and irresponsible notion. Also, letting Thomas go could place another innocent person in danger, or Thomas could plot to somehow get revenge on the prison group. Make no mistake. Rick is in the right here. Under the new and compromised system of morality that has manifested in the zombie apocalypse, Thomas has to die. There’s just no other logical way around it, but such logic is extremely unsettling, and Lori obviously has a hard time dealing with it. That being said, Rick’s blanket assertion that “You kill you die” is a very simplistic solution to situations that are often very complex. Not everyone who kills during the zombie apocalypse is necessarily deserving of death, though I do not think anyone (except Lori) would agree that Thomas falls into that category. Beheading two little girls would have a very good chance of resulting in a capital punishment charge BEFORE the dead started walking. It for darn sure is a capital offense AFTER they did. But I understand how Lori seeing her husband assume the mantle of judge, jury, and executioner could be off-putting to her. However, in Rick’s defense, leadership was never a burden he asked for. Everyone is usually happy to let him call the shots because none of them have to step up. So it really is not fair to blame Rick in a situation like this even if he is being a bit of a, well, Ricktator. ;)

It is an interesting thing to compare what actually happens in this issue with the scene depicted on the cover. Despite Rick’s plan to violently hang Thomas from a guard tower, that scene never comes to fruition. However, the extracanonical depiction on the cover of Thomas’s executed body looming high above everyone could not be more appropriate thematically, as his looming death hovers ominously over all the proceedings in this issue. As each member of the prison group grapples with the reality of what must be done to Thomas, some truly excellent “small moments” develop that allow many of our favorite characters to shine. Kirkman’s stellar writing finesse is on full display here, and it allows for some most excellent character development. More than excellence, however, it is the believability of the character development that I admired most. He profoundly GETS these characters he dreamed up, and his thorough understanding of his characters help us to GET them better as well. Lori’s cool down moment and subsequent making peace with Rick was largely fueled by Carl’s admission that he killed Shane BEFORE he had a chance to hurt anyone. She comforts a confused Carl by reassuring him that pulling the trigger on Shane was the right thing to do in that moment. The parallels to the Thomas situation are as apparent to Lori as they are to us, and she and Rick make some degree of amends. I also thought Hershel was written phenomenally in this issue, as he tortuously oscillated between both his New Testament faith and his very understandable Old Testament rage in regards to Thomas. One minute he is (admittedly rather insincerely) telling Thomas that he forgives him, and in the next moment he admits to Rick that he is looking forward to watching the man be hanged. It’s rather easy to “forgive” someone for an unspeakable crime when you know that person is about to be brutally executed. Hershel’s struggle to remain true to his faith while still suffering through his raw anger is a compelling read indeed. Then that grim shot at the end of him watching the walkers outside the fence devour Thomas’s corpse while bitterly weeping is a truly memorable and bizarrely beautiful scene that describes where he is at perfectly. Also believable is Maggie’s sudden and rather cold urge to break it off with Glenn (maybe she wasn’t crazy about the bald look after all, which I’m still getting used to myself). But seriously, it’s understandable given what she has so recently been through. Since she has graced the pages of this comic, she has lost four brothers and sisters (five if you count zombie Shawn). It must seem to her that loving someone just means you will lose them and suffer tremendous pain in the voids they leave behind. So of course she wants to “save” Glenn by refusing to get attached to him. It’s totally irrational, and yet so very understandable (and surely even relatable to many readers who are unfortunately acquainted with their own losses). Less understandable is Dale’s sudden urge to abandon ship with Andrea. I get that he almost lost Andrea (though I think she always was a step ahead of Thomas), and I get that he is an old man who may be getting weary of one tragic event after another. But Dale has always been such a brick for the group that it does sting a bit that he is considering leaving. As for Patricia . . . Yeah. No comment there.

This issue is a very important one in that it introduces us to Michonne, a character who will become a major and iconic player from this point forward. Michonne enters the story, and two facts about her are made readily apparent. 1) She is a badass post-apocalyptic samurai with a sword. And 2) She has been alone for a long time except for her pet neutered walker companions. The Michonne Special reveals that these two walkers were once humans named Mike and Terry, who used to be Michonne’s boyfriend and his friend. Therefore given Michonne’s potent connections with her two undead traveling companions, the casual and unhesitating manner in which she disposed of them is a grim testament to her state of mind at the moment. Michonne has become very good at being self-sufficient, and therefore she will not form emotional attachments easily. However, her cool demeanor is not so chilly that she turns away from a stranger in need or shuns the opportunity to live with others in a safe (well, relatively safe) haven such as the Prison. This is a character who is as interesting to explore as she is iconic to behold. She’s truly one of Kirkman’s most original and praiseworthy creations, and the story moving forward is better with her in it. Now let’s talk about Rick and the new stone-cold killer he is becoming. A few issues ago, Rick sentenced another man to death. But after that initial verdict, he seems to be more at ease in rendering it again. What is so compelling about the trajectory of Rick’s arc in this issue is that the reader can literally see the gears turning in Rick’s head as he analyzes the situation and decides to covertly execute Dexter. Even more compelling (and somewhat disturbing) is the fact the we can almost completely justify Rick’s heavy decision to kill Dexter. Two major missteps on Dexter’s part sealed his fate and made his life forfeit in Rick’s reckoning. 1) During Dexter’s initial tour of the prison, he purposefully kept the armory’s existence to himself. This would indicate that Dexter was at least toying with the notion of not playing nicely with the new arrivals right from the start of their association. This does not make Dexter evil by any means, and it is even understandable that he would go to some lengths to provide a way to fight back against Rick’s group if things went sour. It’s even something Rick might’ve done in a similar situation. However, Dexter’s initial deceit when combined with his second fatal misstep meant he was simply too dangerous to keep alive. So what was his second misstep? 2) When Rick saved Dexter’s life during the zombie attack, he was testing Dexter to see how he would respond. It was a test that Dexter mortally failed. Instead of thanking Rick and realizing that it was better to join forces with the living rather than kill them, Dexter remains antagonistic of Rick and even comments that saving his life was a stupid thing to do. Rick Grimes is a lot of things, but one thing he is not is stupid. Rick gave Dexter an out, and Dexter squandered that chance and paid for his stubbornness with his life. As a broken Andrew wanders off distraught into the sunset, we cannot help but think for a moment that just maybe Dexter and Andrew could have been very solid and capable additions to the group had the situation played out just a bit differently. While we can justify Rick’s decision to silence the threat Dexter might have posed, it is clear that Rick does not enter into this new level of brutality lightly. That last page of him in the issue illustrated what a heavy toll this has taken on him. He still WANTS to save as many people as he can and remain a moral center for his group. But he also is willing to KILL for his group as well should he feel there are no other options. While Rick may kill with less hesitation as time goes by, I do not believe he ever gets to a point where he ceases to carry the heaviness that comes with it. And that is precisely why Rick is able to hang on to his humanity through all the ups and downs.

Overall, this is a tamer issue compared to the one that preceded it. It was a quieter issue where most of the characters have a chance to take a breather and re-examine where they are at after one very hellish week in Paradise. While we wait until next issue to find out what’s gonna happen to poor Allen, we have an excellent opportunity to examine romantic relationships and their place in the zombie apocalypse. To do so, we will examine two couples: Tyreese and Carol, and Glenn and Maggie. Tyreese and Carol found each other in what was a very bleak situation. They did not have a legitimate shelter like the prison, and they had to survive by living life on the road. Cold weather was creeping in, and food reserves were growing scarce. Oh, and of course the zombies did not help matters. There was a limited number of rugged survivors in Rick’s group initially, and all of them felt like their time could be up any moment. Tyreese was an attractive man, Carol was an attractive woman, and they were both single and lonely. Therefore they started having sex and POOF instant relationship! Honestly, their relationship seems more built upon their mutual fear of loneliness (more so on Carol’s part) and convenience. The sex was a distraction from the zombies always ready to tear them to shreds. But now that Tyreese and Carol are in a more stable environment and are starting to meet new people (Michonne), the cracks in their relationship of convenience are starting to show. Now, let’s look at a healthier post-apocalyptic couple: Glenn and Maggie! Their relationship was really the opposite of convenience. The tension that initially prevailed between Rick’s group and Hershel’s family did not make it easy for people from each group to form a strong romantic bond. And yet that is exactly what Maggie and Glenn did. Maggie stood up to her father as she fought for Glenn, and Glenn was even willing to leave his initial group and stay with Maggie at the farm. They were both givers, and they gave much more than just sexual comfort to one another. While a lot of Tyreese and Carol’s relationship is marked by insecurities, Glenn and Maggie are both secure enough with one another to go through ups and downs (even breaks) and yet still make up and endure. They are friends and companions first and THEN lovers. Their relationship is built on mutual self-sacrifice and something far more important and enduring than mere sexual escape. Relationships in a fully functioning society are messy. But the messiness reaches alarming proportions in a world populated by walking corpses and no stability. People can either find a reason to keep going in the arms of a loving partner, or they can crash and burn. But the stakes are definitely much higher for both scenarios during the zombie apocalypse. On a final note, I really want to commend Andrea for using her seamstress skills to furnish everyone with cleaner clothes and new styles to come. Not only is she a badass with a firearm, but she uses her softer skill with needle and thread to make everyone’s life better. The television series iteration of Andrea really could have learned something from her comic book counterpart.

Allen getting bitten is actually a very important event in The Walking Dead comic because it is through that ordeal that the group considers the possibility of amputating the part of a body where someone is bitten in a last ditch resort to save them. Will it work with Allen? Was it the right thing to do? I think so despite everybody being so hard on Rick for simply having the balls to cut the leg off. Even Tyreese (who has done his own fair share of ugly things) seems to reach a threshold, turning away from the gory sight as Rick does what he always does. He does what must be done only all too often to get blamed for doing it. I often find myself rather defensive of Rick Grimes simply because I do believe that nine times out of ten he makes the right (though often extremely difficult) choice. Was cutting off Allen’s foot an extreme response? For sure. But leaving the infected food in place would’ve meant definite death for Allen, a father of two boys who need him. He gave Allen a chance to live, and yeah, he probably could have hacked the foot off a little less sloppily. But time was not of the essence, and they had already spent a lot of time getting Allen out of the prison. I think a key reason why people are so appalled over what Rick did is not because they necessarily think it was the wrong course of action. The issue is that they are witnessing their once relatively mild-mannered leader do increasingly brash and drastic actions without batting an eye. In about a week’s time, he has killed two men and hacked off a companion’s foot. And yes, I can make a pretty convincing case why all of those actions were called for given the circumstances. But Rick has made a lot of these rash actions in a very short amount of time, and there is perhaps a danger in him getting a little too used to them. However, the weight of what Rick must do always seems to hang over his head. Therefore, I see that fact as a strong bulwark against the possibility of him losing his sanity. In an issue with a lot of gore and sex (Glenn is a cuddler!), the high point of it was the innocent yet surprisingly insightful exchange between Carl and Sophia. Carl asks little Sophia (who is easily the most innocent one of the group) if she is afraid of the zombies. Sophia’s response that she does not really fear them all that much anymore because they look sad is a moment of pure brilliance. It’s the little human moments like these that elevates The Walking Dead above every other zombie story. The Walking Dead is in my opinion the greatest zombie story ever told because it is a HUMAN story first. A zombie story would look beyond the prison fence and see only a horde of flesh-eating fiends. A human story, however, looks beyond that same fence through the eyes of a little girl who sees the zombies as tragic reflections of the human beings they once were. If zombies could think, would they not be sad? If they could really be aware of what they are now as opposed to who they used to be, they quite definitely would be distraught indeed.

It’s easy to write this issue off as a bit too much of a post-Apocalyptic soap opera. However, in the midst of all the relationship drama, a potent illustration of depression and despair begins to form. The prison with its protective fences and (generally) friendly human interactions is a sort of haven, a bright point in a sea of despair always trying to come crashing in. The zombies congregating at the prison’s outer perimeter are a constant reminder of just how close that despair truly is. The people living inside the prison walls must find reasons to keep living despite the constant reminders that—as Axel so grimly puts it—it’s only a matter of time before they all join the hordes of the undead. But what happens when those reasons to live begin to fizzle out? Allen seems to be in a position where he is losing the will to live. As he lays clinging to life after his bite and amputation, we are reminded that he lost a lot of blood. Infection (even minus the bite) could still be an issue. However, when one is in as compromised a state as Allen is, the will to live is everything, and Allen has been losing that all-essential spark more and more each day ever since Donna’s demise. Despite having two boys who need him, Allen just cannot seem to gather the strength to keep going once Donna had been taken from him. And now an unstable, co-dependent, and emotionally erratic Carol succumbs to her own version of despair after losing her romantic relationship with Tyreese. Carol was pushing back her own demons of despair by her rather passionate dalliance with Tyreese. The sex was a welcome distraction, but having a warm body to lay next to in an increasingly cold apocalypse was even more alluring. When Carol lost that warm body, she spiraled into suicidal despair. Like Allen, not even the presence of her traumatized child could push back the hopelessness creeping in to devour her. It’s easy to judge Carol and Allen for giving up a when their children are still very much in need of them. However, to do so would be rather unfair. The mental illness rates during the zombie apocalypse must be through the roof, and yet the avenues by which such mental illness can be treated are irreparably in disrepair. Try as one might, despair will sadly all too often find its way in. As for Rick’s somewhat understandable yet somewhat disproportionate response to Tyreese’s infidelity, it’s easy to see what is going on with him. His mind is going right back to what he knows Shane and Lori did in the early days of the outbreak. Rick was the Carol, and Lori and Shane were the Tyreese and Michonne. Rick was betrayed, Rick was hurt, and he can relate on some level to what Carol is experiencing despite being too much of a natural leader to just opt out. The Shane and Lori thing is always looming above Rick’s awareness to varying degrees, as his blowout with Tyreese fully reveals.

It speaks to Kirkman’s phenomenal storytelling ability that he is able to make a heated fist fight between two friends a highly compelling and nuanced spectacle. What is so poignant about Rick and Tyreese’s blowout is that neither of the two alpha males are actually fighting one another. Sure, they may be clobbering the bloody hell out of each other, but make no mistake. Rick is fighting Rick. Tyreese is fighting Tyreese. All of the immense loads of guilt that both characters have been doing their best to hide up until this point are on full display now. Rick may be accusing Tyreese of being a senseless killer, and Tyreese may be likewise acusing Rick of the same. Their biting words land their marks so brutally because the truth is that Rick and Tyreese are both technically killers, and that fact is eating them up. Almost every rage-filled word they batter one another with could just as easily be hurled at the themselves. Carol’s instance of self-harm initiated this spat, and Rick and Tyreese are proceeding to harm themselves by goading on one another. However Tyreese or Rick may justify their murders of Chris and Dexter (and much of their logic really does hold weight), it is painfully apparent that these two wounded men are not killers at heart, and the reality that they both have killed is simply too much for them. Perhaps by bloodying up and bruising one another, Rick and Tyreese can find a twisted sort of rest as they focus on the much more bearable physical aches rather than the unforgiving emotional scars. The same can probably be said for Carol too. To understand what happened in this issue, one must grasp that it was NOT about a heated fist fight between Rick and Tyreese. It was about the brutal depiction of what self-harm truly looks like, and it is just as tragic in the zombie apocalypse as it is in our world today. With Rick and Tyreese in the compromised states they’re in as well as Andrea’s bitter report that Allen did not pull through, Rick’s response to Lori when she asked him if anything was broken seems grimly appropriate on more than one level. He confesses morosely that “everything feels broken,” and I get the sense he is not just talking about his new scrapes and bruises. He means the overall state of the group is floundering despite his best efforts to prevent that from happening. As Rick puts that bullet through Allen’s recently deceased skull, we are reminded that even now he must still be the one to take the reigns and lead in a way no one else can.

“WE ARE THE WALKING DEAD.” If a Walking Dead fan was tasked with choosing only one issue to give to an outsider in order to give them a thorough understanding of what the series was all about, this issue (and possibly the first issue) would be an excellent candidate. Whether you support all of Rick’s decisions or think he’s lost his marbles, the undeniable truth is that Rick’s half-issue long monologue very poignantly sums up the tone of the series. Whenever someone I know asks me why I like “The Walking Dead,” they always assume that I am a zombie genre connoisseur. They think I bow at the alter of George Romero (Kirkman is better) and assume my favorite movie must be Night of the Living Dead (it’s actually Star Wars). I tell them that I really have never been a zombie fan, and it has never been the zombies that have kept me captivated by The Walking Dead. I tell them with absolute honesty that The Walking Dead is all about the people. It’s about human beings (many of them decent, but all of them flawed) who must constantly struggle to hold on to some semblance of humanity while still making hard choices that are necessary to survive. Rick’s declaration that all of the survivors are the “walking dead” rightfully may send a shiver up one’s spine. However, that shiver likely results from the stark realization that those chilling words ring so true. From Rick’s perspective, the human beings they once were—the ones that a fully functioning society made it possible for them to be—are in almost every way that matters deceased. What is left is a moral husk of what they used to be, and they must come to accept this bitter pill to swallow or join the ranks of the flesh-eating corpses gathering outside the walls of their sanctuary prison. Either option results in them ending up as “the walking dead” in one form or another. Maybe the far-off hope might begin to kindle that perhaps society can be rebuilt and these battered survivors can one day wake up from their nightmare and come alive again to a better sense of renewed morality. But they are not there yet. In fact, they are very far from it. Rick’s recognition of this fact is rather depressing, but it also is bizarrely liberating in a way because it frees him up to do what he must to protect those he loves. But that freedom—as we have repeatedly seen—is not without a sense of heaviness. The committee idea sounds good on paper, but in practice it may not work so neatly. A committee is an old world idea. A committee is meant to exist in a world where society is still intact. But in the zombie apocalypse, it is an anachronism that could be dangerous. Committees are often mired in indecisiveness, and a moment of indecision is all it can take in the zombie apocalypse to get one killed. The difference between Rick and everyone else in his group is not that Rick is crazy and everyone else is sane. The difference is that Rick has accepted the new normal of the zombie apocalypse while everyone else is fixated on a past that can very likely never be again. Rick’s acceptance has often allowed everyone else to bury their heads in the sand and keep believing the illusory notion that the old way of doing things is still feasible. But a rude awakening could be looming ominously on the horizon.

If it’s possible given the usually rather grim tone of the series, this issue was actually somewhat lighthearted verging on downright fun. There were even a few jokes that were cracked, and most of them landed. Rick’s joke about how his right hand is of little use except for wailing on people was pretty hilarious. Also the fact that he is able to make jokes about that shows a degree of healing. I also liked that joke about Maggie and Glenn on the warden’s couch. Dale’s immediately disgusted remark was perfect. We also simply do NOT get enough Hershel and Axel interaction, as they are a great and often comedic yin to each other’s yang. The only two killjoys of the group were Otis (who really can’t take a joke and has a stupid complex) and Carol (who oscillates between being either very depressing or very creepy or both). The riot gear was a very fun element to introduce as well, and Glenn’s excitement over donning the suit was as palpable as it was relatable. Who wouldn’t want to look like Boba Fett in the zombie apocalypse? The riot armor has its drawbacks. It’s clunky and offers limited visibility with the visor down. But its dual benefits of making the wearer virtually invulnerable to walker bites and just making the wearer look like an all-around Mandalorian badass cannot be overlooked. Rick’s quiet moment at Allen’s grave where he apologized about the leg was actually pretty moving in an understated sort of way. Even in a fairly lighthearted issue brimming with jokes, riot armor, and helicopters (oh my!) we are reminded that the weight on Rick’s shoulders is always present to some degree. At times this weight can appear to crush him to the point of threatening his sanity. But at other times this weight can ground him for whatever new threat may loom on the horizon. And that’s good because a new threat may very well be looming indeed . . .

The tone of mystery saturating our heroes’ quest for the crashed helicopter becomes more and palpable with every turn of the page. There is a sense of something big looming just around a corner that never really comes. But it’s definitely there, and one can practically feel the sadistic glee radiating off Kirkman as he keeps his readers guessing for another issue. That being said, while the mystery of the downed helicopter may have to wait another issue, there is still plenty of interesting tidbits to mull over in the meantime. Glenn’s hesitant confession of sorts to Rick that he would steal the occasional car to pay rent in his previous life raises a very interesting ethical question. In the decimated world of the zombie apocalypse, we are cognizant of the fact that sometimes good people have to make questionable choices just to stay alive and survive another day. While we may not agree or approve of all of those controversial decisions, we do not necessarily condemn a “good guy” character altogether just because he or she makes a tough ethical call in order to increase his or her odds of survival. However, what do we make of someone like the pre-apocalyptic Glenn Rhee, a pizza delivery man who sometimes had to resort to grand theft auto (no, not the video game) just in order to pay rent? If we’re entirely honest with ourselves, we probably would not think very highly of Glenn if we encountered him in the world we reside in now. We would view him as a delinquent and a thief who took more from society than he gave back. I don’t like typing these words because I really do like Glenn as a character. The point though is that our pre-apocalyptic world may not be populated by flesh-devouring zombies, but it is still often a very brutal world, and sometimes desperate people make desperate decisions not because they are delinquent thugs. They make those choices simply to survive just as the survivors do during the zombie apocalypse. Life is always a struggle, as Glenn’s story poignantly reminds us, whether it is a life set in the apocalypse or in a fully functioning society. “Are you our new mommy and daddy?” If the twins’ words do not cut you straight to the heart, you may be a sociopath. Seriously though, Dale and Andrea stepping up to essentially adopt two young children in a world gone to hell is the height of commendable. This new family unit consisting of Andrea, Dale, and the recently orphaned twins was forged by loss. Andrea lost her sister and presumably her mother and father. Dale lost his wife. The twins lost their mommy and daddy. Yet in the midst of all this traumatic loss, an element of post-apocalyptic grace rises like a phoenix from the ashes of broken families. Love and mutual loss binds these four strangers together in ways that would have never been possible before the dead started walking. This family unit will not be the only time that a new family is formed due to crushing loss, but it does have the distinction of being the first such family to appear in the series. This special redefinition of family allows for hope that even in the midst of inconceivable loss, resilient love can still rise to the occasion to push back the darkness that would otherwise overwhelm them.

Enter the Governor. I was introduced to The Walking Dead television show first before I even knew about the comic. When the Governor debuted in Season 3 of the show, I knew something special was happening. He felt like the kind of genuine, over the top villain that one might find in a Marvel comic. David Morrissey’s portrayal of the Governor was spot on, and he still remains my favorite villain on the show to this day. So when I decided to read Kirkman’s comic iteration of The Walking Dead story, I eagerly anticipated the arrival of The Governor in that medium. Needless to say, I was not disappointed! The first issue he is introduced, and he’s planning on feeding our heroes to his zombie pets! Say what you will about the psychotic Governor, but he knows how to make a first impression! I am sure one of Rick’s most keen regrets is that he followed that damn helicopter. How different might things have been if his group just ignored it and stayed in their prison fortress? Questions like that make for fun speculation and discussion among fans, but one imagines that such questions kept Rick up at night long after the Governor becomes nothing more than a nightmarish memory. But the difference between a nightmare and the Governor is that when one awakens from a nightmare, no lasting damage is suffered. Contrarily, the Governor exacts a brutal toll on Rick and company, and they will never be the same again as a result of their painful conflict with him. Amidst the dramatic introduction of the dastardly Governor and Carol’s continued mental deterioration, there is a small scene with Tyreese and Axel as they are spending an anxious night sitting in lawn chairs near the gate waiting for their companions’ return. Axel mentions that he prefers the world as it is with the dead walking to the way it was before society came crashing down. This may seem like an absurd position to take, but there exists countless times in The Walking Dead (both the show and comic series) that people who were nobodies in a functioning society rise to the occasion and become better versions of themselves. In Axel’s case, his prison becomes a post-apocalyptic fortress, and he goes from having zero liberties to having a new lease on life as he successfully integrates into Rick’s group. Consider also Glenn. Before the world ended, Glenn was a pizza deliver boy who stole cars just to keep his head afloat financially. Now he is an expert scavenger, has a very healthy relationship with Maggie, and is always an asset in even the most trying of situations. Daryl and Carol (both from the television series) are two other examples of how the zombie apocalypse can be a catalyst for extraordinary growth. One last little note is that I really want to recommend checking out Jay Bonansinga and Robert Kirkman’s compelling book series centered around the rise and fall of the Governor. It ties into the comic storylines in intriguing ways, and watching the meek Brian Blake evolve into the psychotic Governor is quite a compelling revelation. It definitely adds many complex layers to what is observed in the comic book concerning the Governor.

There are lots of very good issues of The Walking Dead. Compelling plot twists, unexpected character developments, and just general zombie badassery all contribute to an issue falling into that very good category. Sometimes they’re even truly great. This issue was one of those even rarer issues, however, that makes you feel something on a visceral level. Even after having read this issue previously, I still put down this issue feeling a sick, hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. The depravity, it seems, of Man is a thousand times worse than any type a zombie can offer. There are villains in fiction that we love to hate, and then there are villains who we just flat-out despise. The Governor falls into the latter category. He’s not a “cool” villain like Darth Vader or Marvel’s Loki. He does not have really neat powers, an epic costume, or display some occasional endearing qualities. He is a demented caricature of the utter worst possible state of human behavior. He’s not even human really. He’s a beast with an insatiable hunger for a depravity that cannot be satiated. His monologue about how he admires the zombies for how they just keep taking and taking and taking until there is nothing left to take is the perfect reflection of the Governor’s own twisted nature. He operates purely on animalistic greed, lust, and instinct. If he wants what you have, he will gladly kill, steal, and rape until he gets it all. He is human nature unchained devoid of any higher sense of morality. One wonders how a man could end up in such a miserable state. I have only recently begun reading Jay Bonansinga and Robert Kirkman’s Rise of the Governor book series, and I can tell you quite simply that he does NOT start out this way. He was not born a monster. Circumstances and choices took the decent man he once was and perverted every aspect of his character. What makes the Governor (once a man named Brian Blake) so terrifying is that the potential of him lurks in all of us. The only thing more horrific than the monster we fear is the one we fear to become. Every time that Rick or Michonne or Carl or any other “good guy” character we care about makes a morally complex decision, there always exists the ever-present danger that another Governor could arise. The loss of one’s life in this world is a bitter one, but the loss of one’s soul is even worse.

This issue offers us a compelling look into the operation at Woodbury that the Governor has established. This is a man who cut a limb off Rick and raped Michonne all while making a traumatized Glenn listen. He seems an utterly irredeemable monster, and yet he appears on some level to care for some people in his orbit. However, I would posit that the word APPEARS is the operative one here. Just as the Governor put on a show in front of the mother and her rambunctious children, this is a man who can generate the illusion that he cares about others. He may even fool himself at times. But the only people he really cares about are those who can give him something. It’s not about making their lives better and certainly not about loving them. A man who can so casually torture and rape a woman is incapable of any emotion resembling genuine love. His relationship with his zombified “daughter” Penny is symbolic of every relationship in his life at this point. His action of keeping Penny as a domesticated zombie pet does her no good. She’s still dead, and the humane thing would be to put her down so she can at least be put to rest. No, the Governor keeps her around simply because it gratifies a need he has on some level. He shows kindness to the pathetic Bob Stookey not because he considers Bob a friend but because he gets some kind of power trip out of making someone like Bob dependent on him. He plays the role of lovable public leader because he gets a kick out of playing God, and those under his purview are okay with letting him do that so long as they are protected. Dr. Stevens and Alice seem like nice people, but they deceive themselves if they believe safety is ever really possible while they have cast in their lot with the Governor. One can only live in the same cage with a monster for so long without getting hurt. It’s inevitable. Watching the broken and anguished expression on Glenn’s face as he was forced to hear what the Governor inflicted on Michonne was exactly as I felt while reading this issue. I wanted to sit in a corner and cry just like Glenn because these characters I have come to care about are suffering in ways they might never recover from. How does a woman (even one so resilient and capable as Michonne) come back from being violated in such a dehumanizing way? How can Rick (even if he gets out of this current situation) ever be the competent leader again now that he has only one hand? Watching the Governor casually toss Rick’s severed hand to his ever-hungry “daughter” like it was just another piece of meat is oddly what disturbed me the most in this issue (and that’s saying something). That one irreverent action chilled me to the bone because it so effectively communicated that nothing concerning our heroes was sacred. There is nothing inside him that would hesitate to destroy them (or worse) in an instant should he grow weary of them or no longer require their services. These characters whose journeys we have followed and, yes, who we care about mean little more than another peace of meat to this psychotic Governor, and that fact is more terrifying than any zombie.

This issue felt a bit like a filler after the incredibly rich string of issues that preceded it. Kirkman had a bit of fun toying with the readers by revealing Tyreese in the armor instead of Glenn. While the twist was well executed (I definitely didn’t see it coming), I wonder if the whole episode was altogether necessary. It was a fun reveal, but it did not really add much content to the story other than driving home the point that the Governor was likely not being honest (surprise of the century) when he told Rick that he had let Glenn go. The Governor seems to be playing an intricate game with our captured protagonists, and this issue offered not the slightest clue what that game may be. All we know is the Governor wants the prison, and who can honestly blame him? It is almost as idyllic a setting as one could ever hope to find at this point in the ravaged world of the zombie apocalypse. Case in point? They have enough spare ammunition that Andrea can spend the day picking off walkers for target practice (shouldn’t that be a big no-no since the noise would likely draw a ton more walkers)? Also, they just got their generator up and running, and one of their biggest concerns became which movie to watch that night (Kindergarten Cop gets my vote every time by the way). All of this speaks to how safe and secure their new prison home has made this weary bunch of survivors. The prison is a paradise, and that is precisely why the devil may soon come knocking. Also, was Carol hitting (again) on Lori, or did Lori really just take it the wrong way? If she did, who can blame her after Carol’s recent slew of creepy actions? However, upon re-reading that interaction between Lori and Carol, Carol’s words really can be taken either way. I initially assumed she was coming on to Lori with what may perhaps be the most glaring instance of horrible romantic timing in the history of fiction. However, she might have been speaking to Lori more in that moment as a friend which makes Lori’s inflamed response a bit regrettable. Yes, Carol is creepy at this point, but underneath all the awkwardness and lousy timing is a woman who is suffering from an almost pathological degree of loneliness. Only someone without a heart could not help but feel at all for her.

Gratuitous violence is an interesting issue to explore in this next chapter. It’s easy to condemn the Governor for offering his Woodbury followers some entertainment in the form of violent fights between two willing (or in some cases not so willing) participants. However, staged violence as a form of entertainment has been a mainstay of our society for centuries. Yes, we can certainly go way back to the Roman colosseum, but more modern examples exist as well. WWE wrestling, televised boxing matches, Liam Neeson movies, and even public executions are all valid instances where even our modern and enlightened societies turn to violence as a form of entertainment. Some even read rather violent comic books such as a certain series I myself am rather partial to. We all have a threshold for violence that we deem acceptable for entertainment, but any display of violence beyond that “safe” threshold we tend to classify as “too much,” “inappropriate,” “barbaric,” or “just plain wrong.” So where does the line get drawn? Do staged and relatively controlled fights in a biter-adorned arena fall on the safe or inappropriate side of the violence threshold? Should a post-apocalyptic mother of two impressionable boys be comfortable with taking them to see these staged fights only to wig out when an actual decapitation occurs? Can one court violence without the very real threat of getting more blood than one bargained for constantly looming overhead? How much violence is too much violence when it comes to entertainment consumption? Such questions can make for lively theoretical debates while one resides in a fully functioning society. But in the zombie apocalypse those same questions can be the difference between life and death. Just ask Harold and Eugene. As for Michonne, what she did was pretty badass (though potentially very risky as well). It was a clear message to the Governor that she is unbowed, unbent, and unbroken (yes, I borrowed that phrase from Game of Thrones) despite every attempt of the psychotic Governor to do just that. He can rape her and beat her to a pulp, but she sent the resilient message that her spirit cannot be touched. It speaks to the Governor’s gross arrogance that he believed she could truly be controlled so easily. The episode also hinted at the first real crack in the Governor’s charismatic armor. He is used to everyone around him rolling over and giving in to his demands. This has fed his ego to the point where he believes all opposition will wilt so easily before his whims. But he is starting to realize that some people are not broken so easily. Some people will not just let him take without consequence. Some people are simply too much like Michonne, Rick, and Glenn. And some people like the Governor may be biting off more than they can chew.

I really liked Dr. Stevens, but I knew his time was short when he started talking about how relieved he was to be out of Woodbury. Whenever someone gets too optimistic in this series, their doom is nigh. On one level a big part of that is the undeniable reality that Robert Kirkman has a propensity for killing off characters the moment something good happens to them. It continually drives home the resounding message that NO ONE (except maybe Rick if we’re being honest) is safe. However, on a more in-universe level, characters who become the recipients of a sudden good turn of fortune often have a tendency to let down their guards even if only for a moment. Unfortunately, for a world as fraught with dangers as The Walking Dead, one moment is all it takes. I like what Rick says to Carl on the television show. “No one is safe. All it takes is one moment and it’s all over.” Not sure if that’s the exact quote, but the gist is the same. Doctor Stevens survived under the Governor’s thumb for so long only to die within minutes of making it out of Woodbury. Why? Because he let down his guard for a single ill-timed moment. It’s easy to imagine ourselves in such scenarios, and we always see ourselves as being perpetually vigilant and not making such “stupid mistakes” like Dr. Stevens and Donna did. However, real human beings in real life scenarios let down their guards all the time. But the consequences of such moments of inattention are usually much less severe in our everyday lives than in a zombie apocalypse. As for Stevens and Alice, it’s not surprising in a way that their long delayed exodus from Woodbury was met with such a terrible complication. They seem like good people, but perhaps they are at least a little guilty of making a deal with the devil, or in this case the Governor. One imagines that they both (especially Doctor Stevens) enjoyed a little more leeway than most people did when it came to the Governor’s brutal and controlling tendencies. Doctors and trained medical personnel are precious commodities in the zombie apocalypse, and the Governor would never dispense with such an asset lightly. Therefore, Stevens and Alice benefitted from the Governor’s charismatic control of Woodbury while perhaps turning a blind eye here and there to certain brutalities they became aware of. While both of them easily disparaged the Governor’s psychotic and violent actions, neither of them left the security that Woodbury afforded them until the catalyst of Rick entered their midst. They stayed a little too long and perhaps it was an unfortunate reckoning of sorts that Stevens could not escape when he finally decided to. Speaking of reckonings, this episode featured a big one for the Governor himself in the vengeful form of Michonne. Like Stevens, he too let down his guard at a crucial moment, and that was all an enraged Michonne needed to get the jump on him. All of the Governor’s past sins that he has accumulated have given birth to a shogun badass who is there for a reckoning. The bill has come due, and one imagines that the Governor will finally begin to pay for his unpunished trespasses. Which is about damn time!

The Walking Dead is generally a very entertaining series. It’s quite heavy and dark at times (in fact, 90% of the time), but the entertainment value is always present. This groundbreaking issue, however, is not one that should entertain the reader. Unless said reader happens to be Ramsay Bolton from Game of Thrones. Rather this issue is saturated like no other issue to date in an almost noxious darkness. Reading it is unpleasant and stomach-churning and visceral. I wanted to put it down at times and just skip to the next one. Some readers may even use this issue to re-evaluate if they really want to continue reading a series capable of depicting something so brutal. Judge the issue for its graphic revenge-torture or praise it for its raw boldness, but the undeniable fact is that it succeeds in making the reader feel something undeniably poignant. Whether we want to be there or not, we are in that torture chamber as well right along with Michonne and the Governor. Kirkman allows us no other vantage point in his almost claustrophobic depiction of the gory scene. As this issue does not beat around the bush, nor will I mince words here. The hideous elephant in the room throughout the whole gut-wrenching exchange between Michonne and the Governor is Rape. I speak as one who has been fortunate enough to never experience such an inhumane crime inflicted upon me, but I would wager that those who have been violated in such a vile way can identify with Michonne’s vengeful payback montage. We live in a world where society is still intact, the dead are not walking, and yet rapists so frequently get away with their disgusting acts with little or no consequence. So there is something supremely fulfilling in seeing Michonne execute the kind of eye-for-an-eye justice/revenge/whatever-you-want-to-call-it on the Governor that is so often lacking in our world. While the institutions in a fully functioning pre-Apocalyptic society all too often afford an avenue of escape for the rapist, the same does not hold true in the Apocalyptic hellscape that Michonne inhabits. Whether we allow that Michonne went too far (she did) or not, there is no denying that there is something extraordinarily potent about a woman taking back her power in such a raw way. However, while it is easy to adopt an “I hate rapists and all of them deserve to burn in Hell” attitude, does such hatred (merited as it may be in most cases) bring more healing or harm? One can understand why Michonne did what she did to the Governor, but make no mistake. The result of her actions is that TWO broken individuals were left suffering in the aftermath. The Governor was violated in about every physical way that one can be violated, but Michonne compounded her psychological trauma due to rape by adding a bitter dose of revenge to the turbulent mix. Michonne repaid evil with evil, and such vengeful tactics have an appearance of justice but usually end up causing more harm to the dispenser of such “justice.” The Governor might truly well have deserved every mutilation inflicted on him, but such mutilations will not add up to any sort of lasting peace or healing for Michonne. After tasting so deeply of such bitter darkness, the repugnant taste will linger in her psyche for quite some time. The Governor had all of this coming to him, but it is tragic that Michonne had to be the vehicle that such retribution came through. Vengeance is satisfying in the moment, but it is always a fickle traitor afterwards. Michonne’s brutal retribution is as understandable as it is regrettable. Taking this whole wearying issue into account and the horrors (both psychological and physical) inflicted on Michonne and the Governor, I cannot think of any more compelling work of fiction that so soberingly showcases the lasting damage that rape can impart to all who are involved.

After plunging us into the most utter depths of darkness in the last issue, this most recent Walking Dead installment brings a little much needed light into the mix. Seeing Morgan again was a nice surprise, and there was something very touching about his interaction with his son Duane. In a world where all the civilized trappings of society have been callously ripped away, there is a certain charm in one man still making an attempt to pay homage to Christmas. Some traditions do not die so easily even in the zombie apocalypse, nor should they. It’s these tiny, quiet moments such as the one where Duane loses himself in the simple joy of playing his new Gameboy that are like precious shards of gold that occasionally rise out of the dreary muck of a fallen world. These moments are simple but powerful, and it is in these moments of grace that we see the possibility of hope emerge for a better future. Rick, Michonne, Glenn, Alice, and Martinez’s trek back to the prison is not quite as cheery, but it is still rather illuminating. Michonne simply refuses to slow down, eschewing sleep and rushing headlong into any zombie (or biter or roamer or whatever you want to call them) engagement. It’s almost as if Michonne thinks that she can silence her own inner demons with each zombie slain. She’s running and fighting and being the post-apocalyptic badass shogun we all love, but there is an undeniable darkness flavoring her competency. She is running from much, and no amount of walking dead slain will give her respite. Taking the time to more fully flesh out Martinez and his backstory was a smart investment by Kirkman as well. One of the biggest liabilities than can unhinge a person in the zombie apocalypse is the ever-present threat of losing somebody he or she loves. Certainly, there is a temptation to think like Martinez did in the early days of the outbreak. Resist forming close attachments to any other human, and theoretically one can protect oneself from the psychological torment that can result when those attachments are inevitably ripped away. But the thing about human beings is that they are continually drawn to one another. Bonds are often forged despite one’s best attempts to elude them. Martinez had no close family members, and yet the bonds he formed with his gym students delivered a sucker punch to his psyche as he endured them being torn to shreds in front of him. People will always seek out other people, especially when times are toughest. It’s human nature to seek affirmation in the eyes of another. It seems we are not designed to live our lives in isolation no matter how committed we may be to do so. Investing our time and emotions in another person will undoubtedly make us vulnerable. But it is this vulnerability that adds color to an otherwise dead world. It is what separate the walking living from the walking dead.

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!

Detachment seems to be the theme of the hour in this morally vexing installment. In a world where the people you love could be snatched away from you at any moment and in the most horrific of ways, detachment is not without its curb appeal. Lori admits to Tyreese that she simply does not worry about Rick anymore whenever he heads outside the prison walls. He always comes back after all, so why put so much energy into worrying? This ability to detach so completely from such powerful emotions as fear and worry is a defense mechanism that is easier said than done in the fully functioning society we live in. However, the undeniable reality of the zombie apocalypse is that it continually offers one plenty of practice in the art of detachment. On second thought, art may not be the right word for it. Art implies luxury, and detachment is more often than not a necessity for those who wish to keep surviving a little bit longer. If Lori kept freaking out every time Rick left her sight, she would go insane in no time. But by detaching from all that worry, she is able to function better for both herself and those around her (and inside her womb). However, such detachment—while useful and even essential—exacts a heavy toll. Rick Grimes has undergone a detachment of his own over the course of his arc in the series so far. The first few deaths he took (Thomas and Dexter) did not leave him unshaken. He never doubted (nor honestly do I doubt) that their deaths were likely necessary given all other options. However, those deaths tore him up inside. How is it now then that he is able to mow down a fleeing Martinez so easily? Many factors are involved. For starters, Woodbury changed everything for the survivors who were incarcerated there. The trust in humanity it shattered for Rick and company will take a very long time to restore—if it even can be restored. Also worth consideration is that ever-present reality for Rick that his wife is entering her ninth month of pregnancy, and he is simply unwilling to take anymore risks. Martinez—whatever his intentions were concerning the prison—posed a massive risk to its security, and therefore Rick utilized the full weight of the RV to do a little risk management. Regardless of whether one thinks he was in the right or wrong with his handling of Martinez, all but the most hardened of psychopaths (Governor, I’m looking at you) would find his brutally honest admission to Lori quite chilling. He admits that murder has become very easy for him. He is at a point where he can now kill anyone—even hypothetically members of his group—if he thinks it will play some part in keeping his family safe. Perhaps his darkest admission is that he sometimes categorizes certain people above others in his head, quietly mulling over who he would be willing to sacrifice more than another if he had no choice. Clearly, as Rick demonstrates here, there are dangers lurking in Detachment’s shadow. If one should become too detached and too numb to taking the life of another human being (no matter how justified such a murder may seem), then he or she could become little different than the zombies he or she works so hard to put down. It’s much harder to put down a zombie that is in one’s own head. Rick’s saving grace, however, is the reality that his detachment to killing seems to weigh so heavily upon him. By posing the question to Lori asking if she thought his detachment to killing made him evil, there lies his hope of maintaining his humanity. Truly morally detached individuals care little about whether what they do is good or evil. They just do what they want to do when they want to do it and never pause to consider whether any semblance of their soul is still intact. Rick, however, is pausing. Rick is still considering the state of his soul. He will do what he has to do to protect those in his orbit, but the heaviness will always plague him after each questionable act. That heaviness is like an anchor to human morality, however. Without it, one can become an unhinged monster like the Governor. And Rick is no Governor. Not yet anyway . . .

A lot has been said about how dark and edgy The Walking Dead can be, and at times that darkness can appear to choke out all traces of light. Yet some of the most standout moments in my mind are not when hordes of zombies are trying to devour our heroes. Not one zombie graced the pages of this issue, and yet it resonated so powerfully with me nonetheless. It has been said that the stars shine all the sweeter because of the dark firmament they are situated in. Light—even the tiniest glimpses of it—is most precious when all it seems we can see is the gloomy dark. And there has been a lot of gloomy dark in this book of late. Rick has sustained a life-altering disability, Michonne has been on the threshold of Hell, and a new and fiendish foe lurks ominously on the horizon ready to destroy all that they have built. And yet there is grace enough left in the world for some fleeting moments of beauty to be found amidst the ashes. Religion in this series is often viewed rather cynically. In a sense, this suspicion of religion/God is understandable in the fallen world of the zombie apocalypse. One can imagine how difficult it must be for increasingly desperate survivors to hang on to faith in a loving and good God when so much bad has happened. When all that a person can see is the constant fear of losing a loved one, it is easy to lose sight of what that which is pure and loving and holy. However, there is a persistent quality to the divine spark in that it somehow finds a way to keep burning even long after it should have been snuffed out. It is intriguing that Robert Kirkman himself identifies as an atheist/agnostic, and yet he sees fit to devote two pages’ worth of space to a very famous and moving scripture from 1 Corinthians 13 during Maggie and Glenn’s oddly beautiful wedding ceremony. This Bible verse is all the more potent due to its somewhat bizarre and unanticipated inclusion in a zombie apocalypse comic by a non-believing author. Yet whatever source that Kirkman drew inspiration from when citing his scripture, there is no denying that it provides the ideal counterpoint to the mounting darkness. At various points throughout the issue, the prison group embodies certain aspects of this verse, hinting that perhaps God may not be quite so dead in the zombie apocalypse as it might appear on the surface. “Love is patient, love is kind . . .” (1 Corinthians 13:4) There is a tender moment where an emotionally distraught Michonne seeks Tyreese out in the middle of the night. She does this not for a quick exchange of meaningless sex. She just needs to be loved. She just needs to be held. She needs Tyreese to be the strong arms to hold her and make her feel safe. She needs him to be patient and kind. She needs him to just be there. And to his credit (and in spite of the fact that he does not appear to fully grasp what she’s going through), he seems to do just that. “[Love] does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” (1 Corinthians 13:5) No member of the prison group has exhibited as erratic and at times just downright dangerous behavior as Patricia has. They have every reason to shun her and give her the cold shoulder. And yet Billy Greene finds it in his heart to offer her a kind word, a forgiving gesture, and an implied cancellation of the record of wrongs that stood against her and condemned her. He dealt with her in a spirit of grace, and that grace elevates Patricia to perhaps be a more stable person. Then we have a very pregnant and ashamed Lori finally reaching out to Rick ready to own up to her complicity in the affair with Shane. We are left with uncertainty as to how Rick responds, but it is clearly Lori’s most desperate hope that Rick will find it in his heart to offer her the same grace and forgiveness that Billy displayed in his exchange with Patricia. “[Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 13:7) This one above all the other ones really resonated with me. It is the Sun around which our heroes orbit. It is the fire that warms them when it’s cold. Every time Rick makes a tough decision to promote the wellbeing of his family, he is loving them by striving to protect them. Every time they take some lost stranger like Michonne into their fold and welcome them into their makeshift family, they are exercising love by daring to trust. Every time they look to the future and dare to believe the bold fantasy that the world really isn’t ending, they are choosing to hope. Above all though, this group—each and every one of them—keeps on persevering through every trial that comes their way. They keep choosing to fight when the world around them whispers to just give up and join the walking dead already. They choose to hold a marriage ceremony in a prison mess hall because they still believe that Love can conquer all. Rick and Lori dare to bring new life into a dying world because they believe Love can make all things possible. Love is what separates the living from the zombies. Love is the difference between a Rick Grimes who must at times make questionable decisions and a sadistic Governor who has dispensed with all sense of morality and keeps heads in a fish tank. Love is what keeps the living living. Of all the resources, weapons, and strategies one might bring into the zombie apocalypse, Love is the most indispensable.

There is a pervasive sense in this issue that something really bad is lurking just around the corner (or Wal-Mart aisle). The looming threat of the Governor (in whatever state he may be in after Michonne’s brutal retribution) is all the more menacing due to his absence. Waiting on the brink of an impending war is always more psychologically draining than the actual fighting itself. While life goes on at the prison and the survivors take tentative measures to prepare for a future, there is the ubiquitous feeling that at any moment the Governor’s hammer is going to drop and war will be upon them. Despite all their preparations, the grim truth is that Rick and company just do not have the resources to engage in a war while maintaining the sanctity of their prison abode. Tyreese and company’s mission to gather weapons from the National Guard outpost did not yield as many weapons as they had hoped, and their ballsy move to try and procure more goods from the Wal-Mart seems doomed to end in a perhaps very unpleasant way. Yet despite all this darkness, little glints of light keep resiliently shining. Rick forgives Lori for her unthinkable liaison with Shane, Alice continually brushes up on how to deliver the best prenatal care she is capable of to Rick and Lori’s unborn little one, Hershel treats an estranged Patricia with grace, and Billy may actually get a girlfriend! Add to that how the RV group is out there actively working to better their chances against the Governor (and peeing in the most plot-driven of ways while they’re at it), and it is apparent that the survivors we have come to know and love are keeping doing what they have always done: Surviving! Not only that, however, but some of them (such as Glenn and Maggie dreaming of one day having a baby of their own) are even starting to consider the remote possibility of thriving in the broken world they find themselves in and not merely surviving. If society is to be restored and the living are to conquer the omnipresent dead, then the threshold between surviving and thriving must eventually be crossed. However, as we shall soon see, that one crucial step between surviving and thriving is not an easy one with many a stumbling block (and sadistic Governor) along the way.

This issue felt very cinematic in that it had a little bit of everything. It had a shootout at the Wal-Mart where Andrea is forced to face the fact that maybe she has become a little too effective of a killing machine. Sharpshooter though she may be, Andrea is beginning to understand that there is a big difference between sniping zombies from a distance and gunning down actual human beings. Tyreese was absolutely right as he tried to comfort her. She had no other choice but to gun the Governor’s cronies down, but killing (even justified killing) should never become too easy in the zombie apocalypse. If it reaches that point, there exists a very real danger of that person losing his or her humanity in the exchange. This is how Governors are created, and Michonne (given her rather apathetic attitude towards slicing and dicing those men) may be in danger of such a fate if she is not careful. Then there is Lori’s pregnancy, which has felt like it has been going on for two years now! The newest addition to the Grimes family decides to come into the world at the most inopportune time, which raises the stakes considerably. As daylight begins to fade, Alice makes it crystal clear that it is absolutely crucial that the generator stay up and running (despite the bitter pill to swallow that they are abysmally low on gas). This is when Billy gallantly yet somewhat naively promises he’ll do everything in his power to keep the generator up and running. Then poor Dale agrees to help him and ends getting abandoned by Billy, knocked unconscious, and awakens with a zombie gnawing on his ankle. So yeah . . . The title of this issue could be “Dale’s Really Terrible, No Good, Lousy Day.” Due to the placement of Dale’s bite, I’m hopeful that this isn’t the end of him, but we will just have to wait and see. Even if he does survive this, however, it speaks highly of him that he was more than willing to lay down his life to help Lori and her unborn baby. Just a couple years ago, this group of strangers may barely have spared a second glance to one another, but the zombie apocalypse has forged them into a cohesive (if often dysfunctional) family unit. Of all the myriad of horrors the zombie apocalypse breeds, it is encouraging to know that love still finds a way to shine. Love is most precious, after all, when times are most desperate. As for Billy, yes, his running away was cowardly. But we must give him a little slack. Up till this point, Billy has been somewhat sheltered by those around him (especially Hershel who simply cannot bear the thought of losing another child). Billy simply did not have the mental currency at this point to pull off his mission that he undertook so hastily, and unfortunately his unpreparedness may cost Dale dearly. Sheltering works for a time, but there will always come a time when it hurts those it’s designed to protect (or someone else). This is true in the real world, but it’s especially true in the zombie apocalypse. In the case of the failed gasoline run by Billy and Dale, it ends with all hope seemingly lost for Lori and the baby. However, right at the eleventh hour, Tyreese’s group returns with all that gasoline they serendipitously rounded up from the National Guard station. This unexpected aid from another quarter can be looked at one of two ways. One way is that the author simply needed a coincidental appearance of gasoline so that they could solve the generator problem. But the way I choose to perceive it is that a Great Author is still at work even in the shattered world our survivors find themselves in. Whether one looks at situations like this and sees a coincidence or a miracle, the fact is that there are times even when it seems most desperate that Hope can find a way to not disappoint.

Aw! Good for Rick! How many dads can say that they got to cut an old dude’s leg off the same day their daughter was born? Just another day in the zombie apocalypse! But seriously, everything seems to be going very swimmingly for our favorite group of post-Apocalyptic survivors. They even have a brand new member among their previously thinning ranks in the form of Judith “someone-forgot-to-remind-Rick-and-Lori-that-it’s-no-longer-the-fifties” Grimes! A proud big brother now, Carl displays an incredible amount of insight in saying his new baby sister is lucky in that she will grow up having no recollection of how the world used to be before the Turn. Living in a prison with hordes of the undead shambling around outside its perimeter will be the norm for little Judith. She may not even be all that afraid of zombies and may even consider them just another basic part of the world she was born in to. In a sense, this is indeed lucky, but it’s also kind of sad. I think the reality sets in for Rick and Lori that in only a generation no one will be alive on the planet who will be able to recall what life was like before society fell to pieces. Judith is part of a brave new world, but I’m sure Rick and Lori would’ve been plenty happy if she was just another part of the old one. There is another implication in Carl’s words as well. By saying how lucky Judith is in that she won’t be afraid all the time, he is being fairly transparent that he is indeed quite scared all the time himself. But that fear seems to be breeding a sort of wisdom in Carl. That’s what happens when young children grow up in a nightmare. They start talking like wizened adults and grow up way too fast. It is quite honestly a very grim trade, but it’s all a part of survival in this new world. Speaking of survival, Carl’s absence from shooting practice is colored by a sense of ill foreboding. They have all become way too comfortable in their prison fortress. They had to fight like hell to get it, but if they are not vigilant, it could cost them everything. As Dale so soberingly put it, the prison cost him a leg . . . and nearly his life. Too much comfort and coddling in the zombie apocalypse can yield fruit of the most bitter variety. It’s so easy to just forget how precarious everything is and how dangerous the zombies still are. It’s easy to think your young son will not need to fire his gun after all. It’s easy to think the prison walls will hold fast indefinitely. It’s easy to think all the good luck and happy times will continue. But all too often the easy path in the zombie apocalypse is the one that leads to a decidedly unlucky demise. But as Dale so wisely muses, he wonders how long all of that good fortune can last before the next blow lands that once again leaves them blindsided. As the television series iteration of Rick Grimes so hauntingly puts it, “Luck runs out.” I normally reserve a 10/10 rating for only the most elite issues of this series. So usually that means the only issues to get that rating are the ones that have something major happen in them. But I gave this issue a perfect 10 to pay homage to Kirkman’s phenomenal storytelling pacing. The reason why this comic series has enjoyed and continues to enjoy such a prosperous run is that Kirkman simply refuses to rush the narrative. He allows the characters time to simply BE and not always have to be DOING something. A more paranoid storyteller would cater to the instant gratification mindset of his audience and have major action sequences in every monthly installment. But he always tells his story at the pace he wants to tell it at. And we keep buying those issues because we believe in the narrative he is relating. A slower issue like this one may leave readers who wait an entire month for the next one to come out a bit cold. But view this issue in the context of the larger narrative, and its pacing is flawless. Kirkman always has his eye on the bigger picture, and that means that sometimes we impatient fans must learn to wait and trust in the unfolding narrative. For it is the slower moments that make the bigger ones much more meaningful. If all we had were big issues with huge action pieces, a lot of impatient fans may be happy. But I can tell you if that were indeed the case, this series would not have made it past issue 50, and The Walking Dead would simply be another niche zombie comic collecting dust in the bargain bin.

There are many deaths in fiction that catch us truly off guard. And The Walking Dead particularly is adept at surprising its readers in the most shocking and devastating of ways when it comes to character deaths. But let us be honest here. We knew this was coming. Carol was simply too unstable to last much longer, and it really is sad. One might also be tempted to condemn her for choosing to opt out while she still had a young daughter who needed her. One might simply write her off as being a head case, a sex fiend, or a lost cause. But to hastily jump to such conclusions is an affront to everybody in the real world who struggles with very real mental illness. I am no diagnostician, but one does not have to be Dr. Phil to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that Carol suffered from some pretty extreme manifestations of mental illness. Obviously, she had severe depression and overwhelming fears of loneliness. Did you know that some statistics indicate that more people fear being alone than dying? Tragically, Carol was one of those statistics, and those statistics are living, breathing human beings. And some of those human beings have young daughters and friends and families. And despite those very valid reasons to keep breathing, sometimes people are just too far gone to see any other way out but suicide. Not only was Carol depressed and lonely, but she also seemed to suffer from impulse control issues pertaining to sexual matters (as Billy, Lori, and Rick can confirm all too well). The final apparent ingredient in her fatal cocktail of mental illness was a pervasive sense of shame and unworthiness. This is evident by her defending her ex-husband as a good man even though he physically abused her. It was also her own damaged sense of self-worth that obscured her perception of what the others thought of her. Rick and Lori had just discussed how they should start assuming the best of Carol again as they both admitted that their new messed up world could push people to the boundaries of their sanity. Especially people who already had signs of mental illness going into the zombie apocalypse. There are no doctors, therapists, or counselors left to seek out for professional help. There are no rehab centers or sponsors or medication prescriptions. There are just zombies and mental illness, mental illness and zombies. A disease that is unable to be treated will all too often end in death. There is a sort of grimly brilliant symbolism at the sight of a hopeless Carol communicating with her new zombie buddy on one side of the fence while her “family” and friends were on the other side having a nice day. On one side of the fence is life; on the other side is death, and like so many who suffer from depression, Carol is stuck on the death side. Does the fact that she is mentally ill excuse her selfish actions? Some would say yes, others would say no, but an affirmative or negative answer does not really matter that much. Carol is still dead, the people who cared about her are still left asking why, and a little girl is still bereft of her mother. Some people are able to get up each day and face an uncertain world with courage and conviction. Like Maggie and Glenn, they dare to consider having a baby despite all the reasons why Fear tells them not to. Like Andrea, they take the time to teach others how to excel at a skill. Like Hershel, they keep believing in God even though a broken world tells them to just forsake God and despair. People have a resilient knack for finding reasons to keep living even in the midst of the most terrible of circumstances. But sometimes a few poor souls just lose that knack. They stop finding reasons to keep breathing, and so they end up like Carol and leave many a distraught and confused loved one behind. *If anyone is struggling with mental illness of any variety, PLEASE seek help! Unlike Carol, we are blessed to live in a world where society is not dead. Treatment and counseling is attainable to all those who simply admit they need help (and don’t we all from time to time). Join the living on the OTHER side of the fence and choose life. And know that despite how alone you may feel, there is a God who loves you and people whose world would be shattered without you in it.

This is really all Tyreese’s fault. “We’re safe. That’s it.” And then he repeated that naive mantra just a few panels later. [Enter Sean Bean] “One does not simply say they are safe in The Walking Dead and actually stay safe.” [Exit Sean Bean]. Such optimism is as alluring as it is dangerous, as Tyreese likely learns all too well as the Governor’s forces (tank and all) stampede towards our formerly lucky group of prison survivors . . . But let’s backtrack a bit and examine the impact of the preceding tragedy before we brace ourselves for the next one. Carol’s death has left a dreary mark on almost everyone. Losing people in the zombie apocalypse is not new to this weary group of survivors, but the whole suicide thing is a unique evil. When so much must be fought for just to keep breathing, the idea of a fellow survivor just giving up the struggle and opting out is a disturbing one on many levels. For starters, the sting of the actual loss of Carol is a painful one and impacts each person in the group differently. Poor Sophia especially seems to be in a rather catatonic state (much to Carl’s concern). Andrea reveals that she has become desensitized to putting loved ones down when they turn and simply sees it as a grim (even humane) necessity. Billy is left feeling confused and frustrated after Carol commits suicide so soon after they had intercourse (was he really THAT bad?). And (bad joke aside) Tyreese is so pissed at Carol for making such a selfish decision that he can’t even spare time to grieve for her. I do think Tyreese is hurting more than he lets on, and his “no talking” sex with Michonne is perhaps motivated more by a need for distraction than by any deeper meaning. The need for distraction goes both ways, as I am sure Michonne has plenty of reasons why she could need distracting as well. However, the time for distractions and grieving is past as the forces from Woodbury rapidly close in on our favorite band of survivors and their imperiled prison sanctuary. They built so much there, and it grieves me as a reader to see it all about to fall apart. The prison just might have been their happily ever after, or at least as happy as an ever after can be in the zombie apocalypse. But now the psychotic whims of one madman with too much power and a big tank could undo all that. Carol’s war is over. For everyone else, it has just begun. And wars have casualties . . .

After enduring several issues wondering whatever happened to that Governor bloke, the curtain to that mystery is finally pulled all the way back in this jarringly dark installment. “There is evil in this world—and not all of it is in the form of those undead monsters clawing at our fences.” The Governor’s words ring undeniably true, but little do the deceived citizens of Woodbury realize that the evil his words are describing apply to himself. He is the monster in their midst. He is the evil one. He is the walking dead. We have seen our other protagonist Rick Grimes make some morally questionable decisions (though it turns out he did not make the wrong call on Martinez after all) on his journey from the coma to the prison, but nearly all of those choices were made out of necessity or to protect those he cared about. And perhaps most importantly, those moral decisions weighed heavily on Rick. Not so with the Governor. He ENJOYS the barbarity. Whether he is fueling the Woodbury residents’ collective bloodlust with the fighting arena or plotting to decimate his foes with a tank, he is always the consummate artist with nothing but blood and gore on his pallet. The broken world inspires him to channel every base desire into achieving his purely selfish ends. Whereas Rick occasionally commits questionable acts while wrestling with the moral ramifications, the Governor rejects any concept of morality whatsoever. If you are a Walking Dead comic fan and want to delve more deeply into how the Governor came to be, definitely check out Jay Bonansinga’s Governor-oriented novels. Kirkman was involved in plotting their narratives, so their information is undoubtedly canon. There is A LOT to the Governor’s backstory that the comics do not reveal. Not everything is as it seems with him, and unraveling the multilayered mystery of how one decent man erodes away to become the Governor is quite the compelling treat. The comics are also much more impactful when one understands who the Governor really is and what transpired to make him the monster he ultimately becomes. We have traced the narrative arc of Rick Grimes. We have traced the narrative arc of the Governor (even more so if one has read the novels). Now those arcs are coming to an explosive head, and both protagonists will never be the same. There will be blood. There will be loss. There will be war. There will be a most compelling reason to pick up the next issue ASAP!

Team Prison: 1 Team Woodbury: Zilch! After a very intense and action-packed showdown, Rick’s group not only comes out on top, but they do not lose a single casualty! So how did this miraculous deliverance from the Governor’s forces come about? On paper it should not have worked. The Governor had a TANK! He had a makeshift army comprised of much greater numbers. He had the element of surprise. So why then did his offensive campaign against the prison fail so spectacularly? And why did Rick’s group succeed? There are several factors to analyze when it comes to answering these inquiries. Rick’s group (while much smaller than the Woodbury forces) has endured many horrors throughout the duration of the zombie apocalypse so far. They have been held to the flames and have come out of every crucible a little bit stronger. Through such trials they have become more proficient with weapons. SEE ANDREA. They have learned how to kill both the undead and the living as well if need be. SEE ANDREA. Many members of the group are not only survivors, but for all intents and purposes they are warriors as well. SEE ANDREA. Above and beyond this clear advantage, however, is the fact that the Prison group is a family. Their bonds of love, trust, and loyalty are potent, and those bonds are no small advantage when it comes to digging in and standing one’s ground against an approaching storm. Woodbury, on the other hand, is severely lacking in the warrior department. With a few exceptions, one gets the sense that the majority of Woodbury denizens have been rather sheltered from the grim realities that others outside their town sanctuary have faced. Part of why the people of Woodbury are so blindly loyal to the Governor is because he shields them from the bitter conditions that now define their fallen world. He provides them no end of distractions and “entertainments” in order to get their collective mind off what is really going on. Therefore, though his ragtag army of citizen soldiers take little convincing to fight for him, the Governor’s army is comprised of weak pawns who have not been tested the way Rick’s group has. Also, one gets the impression that there are no formidable bonds of love, loyalty, or trust amongst those in Woodbury. They may be a town, and possibly they could even be called a community. But they are not a family, and families will always possess more of a functional dynamic than a mere town or community. Last but not least, the key difference between the prison and Woodbury groups is that the prison has Andrea and Woodbury does not. Just kidding (not really). But seriously, the prison group fights in an effort to protect and defend that which it holds dear. Love is the battery fueling their war machine. However, the Governor’s war machine runs on a much poorer substitute: Fear. Fear is what drives the Woodbury citizens to attack the prison, and (as is so often the case) Fear is a liar. The Governor uses fear to motivate his followers to mobilize an army against a threat that is really no threat at all, but that same fear is what prevents his army from ultimately rising to the occasion. Evil is truly its own undoing, as both fiction and history prove time and time again. As for Rick being shot, stay tuned! He isn’t dead yet, and it’ll hopefully take more than a shot to the gut to put Rick Grimes on ice. #RickLives!!! #AndreaRocks!!! #AndreaIsTheReason!!!

Besides featuring the most epic urination fail in the history of the written word, this issue allows our beleaguered prison group a moment to catch their collective breath after their unexpected victory over the Governor’s forces. Alice plays an integral role in stabilizing Rick’s critical condition with a crucial assist from Patricia. Patricia, Patricia . . . Crazy, crazy Patricia. In the grand scheme of things, it is very easy to overlook her and even to adopt a rather dismissive opinion of her. She’s no samurai ninja like Michonne or a muscular badass like Tyreese. She’s no sharpshooter like Andrea and is not as endearing as young lovers like Glenn and Maggie. However, when her moment came, she stepped up. She gave blood and saved Rick. Let that sink in for a moment. Patricia SAVED the life of Rick FREAKING Grimes! This means that if the group had just disowned her after her mistake with Dexter, Rick may very well have never made it past the prison. All of the good that Rick accomplishes afterward would never have come to fruition had it not been for the timely intervention of Patricia and her O-Negative blood type. It just goes to demonstrate how EVERY human being has potential value in the zombie apocalypse (and I daresay in life in general). Choosing to write someone off as useless or a hopeless case too prematurely can come back to seriously bite someone down the line. People are resources of inestimable value in the zombie apocalypse. But sometimes people who are resources can be really dumb resources. With their leader fighting for his life and rendered unconscious, some really rash decisions are made that might make even the most optimistic of Star Wars characters say, “I have a bad feeling about this.” Driven by unresolved feelings of vengeance and hatred (which are totally understandable given the trauma she endured), Michonne enlists a markedly less resolved Tyreese to aid her in making an ill-advised retaliatory attack run on the routed Woodbury forces. Never mind that doing so removes two of the most capable prison group members from protecting the prison. Never mind that picking off a few more enemy adversaries will probably not make a massive difference in the long run. Never mind that Michonne chopped a man’s head in two while he was PEEING! Cooler heads simply did not prevail, and a massive error in judgment was made. And then we have the slightly more measured though no less regrettable response of Dale, Andrea, Glenn, and Maggie. Having survived one attack from the Governor, this quartet decides to get the heck out of Dodge. It may be easy to condemn their desertion of the prison as faithless and cowardly, but a case can be made for recognizing when to cut and run. The prison is a marvel and will not easily be replaced, but lives are even harder to replace. If the decision to just give up the prison keeps people from dying, then it might be worth it. However, it is a possibility that living so long behind the prison walls has made Dale and company forget just how dangerous the world still is beyond its nurturing walls. Avoiding a future entanglement with the Governor is by no means a guarantee of safety. There are a macabre multitude of dangers lurking out there that may make digging in and fighting for the relative safety the prison offers the infinitely more desirable option. Running is the easier option in the short term, but has Dale considered the long-term ramifications of such a choice? As it is in life, the easy choice in the zombie apocalypse is seldom the optimal one. And as for Hershel’s ominous words about Maggie? Damn. Just damn. Things are a starting to get real.

RIP Tyreese There are moments in life when death becomes an inevitable consequence of choices rendered. Once an often indefinite threshold is crossed, there is no going back from the grim reality of Death’s imminent arrival. That threshold was crossed when Michonne and Tyreese set out on their doomed mission. Driven more by vengeance and rage rather than by any degree of strategic relevance, such rash actions in the zombie apocalypse leave little room for error. It might be easy to blame Michonne for Tyreese’s untimely demise considering the whole ill affair was her idea. Or we could blame Rick because he chose to unflinchingly let Tyreese’s murder play out rather than yield to the Governor’s demands. But to blame others (besides the psychopath who held the sword) for Tyreese’s death is to insult his memory. He CHOSE to go along with Michonne on that mission, and he CHOSE to die for his friends rather than encourage them to yield to a madman’s demands in order to save his own skin. He was a fighter in life, and he remained so right up to the moment the Governor had so much trouble slicing his head off. There was a resilient spark in Tyreese that made him very hard to kill. Just ask those walkers in the prison’s gym! That was nearly impossible odds, but Tyreese survived. However, the thing about survival is that sometimes it is a rather fickle friend. Sometimes luck simply runs out. Sometimes the sum total of a man’s choices and circumstances fall in such a way that death is the only outcome. It doesn’t matter how strong he is or how many times he has beaten the odds before. When that time comes, there is no escape. Kneeling before the Governor with a companion’s blade turned against him, Tyreese’s final moment had come. Sapped of his strength and held captive like Samson from the Bible, Tyreese (who had been a fighter his entire life) died while in no position to fight to better his circumstances. Perhaps that was the greatest tragedy of his death. The strongman fighter was rendered completely incapacitated and could only watch as a much weaker man callously decapitated him. Tyreese’s shocking death only serves to illustrate just how potentially short everyone’s life span in their prison fortress could be. Make no mistake, the Governor’s blade looms over them all. They react to this unsettling truth in different ways. Dale and company’s first instinct is to run as far away from that looming blade as possible. Rick goes to extremes to fortify and booby trap the prison despite the bitter truth that no such precautions guarantee safety. Axel and Patricia have sex to try and distract themselves. Hershel and Billy lean more on their faith than ever before in what was one of the more poignant moments amidst all the carnage. Some of these coping strategies are more useful than others, but they are all resorted to as a way to cling to their collective mortality for just a little bit longer (or perhaps even look to the possibility of something better beyond the mortal horizon). But sometimes despite one’s best efforts to preserve life, death often comes crashing in anyway. Like a wrecking ball, there is little chance of arresting its fatal momentum once it starts swinging. One only hopes that when that time comes (and it will come for us all at some point), he or she can face that moment with the same quiet strength and dignity that Tyreese faced his with. He died preferring that he should pass on while his friends yet lived. As physically strong as the former NFL player was, his strength of character was where his most potent strength originated. Such strength like that will truly be missed by Rick’s group going forward. Something tells me they could have dearly used it.

The absolutely crushing, game-changing moment in this whole Governor arc came to its malevolent fulfillment when the Governor psychotically drove that tank through the fences. In that grim instance, the value of the prison as a safe haven from the horrors of the outside world was brutally stripped away. Without those fences, neither Rick’s group or the Governor’s can derive anything of significance from it. Few illustrations in fiction are more demonstrative of the utter senselessness of war. The more a prolonged engagement stretches on, the less rewards the winning side has to claim afterwards. In only a short time, both sides are playing a losing game. Lives are lost on both sides in the most meaningless of ways (poor Axel), and all of that bloodshed accomplishes nothing. As the twilight of the prison falls upon Rick’s group, there are a couple of final moments in this era worthy of consideration. One of them is Lori’s rather confrontational and inflamed response to Tyreese’s death. I do not say this to condemn Lori (even though condemning Lori is something Walking Dead fans love to do), but to blame Rick for Tyreese’s death is the height of irrationality. Rick could never under any circumstance have saved Tyreese. If he had opened the gates for the Governor in order to “save” Tyreese, the Governor would’ve murdered everyone in that prison. Tyreese included. Rick by no means sanctioned Tyreese and Michonne’s ridiculously stupid mission. He was patently against it. So why is Lori blaming Rick? To be honest, that question really bugs me. Most of the time, I can understand character motivations in this series pretty easily, but Lori’s reaction here tripped me up a bit. The only thing I can think of to explain Lori’s bizarre outburst is that on some level she still blames Rick for Shane’s death. Maybe her feelings for Shane were a little more legitimate than she cares to admit. Yes, Carl killed Shane, but Rick would have done so otherwise. As much as Lori may love Rick, maybe she is still dealing with unresolved feelings that never were really given their due. And nursing what may very well be Shane’s biological daughter probably does not help. Maybe that’s why she blames Rick for so much. Their issues likely go back to before the zombie apocalypse. Marital discord does not suddenly dissolve when the dead start walking. If anything, those issues are aggravated to new extremes. Then there’s Carl, who seems to be growing increasingly desensitized to death. He barely laments Tyreese’s demise at all, and he has resigned himself to the bitter reality that everyone is going to die. Everyone. The interesting and bittersweet truth about children in the zombie apocalypse is that they adapt more quickly than adults do to the radically changing world around them. Carl has seen so many members of his group die horrific deaths, and his young mind has done the math. His desensitized state is certainly rather chilling and extraordinarily sad that one so young should lose his innocence in such a harrowing way. However, this hardened chrysalis that Carl has begun to wrap himself in is in the process of yielding a capable survivor. However, the danger in such a metamorphosis is that whatever emerges from it may run the risk of losing its humanity in the process. There are both functional and dysfunctional aspects to what Carl is experiencing, and too much dysfunction can undermine any other functional gains if great care is not taken. I literally gasped at the end when a frantic Rick finds Lori and Judith being held at gunpoint by a mysterious assailant. Kirkman still knows how to drop those masterclass cliffhangers. And screw him for it!

Few issues succeed like this one in truly leaving one speechless at the end of it. And a little sick to the stomach if I’m being honest. I have a pretty high tolerance for gore, but that sequence with Lori and Judith pushed me to my limits. It is quite truthfully the most brutal issue up to this point as we are forced to endure a bloodbath as ceaseless as it is senseless. I don’t even know where to begin, but I suppose the best place to start would be to consider all the lives that were so viciously silenced. Patricia and Alice: I group these two women together because they both died having saved main characters who we are quite frankly much more invested in. Patricia gave blood to save Rick Grimes when he was on the brink of death after being shot in the gut. Alice provided some heroic covering fire for Rick and his family as they attempted to escape the Governor’s massacre. While these characters never really gained the traction that so many other Walking Dead protagonists have garnered over the years, they left their mark on the series. They both risked their own lives (and in Alice’s case actually lost hers) by trying to protect Rick and his family. Rick’s story going forward appears to be far from over, but that story may have been cut off prematurely had it not been for the sacrifices of Patricia and Alice. Hershel and Billy: This one hit me nearly as hard as Lori and Judith. I really had come to admire these two characters over the course of the series so far, and losing them both in the same issue is a hard pill to swallow. Billy was never the most capable contributor in the group. His courage had a tendency to waver, and that fact once placed Dale in grave danger. But this happened as he was trying desperately to keep the generator going for Lori’s delivery of Judith. He was “Andrea Lite” when it came to sniping, but he knew how to make use of a grenade. He did not have the resilient faith of his father, but he had enough. I think it’s safe to say the Lord was there for him in the end after all. Then we have Hershel, a man of profound faith who exemplified what it meant to hang on to the higher things that differentiate human beings from mere carnal animals. As contemporary Christian singer Danny Gokey once stated: “Unshakable faith is faith that has been shaken.” Hershel’s faith was shaken throughout his arc in the most gut-wrenching of ways. Remember Susie and Rachel? Arnold and Lacey? Even Maggie was wrested away from him in a sense. But like the prodigal son’s steadfast brother who never left his father’s side, Billy was always there for his father. This is why losing Billy was the final straw for poor Hershel. He simply had no more will to go on. It is a grim scene indeed where an utterly spent Hershel bows in submission to the maniacal Governor. The man holding the power in the exchange is the one who has neglected all traces of his humanity. The man kneeling in defeat is the one who always strived to hang on to something better. The better man—the stronger man—was murdered by a beast who had long abandoned any pretense at being a man at all. This elevation of the psychotic, the weak, and the base over the moral, right, and strong is one of the most bitter realities of the zombie apocalypse. It is in these moments that the fate of mankind looks bleakest and perhaps even beyond saving. Lori and Judith: There is a beautiful moment right at the beginning of this issue where in the midst of the Governor’s frenzied assault on the prison, all is right with the world for Rick, Lori, Carl, and Judith as the Grimes family shares what will tragically become their final embrace. After that one fleeting moment of Heaven amidst all the hell, time moves pretty quickly as they make a mad dash to escape with their lives. It is not meant to be. One bullet fired by a confused and misguided woman is all it takes to fatally tear through mother and infant daughter alike. In witnessing his worst nightmares manifest before his very eyes, Rick Grimes sees both his future and his past eradicated as though they never existed. He might very well have given up like Hershel did if it wasn’t for one member of his family who yet drew breath in the present. While losing Lori (a character who has been with us from the very beginning) leaves a hollow ache, losing Judith is much more crushing on so many levels. Of course, her loss is horrific because she is a baby. But even more than that, her birth represented a symbolic message that life had found a way to prosper in a dead world. Judith’s birth was the birth of hope in a very hopeless place. And one bullet was all it took to callously dim such a bright ray of hope. The small mercy left to Rick is that his son still lives, and not everyone ended up so lucky (Hershel for instance). But even though Carl gives Rick a reason to keep going, Rick does so from this point on from a place of deep despair. Hope failed him, and it will be interesting to see how that bitter reality shapes his path going forward. Brian “Philip” Blake: I almost did not include in this worthy list of victims the name of the man who became the inhuman fiend known as the Governor. In an age of increased gun violence in our own society, there is a prevalent tendency among the media to not include the name of deceased shooters in the company of their victims. The message is that their deaths are unworthy of human recognition and do not matter compared to the lives of the innocent victims they terrorized. I understand this sentiment, but I wonder if it really sends the best message. No one is born a Governor. Monsters are created from the ashes of real, perhaps even decent human beings. Brian Blake was once a good man who abhorred the violence that so quickly seemed to be saturating the fallen world around him. He once watched in horror as his brother committed one atrocity after another. He would have laid down his life for Penny, and her death absolutely shattered him. This is not the story of an evil man, and yet that is what Brian Blake became. We need to remember the Brian Blakes, school shooters, and Boston Marathon bombers of the world because the lesson of their lives is one that we should all heed. We can write these “Governors” off as one-dimensional manifestations of violence, or we can take an uncomfortable look at the men and women who they were before they became something much less than human. In doing so, perhaps we might even come to grieve the loss of who they once were. If we mourn the loss of their humanity, perhaps we may one day avoid losing our own in the same way. I have one last bit of advice here for anyone who genuinely was captivated by the Governor arc. Please, please, please read Jay Bonansinga and Robert Kirkman’s Governor-themed novels. I promise you that they will greatly enrich not only this issue but pretty much any issue featuring the Governor. Fiction often rewards those who invest a little more time to dig just a bit deeper. That is most certainly the case here. Do the extra work. Dig deeper. You won’t regret it.

There are slower moments in episodic storytelling that seem like fillers designed purely to build anticipation for the next big action sequence. This slower issue could not be further from that category. This pause from the jarring action and bitter losses of the preceding chapter showcases a drained father and son who must literally find a way to start over (again) after the loss of their whole world. It is a completely earned moment that is as necessary for the readers as it is for the characters. It speaks volumes about the ravaged mental states of Rick and Carl that the loss of Lori and Judith is not actually verbalized until the very end of the episode. Yet their recent deaths loom like heavy storm clouds over every moment of this issue. From Carl’s stubborn refusal to eat to Rick’s bitter admission that there’s so much he wishes he would’ve done differently, both characters have not even come close to processing their grief. To top it all off, Rick may be developing an infection in the wound on his abdomen, which could make Carl a bona fide orphan if that is not remedied soon. As Rick and Carl hunker down for the night in a not-too-shabby house, the question arises why these characters do not simply pick one of the multitude of empty houses scattered around them and make it their base. On a practical level, I understand the cons of such a choice. Houses are not as well defended as a prison or gated community. Plus they attract other desperate survivors who could likely be dangerous. However, with so many houses dotting the landscape, the odds are at least decent that a small family could avoid detection and enjoy shelter there for years. So what is it that keeps people like Rick and Carl searching for something more? Why was the prison (and even Woodbury) so important? The answer to that question can be summed up in one word: Community. Human beings have never fared well isolated from one another. On an almost cellular level, we seem designed to depend on one another to meet mutual needs. This is why Carl believes it is so important to try and locate Dale, Sophia, and the rest. When broken people come together, everyone gets stronger. As the book of Proverbs puts it, one knife sharpens another. So there is an almost instinctual need to find (and maintain) a community and not just a simple shelter to hunker down in. It’s the difference between merely surviving and actually living. The Walking Dead started out quite small as one man awoke from a coma and started to search for his family in a post-Apocalyptic landscape. But then it started to expand rapidly to encompass many other new characters. Morgan. Glenn. Dale. Shane. Lori and Judith. The Governor. But at the core of The Walking Dead (no matter how big it may get) is one man’s perpetual drive to keep his family (now consisting of just Carl) safe at all costs. Their father-son relationship is the beating heart of the series, and this issue succeeds in very effectively reminding us of that. You can strip away everything else from the unfolding narrative, but if Rick and his family endure in some capacity, then the story can continue. Does this mean The Walking Dead cannot function without Rick Grimes and his family at the center? Interestingly, the television show has proven that such survival is certainly possible, but one would certainly hesitate to describe such a scenario as ideal. Even more than the show, the comic iteration of The Walking Dead depends greatly on Rick (and increasingly on Carl as well). Whenever we as avid readers need to reorient and remind ourselves where the most important beats are in the tale, we need only turn to Rick and Carl. They were our entry points into this world, and one hopes that they will continue to be our guides well into the future.

In this emotionally poignant issue, it is clear that there was yet another casualty in the prison assault. Carl Grimes’ childhood died as well. Children in the zombie apocalypse must either grow up and adapt at a rapid (and decidedly cruel) rate, or they simply will not last very long. Thankfully, Carl seems to have adapted exponentially since the zombie outbreak began. While he is quite handy with his pistol, Carl has learned even more nuanced survival skills from observing his father and former community as they dealt with roamers. Not only is he relatively calm around them, but he is able to invoke a little bit of strategy in dealing with them. Sure, that strategy fell apart with the addition of an unexpected roamer (don’t you just hate it when that happens), but even then he was able to improvise and deliver effective gunshots under pressure. The jury is in. Carl Grimes is officially a badass. But that badassery came at a tremendous cost that no child should have to pay. The toll such a becoming has taken on Carl is apparent in his dual displays of honest fear and irrational anger. The fear is certainly understandable. Carl has lost every member of his family except for his ailing father, and the thought of losing Rick as well terrifies him. Carl tries relentlessly (and utterly unconvincingly) throughout most of the issue to make himself believe that he doesn’t need his dad to survive. But despite his capable handling of the roamers, Carl knows he is not cut out to survive alone in this world. The boy still needs his daddy, and he has no desire to go on should that daddy be snatched away. It has been said by many a philosopher (and Yoda) that anger is a natural consequence of fear, and this certainly rings true when it comes to Carl’s tumultuous range of emotions in this issue. Pushed to a point where the fear over losing his father is almost unbearable, Carl decides that it is much easier to yell and scream at an unconscious Rick. He bitterly declares that he no longer needs Rick (and convinces no one), and he even blames Rick for the loss of his mother and baby sister. This is what therapy looks like in the zombie apocalypse. Poor Rick! As if he isn’t already beating himself up enough! I really hope he was completely unconscious during Carl’s outburst and did not hear all that. But in all honesty Carl should not be held at fault for all the blame he is hurling at Rick. The reason why frightened people so easily give in to their anger is because anger is simply easier than fear. Anger gives one the illusion (fleeting though it may be) of invulnerability, but admitting the extent of one’s fear leaves them feeling exposed and shaken. It is a defense mechanism to aid someone from being completely capsized by their overwhelming levels of fear. Given what Carl has endured as a young boy, it is completely understandable that he would resort to this defense mechanism in the wake of his present circumstances. Kirkman delivers what appears to be a very realistic portrayal of a damaged child’s inner psychology. One wonders what his own childhood was like! Lol Anyway, this issue was compelling because of the completely real, earned, and understandable flurry of human emotions that racked poor Carl. This poor kid just needs a hug and to be told everything is going to be okay (even though he’s more than world weary enough to know better). But sadly his incapacitated father cannot provide either of those commodities right now. Carl admits as the issue closes that he is scared, and as a reader of this epic series, I am more than a little afraid myself. These two are desperately in need of a little ray of hope from some unexpected quarter. I hope they get it soon, or the transcendent darkness may end up consuming them both.