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[Thad]

Walking Dead #46: action-packed but predictable.  You know what's going to happen on the last page from what happens on the first page: it's a comic book.  No body = not dead.

[spoiler]That said, one major character DOES unambiguously die this issue, and it's not somebody on my list of likely characters to die, though in hindsight it probably should have been.[/spoiler]

So what happens next ish?  [spoiler]I have to believe Michonne just pulls the fucking trigger and finishes it this time.  The question is whether she can get out of there alive afterward; I'm going to have to go with "probably not".[/spoiler]  And Kirkman's already as much as admitted in interviews that they're going to lose the prison and be forced back out onto the open road.

[Thad]

Walking Dead #46: action-packed but predictable.  You know what's going to happen on the last page from what happens on the first page: it's a comic book.  No body = not dead.

Walking Dead #47: don't put your cliffhanger last page on the cover, dammit.

So what happens next ish?  [spoiler]I have to believe Michonne just pulls the fucking trigger and finishes it this time.  The question is whether she can get out of there alive afterward; I'm going to have to go with "probably not".[/spoiler]

Wrong.  I'm pretty disappointed that Kirkman punked out here and resolved the standoff in such a hackneyed, implausible way.

That said, I know why he did it, and here it is:

And Kirkman's already as much as admitted in interviews that they're going to lose the prison and be forced back out onto the open road.

In hindsight, that couldn't possibly have happened if [spoiler]Michonne had just killed the Governor.  This issue made it abundantly clear that the rest of Woodbury would not have pressed the attack without him.  He's the crazy motherfucker driving a tank through the prison gates.  No Gov = Rick and the gang successfully defend the prison = stagnant setting.[/spoiler]

So I'm disappointed, but I'm going to allow it.  And I'm going to have to admit that the book affected me.  It's rare that a comic actually makes my pulse race.  (Of course, I also had a much stronger dose of coffee this morning than usual, and I'm sure that contributed.)

I still want to see [spoiler]Governor[/spoiler] dead by the end of the arc.  [spoiler]Yes, he's a great damn villain, but the "no one is safe" mantra has to apply to villains too.  Having him be indestructible diminishes him.  He already beat death once; that's enough.[/spoiler]  This book is effective largely BECAUSE it's not usually subject to cliche copouts like what happens on page 2; I'm going to have to grudgingly allow it this time, but it had goddamn well better not happen again next issue.  No more tricks, no more cute stuff.  I want to see a body.

[Niku]

I for one am very much looking forward to them hitting the streets.  They've been in that prison a long damn time.

[Niku]

Re: Walking Dead 48

what the fucking hell kirkman

[TA]

Y'know, maybe it's taking breaks from Walking Dead and catching up three or four issues at a time, but of late I started to feel that the cast was getting too big.  I wasn't really sure who most of the characters were anymore.

[spoiler]It did not occur to me that Kirkman might be feeling the same way.  And would take active steps to remedy that.  Damn.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Rick and Carl are alive.  Michonne was last seen alive.  Uhhh, whatsherface, Andrea was last seen alive, I think, though okay I kind of forget who Andrea actually is.  Did I miss anyone?[/spoiler]

[Niku]

[spoiler]Rick and Carl are alive.  Michonne was last seen alive.  Uhhh, whatsherface, Andrea was last seen alive, I think, though okay I kind of forget who Andrea actually is.  Did I miss anyone?[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Didn't the people who got on the RV and trucked out survive?  Or at least potentially survive?  I forget.[/spoiler]

[TA]

[spoiler]I think the last we saw of all them was when the RV got rammed by a truck.  Andrea or whoever that was got thrown clear, but the rest are unknowns.

I admit, I totally don't even remember who was in there.[/spoiler]

[Thad]

Y'know, maybe it's taking breaks from Walking Dead and catching up three or four issues at a time, but of late I started to feel that the cast was getting too big.  I wasn't really sure who most of the characters were anymore.

"Of late"?  He's been introducing and killing off characters at a pretty rapid pace pretty much since day one.

There was a period where he printed a character guide at the end of every issue, but he abandoned that because maintaining it probably took as much effort as writing the damn book itself.

[spoiler]Killing off Billy and Hershel was pretty lame.  He'd already said he was going to ease off whacking members of Hershel's family.  (Maggie's still alive as far as we know, right?)

Dead children are the storytelling equivalent of Godwin's Law: the absolute lowest form of communication.

Really?  THAT'S what it took for people to start to notice the Governor wasn't such a great guy?  Shooting a woman carrying a motherfucking baby?  All the other shit he did short of that was too subtle?

At least he got the bullet to the brain.  If he'd killed off Lori and the baby and let the Gov live, that would have been worse yet.

But it seems like, oh, I don't know, shooting an old man in the head while he knelt over his dead son crying might have been enough to get the point across.[/spoiler]

Anyway.  All in all, the arc served its purpose of getting them out of the prison, tying up the loose ends in the Governor/Woodbury plot, and getting the adrenaline running, but the "cliffhanger ending resolved on the first page of the following issue" stuff got way too cute and he took the "NO ONE IS SAFE" message a lot farther than he needed to.

So I'm still onboard -- this is, after all, still a more pleasant reading experience than Michonne getting raped for the bulk of two issues -- but there are definitely cracks showing here.  Too much "I need to get to point B from point A, now how can I do that?" backward-thinking, and too many developments that seem like they occurred purely for shock value.

[TA]

Okay I just sat down and reread the entire series, and the last bits made more sense having done that.  By my count, we've got [spoiler]Rick and Carl definitely alive; Michonne and Andrea last seen alive; Dale, Glenn, Maggie, Sophia, and the twins unknown but probably as alive as Andrea.  And we never did get resolution on what happened to Andrew.[/spoiler]

[Thad]

No body = not dead.

[Thad]

Walking Dead: we've been dealing with these quieter issues since the EVERYBODY DIES arc ended, and I like them.  But of course the longer they go the twitchier I get, worrying about the next massacre.

I'm starting to like Eugene; the "let's examine the zombies scientifically" angle has been floated before, but with him it's his WHOLE DEAL.

I'm going to be pissed when they kill him off and he takes all his secrets to the grave.

Or when he turns out just to be a sci-fi nerd who made the whole thing up.  Whichever.

[Thad]

Walking Dead #56 feels like the best ish in a long while for some reason.  I really like Abraham's character development, and it's quite well-foreshadowed -- after two issues of lecturing people on never using guns, he just starts waving one around; I briefly thought it was simply a plothole, but should have known that his erratic behavior meant something.

A great bit with Rick, too, and his struggle between being the capable, self-assured leader he started out as and the wounded basket-case he's become.  He seems to be actually subconsciously sabotaging himself at this point; after doing something ballsy and heroic, he turns right back around and does something stupid and careless.

The only thing that's disappointing is that I think it's pretty clear how this conflict is going to end -- [spoiler]Abraham and Rick butt heads again, Abraham tries to kill Rick, kills somebody else by accident -- my money's on Eugene, but it could be Rosita, or anyone else -- and then is either killed or kills himself[/spoiler].

The early twist, while [spoiler]telegraphed on the cover[/spoiler], is probably the best part, not just because [spoiler]Maggie's death would have had all the ugly consequences the other characters describe[/spoiler], but because it puts the reader in the same place it puts the characters -- we've been trained to accept certain rules at this point, and seeing them broken puts us off guard.

(On the other hand, it was yet another example of an [spoiler]end-of-issue death followed by a beginning-of-issue "Just kidding!"[/spoiler])

The lettercol deserves special attention too.  Kirkman's thoughts on Marvel's rising cover prices mirror my own comments from a few posts ago, and in fact are almost verbatim what the guy behind the counter said when I was buying books the other day: what happened to $3.25, $3.50, and $3.75?  (He was actually referring specifically to the TMNT books, which DO sell for $3.25, where Marvel is jumping straight from $2.99 to $3.99.  Speaking of which, Tales #53 is 56 pages for $3.25; you're not going to find that anywhere else.)  I'd forgotten Walking Dead is still only $2.99; it IS absurd that Marvel's starting to charge more for its books than the indy publishers do.

And Kirkman states the obvious -- that while he can't promise anything, raising cover prices during a recession seems like a pretty dumb idea.

..."Walking Dead" and "Comic industry shooting self in foot" each seem like they could carry their own threadsplit.

[Thad]

Walking Dead #57 is the most horrible, evil fucking issue in a long time.  Straight-up [spoiler]Deliverance[/spoiler] shit.

And the Next Issue blurb suggests no reprieve is coming; it shows [spoiler]what appear to be Carl's flailing hands coming from off-left, while Rick tries to save him and Abraham holds him back[/spoiler], with the caption "THE UNTHINKABLE".

Now, I don't think the issue is going to go down exactly as implied, because you don't telegraph something like that without there being a twist somewhere in the issue.

BUT, Kirkman proved with "NO ONE IS SAFE" that he can fucking-well deliver on the threat of a cover blurb, so I'm confident something very bad IS going to happen.

Prediction: [spoiler]Carl doesn't die; Rick dies saving him.  It's been clear for ages that Rick's going to die well before the series is over, and the "I'll do anything to protect my son" stuff near the end was pretty clearly foreshadowing of SOME sort.  That and Abraham coming back and announcing Rick's dead is going to lead most of Rick's group to suspect foul play, which has all sorts of interesting possibilities.

Failing that: Rick and Carl both survive, but at least one of them suffers an amputation -- I would lean "Carl" since Rick already has one.  Since Whatsisname died of blood loss, it was never definitively determined whether amputation could stop the spread of the infection or not.  ...actually, did he turn into a zombie?  That was a long time ago.[/spoiler]

[Thad]

Walking Dead #60: well, that's another full six issues with [spoiler]nobody dying[/spoiler].  I mean, a couple horrible things happened -- Maggie tried to kill herself and Carl was almost raped -- but by this book's standards, the last twelve issues have been downright fucking SEDATE.

It looks like that's about to change.  Dale wonders, at the end of the issue, if they're going to find themselves meeting someone "even worse" than the Governor -- not likely, but the preview pics for the next arc make it clear they're about to meet some more nasty people.  Someone in the lettercol wonders what happened to the Hestons and Nugents of the world in the zombie apocalypse, and it looks like we're about to find out; the promo pics show the heroes being hunted by militia men.

It's still going to be tough to top the viciousness of the Made to Suffer arc -- and I don't really want to see Kirkman try, because I have a sneaking suspicion that he could if he wanted to -- but very bad things are going to happen.

Likeliest picks to die: Dale and Morgan.  Least likely: Rick, Carl, Eugene, Abraham, Michonne -- which means one or two of them may die anyway just to shake things up.  Anyone in-between is a distinct possibility.

EDIT: Oh hell, why not, quick rundown on my reasoning:

Dale: he's old, he's crippled, and there's a rift growing between him and Rick.  Odds are that before he goes he'll catch Rick talking on the phone and there will be a big blowup.  (Also, one of the preview pics shows him literally with a target on him.  Though that could be misdirection.)

Morgan: An obvious one.  He's fucking crazy and I don't think there's much left of his character arc.

Rick: He's going to die sooner or later, but I don't think now's the time.  A few issues back, after the "Carl almost gets raped" story, would have been an appropriate time, but at this point I just have a feeling he'll be sticking around for a few arcs yet.

Carl: Rick's not going to outlive Carl.  He'll die protecting him, or at least trying to.  Either they die around the same time or Carl outlives Rick.

Eugene: Maybe he doesn't belong on the "unlikely" list.  I still think Kirkman's sudden about-face after a few dozen lettercols' worth of swearing he'd never reveal the cause of the outbreak is more than a little suspicious.  It's still quite probable that Eugene either dies or turns out to be lying before we get any answers.  But I have a hunch he's going to make it through the next arc.

Abraham and Michonne: the toughest characters in the book.  They're going to be awfully hard to kill.  Not impossible -- they're both a little crazy and neither one of them is bulletproof.  My prediction is that if either of them is killed, it won't be by zombies.

And on the "maybe, maybe not" list:

Maggie: She's decided she wants to live.  Uh-oh.

Glenn and Andrea: aside from Rick, Carl, and Dale, they're the last remainder of the original cast.  Maybe that means they stick around, or maybe it means it's time for some housecleaning.

The twins: that bit with [spoiler]the cat[/spoiler] was creepy, and there's some serious Chekov's Gun going on there.  I think something very bad is going to happen.  Carl seems to be handling what's happened as well as can possibly be imagined (he's less crazy than most of the adults at this point), but the other kids don't have his fortitude.  One of them is showing straight-up [spoiler]sociopathic tendencies[/spoiler] at this point.

Rosita: out of the entire cast at this point, we know the least about her.  That could mean she's got some development coming, or it could mean she's a Redshirt.  It could even mean a WiR situation where she dies and Abraham flips out.

[Thad]

Walking Dead is still consistently the only comic that really makes my heart race.  Even this issue, which was clearly telegraphed by last month's, had me on the edge of my seat, not because the story was unpredictable but because it was so well-executed.  I actually reread the last few pages immediately.

[Niku]

For anyone who wasn't aware (I wasn't until it came out), Walking Dead is currently being re-released as Walking Dead Weekly.  They're the same issues, they're just being reprinted at a weekly rate as of this week, so if you've never read the comic there's a decent way of picking it up issue by issue to tide you over until the second season of the show.  Although frankly when I saw the book, I was hoping it was going to be a weekly series of one-shots and vignettes unrelated to the main cast.

[Thad]

For anyone who wasn't aware (I wasn't until it came out), Walking Dead is currently being re-released as Walking Dead Weekly.  They're the same issues, they're just being reprinted at a weekly rate as of this week, so if you've never read the comic there's a decent way of picking it up issue by issue to tide you over until the second season of the show.

Also a great way of filling in gaps in your collection, if you're already buying single issues instead of trades.

[Thad]

8 Easy Steps to Create a Walking Dead Storyline

...yeah, I don't really know how I feel about the latest issue.  The Big Shocker was a suitable "holy shit" moment when I read it, but about an hour later I started to realize, wait a minute, that was kinda stupid.

The book IS awfully formulaic at this point, and while the village plot seemed to be breaking the rut, No Way Out has just restored the status quo.  It's not that I want to see the cast safe within walls against the zombie threat, but, well, the 8 Steps pretty clearly describe what's wrong with the plotting of the book this far in.

[Mothra]

I haven't met anyone who's liked where Walking Dead's been going since DC

[Thad]

The Walking Dead #84: Okay, not dropping it yet.  I'm still skeptical that there's going to be a serious change to status quo, but Rick spent a three-page monologue swearing there will be, so I'll wait around to see.