By no means does Robert Kirkman need my praise. I’m not going to pat him on the back for still making comics and all that noise. He’s a writer I’ve drifted away from because his style has developed into a steady rhythm. It’s not bad, it's just not amazing either. It’s consistent, but you tend to know what you’re getting with your characters and just waiting for the twists to happen.
Read More
This comes across feeling like an oddly lifeless (har har) issue of The Walking Dead, except for the very last panel, and I’m still not sold on whether or not that’s nothing more than a fake-out. I wouldn’t have thought that the fall of Alexandria would have so little going on, but as it turns out, most of this arc’s energy was spent in the first two issues. Now we’re just waiting for the Saviors to make their move, or whatever other twist might come from this arc. Warning: I will be discussing spoilers in this review, so consider yourself forewarned.
Read More
Yesterday we were all excited about Oni's $1 issues and cheaper trades. Today, Kirkman's practically telling you to steal his comic. Just wait a week and go into your comic shop and as them for a left over copy, then it's free! Too bad none of the other Image peeps are celebrating this way... kind makes it look like Kirkman is the only one to care about the Publisher turning 25. I can't wait until they're 28, married, thinking about kids... maybe they'll get a dog first.
Read MoreThe war with the Whisperers becomes more serious in this issue. At first, it was a battle between the Whisperers and Rick’s army, and the people who were dying were soldiers. Their deaths could be expected to a certain extent. But now that both the Whisperers and Rick’s men have split up, the individual communities are being forced to man their own battlements against the enemy. Just how violent it will be is still unclear, but it’s going to be hard to undo this damage, especially since Rick is now facing a new internal challenge. Warning: I will be discussing spoilers here.
Read More
This is an oddly lifeless issue of The Walking Dead (har har). The battle between the Whisperers and Rick’s people ends in a kind of stalemate, which makes most of the fighting filler for what comes next. Paradoxically, the most interesting moments occur off the battlefield, as there’s a hidden threat in the Kingdom that might derail some of Rick’s plans. But that can’t change the fact that this is a thoroughly middling issue, some filler on the way to something else. Warning: I will be discussing spoilers in this review.
Read MoreThe battle has begun in this issue of The Walking Dead, and it’s a messy one. Dwight has done the best that he could for Rick’s army, but the sheer number of walkers and the tactics employed by the Whisperers evens the odds and makes this messy. We also catch glimpses of the various communities, including some who refuse to help Rick, which leaves open what will happen if the war goes pear-shaped in subsequent issues. Warning: I will be discussing spoilers.
Gabriel, who spotted the oncoming horde last issue panics and tries to flee, but breaks his leg and is killed by Beta and the coming walkers. While some of the communities refuse to send aid to Rick, most notably Dwight’s old group, the Hilltop and the Kingdom do send people to help. When Dwight’s people finally encounter the army, it’s a bloodbath on both sides: the walkers are easily mowed down, but they provide enough cover for Whisperers to close the distance and begin picking off soldiers. In the course of the battle, Negan and Beta come face to face, ready to fight to the death.
Gabriel’s death was a messy and inglorious one, but that was basically in keeping with his character. He’d fled or been a coward before, and seeing that kind of horde closing in on you tests just about every character’s nerves in this issue. That aspect of the battle really felt right, actually. Despite all of the training and preparation, everybody was nervous going into it, and it wasn’t some easy target shoot for the survivors. On the contrary, it goes right to a messy place.
I did feel like the large number of panels on a given page was less effective in this issue than it was last time. In #157, we were waiting for the battle to begin, and each panel helped to build the tension, as well as let us see what key characters were doing. It doesn’t work quite as well here, in part because the non-battle sequences keep interrupting the flow of the battle, and in part because we visit so many characters who we don’t really know that it doesn’t feel very personal. It’s a different story for the battle, where at least it allows for a lot to happen (albeit at the expense of artwork depicting the battle).
I’m surprised that we’ve gone to a Negan-Beta fight so quickly; it’s hard to imagine any fight ending before one (or both) of them is killed, and it would make for unusual pacing. But maybe Beta’s death wouldn’t actually mean very much. With the horde unleashed and his men wearing down Rick’s army, even if the Whisperers are killed or driven away, the walkers can remain and wreak havoc in what Rick built. If that happens, any victory will be a Pyrrhic one.
[su_box title="Score: 3/5" style="glass" box_color="#8955ab" radius="6"]
Walking Dead #158 Writer: Robert Kirkman Artist: Charlie Adlard, Stefano Gaudiano, and Cliff Rathburn Publisher: Image/Top Cow Price: $2.99 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital
[/su_box]
This was the first Kirkman book I read and loved. I will never forget issue 12. It was the first issue I read and I choked back tears. It was great fucking issue. I'm a little sad to see this series end. Part of me wanted Kirkman to have it run as long as Spawn or Savage Dragon, but the other part of me is glad to see him end it and not just drag it on to drag it on. From Image Comics
Series artist Ryan Ottley returns to re-team with Robert Kirkman (THE WALKING DEAD, OUTCAST BY KIRKMAN & AZACETA) to launch the final story arc of the long-running creator-owned superhero series INVINCIBLE. “The End of All Things” Part One begins with INVINCIBLE #133 from Image Comics/Skybound Entertainment this November.
This twelve-part mega-story will touch every corner of the Invincible Universe, and when it’s over… It’s over. Every single story for the past thirteen years has been leading up to this ultimate showdown running up to INVINCIBLE #144—the very last issue in the series.
In a letter to fans, Kirkman explained his and Ottley’s decision to end the series. “We’ve got a little over a year to go, and it’s going to be one hell of a year! So please join us for our swan song, thirteen years in the making! We couldn’t have done it without you, the fans, so let’s all cross the finish line together!”
INVINCIBLE #133 hits stores on Wednesday, November 16th.
Walking Dead #157 is a strong opening issue for the new arc: the long-awaited war between Rick and the Whisperers has begun. It’s also one of those issues that validates my ego because a few of my long-running predictions have come true, and I’m wondering whether some others are going to be borne out by what happens here. The handling of this issue is effective: the reader is forced to tensely wait for the attack to start, and while there’s only a hint of it at the end, the true scope of this thing is plain for anybody to see. Warning: I will be discussing spoilers from this issue, so stop reading if you haven’t read it yet.
Negan finds Dwight and manages to convince him to take him back to Rick, where he presents him with the head of Alpha. Rick grapples with whether to trust Negan, but the fact that Negan has had so many opportunities to betray him and hasn’t yet leads Rick to offer him a cautious amnesty. But now he knows the die has been cast, and he gathers troops from all of the different communities to resist the Whisperers’ attack. The rest of the issue is a slice of life of all the different characters as they wait for the hammer to fall: in an unguarded moment, Eugene lets slip to his radio pen-pal Stephanie that they’re in DC, and she reciprocates that her people are in Ohio.
The graphic format of this issue is altered a bit by the inclusion of so many sixteen-panel pages, which allows for a lot more dialogue between the characters. And this is a dialogue-heavy issue, 
which is a good thing. For one thing, it just means that more can be said between all of the characters: you could have devoted a third of an issue in a more typical book to the conversation between Rick and Dwight as Rick tries to sell Dwight on allowing Negan a small place in the fold, but they let it happen here while sacrificing none of the weight that conversation deserves. All of that dialogue also has an important second function: it makes us sift through more as we wait for the shoe to drop. The pacing is right where it should be All of the characters are waiting for what they know will be a major battle, and we have to do that as well.
Negan’s been allowed to rejoin, albeit in an extremely limited fashion. Still, he’s in. Now I’m wondering about an earlier prediction I made re: Eugene and the radio group. Rick is so confident in this issue that his men can defeat the coming horde, and in theory, that should be doable. They have more firepower than we’ve ever seen before (with the exception of the tank all those years ago), and they’ve actually trained to be coordinated. But they’ve been training against isolated Walkers and small groups, not a herd like we saw before. Will they buckle under the pressure? The fact that we only see Beta once and then nothing of his plan after that makes me wonder whether he has some trick as well.
So, if that’s the case, perhaps Rick’s confidence will be unfounded. And if it is unfounded, this war could go pear-shaped and wreck everything that he’s built. The only refuge that they’re aware of is in Ohio, and that might be the emergency escape button if walkers end up overrunning everything after all. Of course, maybe Rick will keep it contained even if things go pear-shaped, and a trip to meet another organized community (who aren’t pseudo-psychopaths) would make for an interesting arc once the war is over.
This war has been such a long time coming that I didn’t think I would be excited when I finally got to it. But reading this issue actually got me pumped for it, and more importantly, to see what comes next.
[su_box title="Score: 4/5" style="glass" box_color="#8955ab" radius="6"]
Walking Dead #157 Writer: Robert Kirkman Artists: Charlie Adlard, Stefano Gaudiano, Cliff Rathburn Publisher: Image/Skybound Price: $3.99 Format: Ongoing; Print/Digital
[/su_box]