|
|
Post by rberman on Nov 14, 2019 7:55:40 GMT -5
#25-30 “The Best Defense” (January-August 2006)      New Characters: Governor Philip, Doctor Stevens, Alice, and Bob all live in Woodbury. The Story: Six months have passed since the zombie apocalypse began and Lori got pregnant. Riot gear from the prison armory helps Rick, Tyreese, and Glenn to wipe out the zombies surrounding the prison’s outer fence more safely. It’s also an opportunity to siphon gasoline from cars in the parking lot, to fuel the prison generator.  Rick, Glenn, and Michonne check out a crashed helicopter some distance from the prison. It’s empty and surrounded by footprints, which Rick et al follow to nearby Woodbury, Georgia. Along the way, there’s a lot of chat, including the revelation that Michonne was a lawyer before the zombies came.  Forty people live here within sixteen fenced-in blocks, including an arena where zombies duel for public entertainment. The local leader “Governor” Philip welcomes them but actually plans to feed them to his gladiator zombies. The Governor correctly suspects that Rick has a well-supplied base. When Rick won’t talk, Governor cuts off his right hand.  In the ensuing fracas, Michonne bites off the Governor’s left ear. While Rick is taken to the surgeon, Governor ties up Michonne spread-eagle for repeated raping. She swears vengeance.  The Governor keeps his zombified daughter (or at least daughter-stand-in) well enough fed that she usually doesn’t attack him. He feeds her Rick’s hand. He also has a trophy case with the severed heads of his defeated foes, which number several dozen. Noting the orange jumpsuit, he tricks Rick into confirming the existence of an enclave in a prison.  As Rick’s absence stretches to two days, everyone back home gets increasingly nervous. Andrea begins warning about the prospect of an attack by human raiders. Tyreese goes out on an unsuccessful sortie to find his missing friends. Carol repeatedly propositions a plural marriage to Lori. Lori calls Carol “insane” which goes over as poorly as you’d expect.  Lettercols: Issue #26 satirizes the 1970s Marvel Bullpen Bulletin’s florid style, announcing a mix of Kirkman-related projects at Image and Marvel. Kirkman pleads that he had Woodbury’s “zombie cage fight” scene planned long before George Romero’s 2005 film "Land of the Dead" was released with a similar sequence.  My Two Cents: So begins the second of eight major sections in this series. The point of this ugly arc is that if Rick isn’t careful, he could easily turn into Governor Philip. Rick’s “the end justifies the means” speech from the previous arc could become a pretext for monstrosities, as it has for the inhabitants of Woodbury, who are not too choosy about which strongman protects them from zombies.  One important difference between humans and zombies is that zombies are only to be avoided or killed on sight, whereas our heroes instinctively feel obliged to seek out other humans to either give or receive aid. They could have ignored the crashed helicopter, which is a reference to the helicopter escape of Peter and Francine at the end of George Romero’s 1978 zombie classic “Dawn of the Dead.” Rick's squad could have went home when they found the helicopter empty. Instead, they put themselves in harm’s way, with tragic consequences. One of the Zombies is at least a fan of the British punk band Charged GBH, or maybe even a member.  
|
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Nov 15, 2019 8:14:25 GMT -5
#31-36 “This Sorrowful Life” (September 2006-March 2007)      New Characters: Caesar Martinez, Harold, Eugene, Bruce, Miss Williams, and Gabe all live in Woodbury. The Story: Governor Philip throws Michonne into the arena with the toothless brute Eugene. They’re supposed to team up against a dozen zombies, but she decapitates him at the first opportunity, directly contrary to the Governor’s instructions. Community morale sours, which was her goal.  Martinez feels terrible about the Governor’s treatment of Rick. He arms Glenn and Rick and helps them escape. Doctor Stevens and his assistant Alice have had enough of Woodbury life too; they come along. Martinez kills Gabe the guard to rescue Michonne. Unhappily, Doctor Stevens is taken down by a zombie just outside the Woodbury walls.  While the others flee Woodbury, Michonne stays behind. She reclaims her katana, takes the Governor hostage, and tortures him, amputating his right arm and enucleating his left eye before reinforcements force her to flee.  On the way back to the prison, the heroes fend off a zombie attack and hear about Martinez’s former life as a high school gym teacher. Arriving home, they’re horrified to find hundreds of zombies within the fences instead of outside. Turns out Otis is the only one who’s been killed by the zombies; cleaning them all up takes a while.  When it’s all over, Martinez is missing. He’s headed back to Woodbury to report to his bosses on the location of the prison. Traitor! Or spy, more precisely. Rick runs Martinez down in the RV. He warns the rest of his colony to prepare for the Governor to find them anyway.  Glenn asks Maggie to marry him; her father Hershel will serve as minister.  Vignette: Issue #34 also contains a separate six page vignette featuring Morgan and his son Duane, neither of whom have been seen since issue #1. It’s Christmas, and Duane is bored with reading old copies of Robert Kirkman’s other comic book Invincible. Somewhere his dad has found a Nintendo Gamebody to give him. Duane is delighted. The end.  Lettercols: In separate issues, Kirkman interacts at length with letters from black readers who finds Michonne’s rape an act of thoughtless racism on the part of the writer. Kirkman is particularly taken aback by the thought that any of his readers would find the rape images sexually arousing. “That’s horrific. I don’t even know what to say. Next letter.” My Two Cents: This is the first sextet of issues that I felt like could have been done at least as well in fewer pages. However it does show the next step in Rick’s ruthlessness, as he chases and executes an unarmed, fleeing foe for strategic reasons. Martinez’ betrayal was a nice touch. It also showed the Governor’s ruthlessness, since presumably he gave permission for Gabe and potentially others to be killed during the escape. How many soldier/guard types would a community of forty people (the size of Woodbury) have, anyway? We know there are plenty of women and children there as well. This reader was begging Michonne to stop toying with the Governor and just finish him off so he can’t come looking for revenge. But unfortunately it made good character sense that she wanted him to suffer like she suffered, no matter the tactical implications for her community. The first run (1500 copies) of issue #35 accidentally doubled the penultimate page and omitted the last page. The printer printed what they were given. Kirkman felt badly and paid out of his own pocket to compensate those who didn’t like the “variant” they bought.
|
|
|
|
Post by tarkintino on Nov 15, 2019 13:09:33 GMT -5
#7-12 “Miles Behind Us” (April-September 2004) Perhaps for those who only know TWD from the TV series, a few notes about differences would prevent some confusion, so... Differences from the TV Series:Time and meeting of new characters are moved around: on TWD-TV, Hershel Greene's farm is introduced at the start of the second season, and is the primary location for its entirety. Of his family, he has two daughters: Maggie and teenaged Beth, along with the latter's boyfriend, Jimmy. Patricia and her husband Otis also live at the farm. Tyreese and his younger sister Sasha are not introduced until early in the third season. Tyreese has no daughter on the show. Differences from the TV Series:This is a major plot driving the second season, where suspicions, to Shane's outright possessive behavior toward Lori reaches a fever pitch, while he tries to assert a threatening presence to other members of the group, namely Rick & Dale, while butting heads with Daryl. Differences the TV Series:TV-Tyreese never has any sort of romantic relationship with Carol, but will later have tension over her role in the death of his onetime-Woodbury refugee Karen, and the deaths of the Samuels sisters, Mika & Lizzie. In addition to Daryl Dixon becoming Rick's right-hand man instead of Tyreese, he also becomes close to Carol, a relationship lasting to the current 10th season. Differences from the TV Series:In the premiere episode of season two, Carl is accidentally shot by the then-unknown Otis, as Carl, Rick and Shane searched for the missing Sophia. Rick does not attack Otis at all, as he's far too anguished about his son's fate. Shane is the one who goes on a hunt for medical supplies with Otis (so Hershel can perform surgery on Carl), and when Shane injures his ankle, he sacrifices Otis by shooting him the leg to act as a screaming meal for the walkers. This serves as the beginning of Shane's "I'll do anything to protect Lori and my baby" threatening phase for the character. Differences from the TV Series:Another major change: in the TV series, Glenn--looking for a private place to have sex with Maggie--enters the barn, discovers a sea of walkers and is made to keep quite about it by Maggie. Feeling guilty about possibly endangering his group, he sheepishly informs them, leading to an enraged Shane breaking the barn open, and shooting walkers as they all shuffle out toward the humans. Ignoring Rick, Shane inspires Andrea, Daryl and another TV creation--T-Dog--to help shoot the walkers. Hershel, Beth and Patricia are devastated, as Hershel's wife was among the walkers. Shane's asshole action leads to a shattering mid-season conclusion: the last walker to emerge from the barn is Sophia. She had been bitten in the neck, Otis found the dead child and put her in the barn. As Carol is losing her mind with sobbing, Rick steps up, looks at the girl he failed to save days earlier, then shoots her in the head. This sets the rest of the season in motion, and few characters survive it. Very gimmicky plotting approach if you can time your comic schedules by when a character might die. ..which ended in the first episode of season two. Not at all like the TV show's pacing, where that Rick was reluctant to assume leadership, what with the constant arguing with Shane, and suspicions about Lori's life while he was in a coma. #13-18 “Safety Behind Bars” (October 2004-April 2005) Here, the group finds the prison sans Hershel, when the TV version had the Greenes joining Rick's group at the end of season two, after the farm fell to fires and a walker herd. Differences from the TV Series:Well, as mentioned earlier, Tyreese does not have a daughter, and there's no Chris in the series. The discovery that people carry the walker virus occurs in the penultimate ( "Better Angels") and final episode ( "Beside the Dying Fire") of The Walking Dead's second season. Here, Daryl and Glenn reveal that an escaped enemy (Randall) had his neck broken by Shane, which apparently led to his reanimation. Rick confirms this by finally telling everyone what the CDC's doctor Jenner whispered in Rick's ear in the season one finale, "TS-19". Big difference here: after the fatal conflict between Shame and Rick, the reanimated Shane is shot by Carl, and the corpse is left in a field, never to be seen again. Here again, Hershel has no twin daughters on the TV show, and there's no character analogue to the murderer. The TV inmates are Big Tiny, Axel, Oscar, Andrew and Mexican gang member-type, Tomas. There's not even a suggestion of any of the inmates being gay. Ahh. This reaction was given to TV-Rick, as he was so lost in grief and rage at Lori's death (season three), that he marched through the prison killing every walker in sight with his axe. During season three, Donna does die, but he only has one teenaged son. Billy and Ben are analogues of sisters Mika and Lizzie Samuels, who will make their TV debut in season four. TV's Tomas tried to kill Rick with a crowbar, only for Rick to deliver a fatal machete slice into Tomas' head. He chased co-conspirator Andrew into one of the prison yards--filled with walkers--but assumed he would be devoured. He would soon come to regret that assumption. This was good just to flesh out personalities for what's soon to come. Being a comic book, there was the luxury of actually giving more nuanced motives for how people relate to each other in a world overrun by zombies. Unfortunately, on the TV series, there would barely be any reconciliation between the two before Lori dies during a makeshift C-section performed by Maggie, with Carl watching the whole thing. ...which never happens on the show at all. Carol is straight, and the closest the idea of her being a lesbian came from dim-witted Axel assuming her short hairstyle must have meant she was gay. #19-24 “The Heart’s Desire” (June-November 2005) Yay!! Differences from the TV Series:In season two's finale, "Beside the Ding Fire," Andrea is separated from the group fleeing the prison. As she runs out of ammunition in the woods, falls and is about to be attacked by a walker, Michnnone makes her memorable debut by beheading the walker. Michonne and Andrea will spend months together, becoming close friends, which plays a significant role in the third TV season. Differences from the TV Series:Of course, TV-Otis has been dead for several months, as he was sacrificed by Shane. Axel never flees the prison, but is murdered by a sniper shot from The Governor's men in the beginning the war between the prison group and Woodbury. None of these developments ever happen on the TV show. At best, Michonne and Tyreese are friendly, but she has eyes for thers: first Daryl, then another through her growing bond with Rick. More big changes; in the TV series, it is Hershel who is bitten on the leg, has it amputated at the knee by Rick, with Lori and Carol saving his life. Allen never stays at the prison for long, eventually he and hos son join the Governor's militia, while he takes an interest in escalating hostilities with Tyreese, as he was jealous his late wife Donna looked up to Tyreese for saving her life. Allen took this as Tyreese usurping his role as the man in Donna's life. Drama. The entire "Carol is insane" plot is never adapted for the series. However, after TV-Carol killed Tyreese's girlfriend Karen (season four) as means of stopping the spread of an unidentified virus sweeping the prison, he demands Rick find out who killed her, ultimately leading to fight between the two, with Rick beating Tyreese into unconsciousness. Strange..... I've taken this not as any sort of narrative with a purpose, but Kirkman being...well, a horny nerd who likes to write about people screwing, because none of the endless sex scenes build character or advance the overall story. Yeah, comic Rick is nowhere near as resilient as the TV version. How realistic either version is depends on what one considers survivable in world where hospitals no longer exist, but comic Rick is taking a great deal of lumps so early in the Zombie Apocalypse. |
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Nov 15, 2019 14:55:41 GMT -5
Thanks for your comparison notations. I have only seen the first season of the TV show, and I don't remember it. I have one correction to my own post:
My mistake. It is Andrew (Dexter's gay lover) who flees the prison and is never seen again after Rick kills Dexter. Comic-Axel sticks around for the duration of the prison arc. Axel.... Andrew...
|
|
|
|
Post by tarkintino on Nov 15, 2019 21:41:21 GMT -5
#25-30 “The Best Defense” (January-August 2006) With the introduction of The Governor, arguably, readers were getting the first arc to really generate more attention for the comic, as all previous conflicts were fairly minor. A few had shock value, but none had longstanding impact on the comic in the way seen on the TV series with the entire Shane matter. Differences from the TV Series:The prison had a certain amount of power left over, but how it was maintained was never a topic. Of course, even on the TV series, by the time of the prison/Governor arc, the Zombie Apocalypse is still a recent event--possibly a year old, so collecting gasoline would be easier, assuming others had not raided nearby sources. Differences from the TV Series:Big change here: in the TV series, Michonne and an ailing Andrea investigate a National Guard helicopter crash; initially, Michonne--who has survived by being a "don't care" isolationist--wanted to ignore it, but Andrea would not take no for an answer. The two keep their distance as they see a group of men drive up, kill a reanimated co-pilot, and suspiciously check out the area. Soon, a man--with a metal spike mounted on the stump where one of his hands used to be--catches them off guard..at gunpoint. As the ill Andrea turns around, she recognizes him as Merle Dixon-- Daryl's brother--who was last seen handcuffed (by Rick) to a rooftop pipe until he sawed off his own had to escape. Taking them hostage, the duo are disarmed, blindfolded and taken by care to the guarded town of Woodbury, where Michonne becomes instantly hostile to the guards. Andrea selectively fills Merle in on what happened to her friends up to the point of the Greene's house & farm burning down during the walker battle. Another big change: Rick never loses his hand in the series, and the Governor instantly takes a sexual interest in Andrea. Michonne constantly demands to be set free, but the Governor's promises are clearly empty. At the prison, after Lori's death, a newborn girl is named Judith by her brother Carl. Needing baby food, Daryl and Maggie find a preschool with formula and other items, and soon, the baby is out of danger, but it would not be long before more items are needed. Glenn and Maggie leave to search for more... Eventually, Michonne obtains her sword and slaughters a courtyard of walkers used for the Governor's entertainment games. In the meantime, the Governor questions the surviving National Guard pilot about his base, and any others in his unit. Learning there is a unit at a makeshift camp, the Governor, Merle, Martinez and others ambush the National Guardsmen, murdering all, and taking their weapons and vehicles. Upon their return, Michonne's BS Radar goes off as she sees bullet holes and blood splatters on one of the National Guard vehicles. She warns Andrea, but now that Andrea has recovered, and sees Woodbury as the kind of place they were always looking for, she doe snot want to leave--or believe Michonne's dire warnings. Michonne leaves a teary-eyed Andrea behind, telling her she would only "slow her down", or something to that effect. The Governor allows Michonne to go...trailed by Merle and a group ordered to kill her. After a vicious fight in the words, where Michonne cuts down all of Merle's kill crew save for Dixon and a younger man, she makes her escape--but is grazed in the thigh by gunfire. When Merle's associate is too naïve to go along with Merle's plan to lie to the Governor about Michonne's "death", Merle shoots him to death, and continues after the wounded woman. Michonne makes her way to a small town strip mall, and hides as while observing Glenn & Maggie searching for supplies; she does not call out to them, but overhears them talking about the prison being their base. Suddenly, Merle shows up is actually glad to see Glenn (the last time they set eyes on each other was in season one's rooftop scene). Merle is also overjoyed to learn Daryl is not only alive, but with Glenn's group. As Merle creeps toward Glenn and Maggie, he shoots at them, takes Maggie hostage, forcing Glenn to surrender. As the trio depart for Woodbury, Michonne grabs the baby supplies and heads for the prison, where she's so exhausted that she's nearly killed by walkers roaming at the fence. Rick and Carl watch this scene, but Carl decides to let her in. Michonne is just as suspicious of Rick's group, which is not helped by Rick now being as cold and ruthless as the audience had ever witnessed up to this point. He distrusts her, and the feeling is mutual, until Hershel asks her about the overdue Glenn and Maggie. It is here Rick and the others learn about The Governor and Woodbury (she refers to the Governor as a "Jim Jones type")....but Michonne does not mention Merle at all. They have every reason to fear the worst, confirmed by Glenn at an isolated room at Woodbury, beaten by Merle, who fails to crack the once nervous Glenn. Despite Glenn's bravado, he unknowingly betrays his own ruse by mentioning the numbers he has to back him up--including Andrea...but Merle knows that's a lie, as Andrea is still at Woodbury. After Glenn fights off and kills a walker Merle set loose on him as a means of execution, he arms himself with chair parts, readying himself for a bid at freedom. Meanwhile, Merle gives his report to the Governor, with Merle being eager to find Daryl. As Glenn won't crack, the Governor goes to Maggie's makeshift interrogation room, forces her to remove her t-shirt and bra, and threatens to rape her, but does not. Angered by her strong will, he takes her to Glenn, and aims his gun at the tight-lipped young man, but Maggie cannot stand by and risk Glenn being shot, so she reveals the location of the prison. At the prison, Michonne agrees to help the others mount a rescue mission, while Rick still has trust issues with her. Rick leaves young Carl in charge (of Hershel, Beth, Judith, Carol, and inmate Axel) while he, Michonne, Daryl and inmate Oscar head for Woodbury.... Another significant change: although the TV series had the Governor threaten rape--a clear callback to this part of the comic, he never rapes anyone--including Michonne. As Rick's rescue party attacks Woodbury, and locates Glenn & Maggie, Michonne finds the Governor's 2nd story apartment, his zombie daughter Penny...and the room stacked with aquariums bearing an active walker head in each...including the National Guard pilot she and Andrea spotted being rescued by the Woodbury group days earlier. Apparently, after the Governor killed the pilot's companions, he had the pilot beheaded. The Governor races back to his apartment and disarms himself, fearing what Michonne might do to Penny. Michonne drives her blade through Penny's mouth, sending the Governor into a murderous rage. As the two fight, the aquariums are pulled down, with active walker heads chomping at any living being near them. Michonne stable him in the eye with broken glass and prepares to kill him, when Andrea bursts in, aiming a gun at her former best friend. Michonne is so disheartened by this that she leaves. The Governor cradles the now truly lifeless body of his daughter, crying. At the tail end of the rescue, inmate Oscar is mortally wounded, forcing Maggie to shoot him to spare him turning into a zombie. A bandaged Governor accuses Merle of being a plant on behalf of his brother, and sends him to the arena, where a hooded man is also brought in. It is revealed that the man is the captured Daryl. This is the first time Merle has set eyes on his brother in over a year. As the residents cheer for the deaths of the Dixon brothers, Daryl locks eyes with Andrea, but her protests to let Daryl go are flatly denied. The Governor forced the brothers to fight to death, but Rick and company wage another sneak attack using "flash-bang" grenades and tear gas canisters, eventually rescuing the Dixons. Kirkman seemed to be too obsessed with the idea of potential lesbian sex, as he's pushed this Carol sub-plot for this long in the title's run. It goes nowhere, and its of little wonder the TV series completely ignored the comic version of Carol in favor of a much greater character, one who is one of the best written/developed of the series. Kirkman can say that, but Land of the Dead was long in production before its 2005 release. Moreover, if I'm not mistaken I recall at least one character referred to the zombies as "biters" --an exact term used by TWD franchise. While some might argue that different people can come up with similar ideas in the general same time, I do not think Kirkman was above lifting other creator's ideas. If Bob Kane could do it, no one is above suspicion. Was it a reference to DotD's final escape in the helicopter? #31-36 “This Sorrowful Life” (September 2006-March 2007) Caesar Martinez, Harold, Eugene, Bruce, Miss Williams, and Gabe all live in Woodbury.[/quote] Martinez finally appears. He will play a semi-prominent role in the TV version to come. [/b]Governor Philip throws Michonne into the arena with the toothless brute Eugene. They’re supposed to team up against a dozen zombies, but she decapitates him at the first opportunity, directly contrary to the Governor’s instructions. Community morale sours, which was her goal.[/quote] Differences from the TV Series:As mentioned in the previous collection's comparison, the TV version had the Governor pit Daryl and Merle against each other--and walkers. TV-Martinez is a loyal, ends-justifies-the-means ex-military killer who never joins Rick's group. Dr. Stevens never leaves or dies, and after the fall of Woodbury, her whereabouts are unknown. Yet another big change: I've already covered the extent of the Michonne / Governor fights up to this point in TV series history,, and this torture scene is not adapted. Now, that's a Martinez-type of act--loyal ass until the end! Differences from the TV Series:On TV, Morgan is never seen again, at least until late in season three in the episode, "Clear", where the audience learns Duane was mortally wounded (bitten) by the reanimated corpse of Jenny--his mother / Morgan's wife. He never had the heart to put her down, and as a result, his son was killed. Well, he asked for it, as he seemed to be a guy out of touch with many things in the culture. Early on, the TV series was accused of using the horror movie trope of black characters killed off early and never being prominent (until Michonne), or were marginalized. Regarding the issue of rape, when add and exploit that as a theme / subplot to your comic, the worst of society will find it titillating and expect that might be the book's norm. Yeah, but the Governor was a murderous sadist who would only come back to raise Hell against all of Rick's group. Aside from a thoughtless quest for revenge, she should have killed him on the spot, and although Martinez would have been left behind to assume leadership responsibilities, the death of the Governor might have been the morale-crusher needed to drive Woodbury to finally leave the prison group alone, but... |
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Nov 15, 2019 22:19:35 GMT -5
Was it a reference to DotD's final escape in the helicopter? So I gather. I haven't actually seen "Dawn of the Dead," but the scene I linked from the end of the film does indeed feature a helicopter escape by a black guy and a blonde lady. |
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Nov 16, 2019 7:11:25 GMT -5
#37-42 “The Calm Before” (May-September 2007)      New Characters: We meet four guys from Woodbury, but they’re not around long and never give their names. The Story: Lori spends seven pages recalling her night with Shane, which probably resulted in her pregnancy. She finally tries to tell Rick, but he stops her, having already figured it out and decided it wasn’t worth losing her over.  Alice sets the prison infirmary in working order and becomes the next target of Carol’s lonely, wandering eye. Lori reaches out to Carol in friendship, which is greatly appreciated. Lori promises to see that Sophia is looked after if anything happens to Carol.  Maggie and Glenn tie the knot. At first they are scared of having a baby, but time passes and the idea grows on them.  The heroes raid a National Guard armory near Woodbury and come away with a heavy truck in addition to munitions. It’s already been raided once, presumably by Woodbury. The heroes explode the depot’s fuel dump, then spend too long raiding a nearby Wal-Mart. Woodbury sends a small patrol which the heroes dispatch without taking serious wounds. Woodbury will clearly see the prison community as the aggressors here, not entirely without justification.  Alice delivers Lori’s baby without incident. It’s a girl! They name her “ Judith.”  We haven’t seen a whole lot of Hershel’s adult son Billy Greene in this series, perhaps because one of Donna and Allen’s young twins is named Billy. He (Billy Greene) and Dale are forced to make a late night run to the parking lot to siphon more gasoline for the generator when Lori goes into labor. Dale is bitten by a zombie, and Billy flees. Dale is brought to the infirmary, where Alice amputates his leg, with a more successful outcome than when Rick cut off Allen’s leg. Dale’s life is saved, but over the coming weeks he slips deeper into depression over his lost usefulness, and his fear that Andrea will leave him for someone less disabled. (Cue "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town.") Tyreese and Andrea make Dale a peg leg. Now all Rick needs is a hook hand, and we could have two pirates! Arrr... Sorry. I should show Dale more sympathy.  Hershel has great success training the community in farming, and in late summer they’re able to eat their own produce.  In anticipation of an attack by Woodbury, Andrea trains everyone in rifle marksmanship first against stationary targets, then against slow-moving zombies. How will shooting at real people compare?  Alice convinces Rick to let her keep a single captive zombie around for study purposes. Lonely Carol has sex with Billy Greene and then commits suicide, offering her neck to the captive zombie. The horror trope about unmarried sex leading to death has so far held true for Shane, Chris, Julie, and Carol. Who's next?  Sophia is understandably traumatized by the death of her mother Carol. Carl steps up to the plate.  Things turn ugly one late summer day when the Governor shows up leading the forces of Woodbury – all of them, apparently. Seems they’ve spent the months in training as well, and they’ve learned to drive a tank requisitioned from the National Guard outpost. How many people live in Woodbury again? We were previously told the whole town was forty people, including women and children. But there are at least fifty people pictured here in the attack. Maybe “forty” was deliberate misinformation.  Lettercols: Issue #37 contains a biographical interview with an Italian magazine. Kirkman learned the biz working at a local comics store in high school and worked his way up the chain to stardom. His favorite musicians include Nick Cave, Neil Young, David Bowie, AC/DC, Bob Seger, and Presidents of the United States of America. Letters defending Kirkman against Michonne’s rape and the charge of racism keep pouring in. Kirkman admits that due to his own atheism, he doesn’t think to depict the characters’ religious lives as much as realism would demand. My Two Cents: This arc is about two things. First, it’s the calm before the storm, allowing our heroes to recover from the vicious events of their Woodbury experience and build quiet lives for themselves. Now they have something to lose. Second, the events at the National Guard depot and the Wal-Mart have an air of inevitability. Woodbury was never going to be a reasonable neighbor as long as Governor Philip was in charge, which he amazingly still is, somehow having survived an arm amputation without a doctor or nurse to patch him up. One significant anachronism in covers for this series: They generally depict a scene out of that issue, rather than just being a pin-up. Modern comic books don't usually do that, at least not Marvel/DC. Fun fact: Kirkman seriously considered killing Rick rather than Shane in the first arc. It’s hard to imagine how the story would have unfolded without him. I suspect Shane wouldn’t have lasted either.
|
|
|
|
Post by Reptisaurus! on Nov 16, 2019 14:02:32 GMT -5
I'm really glad this series exists. Image needed a huge hit that wasn't an X-Men knock-off, and this paved the way for Image to displace Vertigo as the home for factory system creator owned comics.
I don't actually want to read any more of the Walking Dead, though! (I might have plowed through 40-50 issues.) One hundred ninety some issues of a supernatural horror story where the zombie antagonists are banal and uninteresting is fundamentally a questionable idea* - and one that Romero did over a decade before this series started.
But it paved the way for so much stuff I love, great horror comics like Nailbiter and Locke and Key and the Goon, so I still think of it fondly.
* Or banal and uninteresting compared to the human antagonists. Still, "The premise of this comic is boring" is kind of the theme, right?
|
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Nov 16, 2019 14:16:05 GMT -5
I don't actually want to read any more of the Walking Dead, though! (I might have plowed through 40-50 issues.) One hundred ninety some issues of a supernatural horror story where the zombie antagonists are banal and uninteresting is fundamentally a questionable idea* - and one that Romero did over a decade before this series started. * Or banal and uninteresting compared to the human antagonists. Still, "The premise of this comic is boring" is kind of the theme, right? If the zombies were the main antagonists, that would indeed be a problem. I wonder which 40 issue stint you read where it seemed that they were. It's kind of like Mad Max being boring because deserts are boring. If you don't like Mad Max, it's because of the people, not the hostile backdrop. Same thing here. The zombies are the backdrop, not the antagonists. |
|
|
|
Post by Reptisaurus! on Nov 16, 2019 14:51:46 GMT -5
I think you can do humans-as-the-real-monsters in supernatural (ish) horror and still have the actual supernatural horror be more than "backdrop." I get the premise. If you keep reading the premise is moved from subtext to text in the dumbest way possible. I just think the premise is bad. (Also it's the exact same premise as the last 5 or so Romero Dead movies.)
Also Robert Kirkman called me a jackass for spelling Michonne's names wrong when I was writing for CBR.
|
|
|
|
Post by tarkintino on Nov 16, 2019 17:47:47 GMT -5
I think you can do humans-as-the-real-monsters in supernatural (ish) horror and still have the actual supernatural horror be more than "backdrop." I get the premise. If you keep reading the premise is moved from subtext to text in the dumbest way possible. I just think the premise is bad. (Also it's the exact same premise as the last 5 or so Romero Dead movies.) Also Robert Kirkman called me a jackass for spelling Michonne's names wrong when I was writing for CBR. The problem with Romero's movies--after 1978's Dawn of the Dead--was a rinse and repeat problem of his being on a worn out sociopolitical soapbox, and once you've heard his characters and situations regurgitate: --military = bad --rich people = bad --militias = bad --any allegedly oppressed group = near saints --zombies = not your real enemy, well, not as much as the living ...you cannot find anything interesting in the films. Romero was one of those filmmakers who got lucky with one film becoming famous/innovative, then let the praise for commentary go to his head. Its overflowing in Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead and his final series film, Survival of the Dead. His soapboxing was so damaging to his films that others have one-upped a genre he (and John Russo) created with explorations of a zombie apocalypse that's not centered on whining, but on how humans would more realistically deal with other humans. |
|
|
|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 17, 2019 6:58:31 GMT -5
I don't actually want to read any more of the Walking Dead, though! (I might have plowed through 40-50 issues.) One hundred ninety some issues of a supernatural horror story where the zombie antagonists are banal and uninteresting is fundamentally a questionable idea* - and one that Romero did over a decade before this series started. * Or banal and uninteresting compared to the human antagonists. Still, "The premise of this comic is boring" is kind of the theme, right? If the zombies were the main antagonists, that would indeed be a problem. I wonder which 40 issue stint you read where it seemed that they were. It's kind of like Mad Max being boring because deserts are boring. If you don't like Mad Max, it's because of the people, not the hostile backdrop. Same thing here. The zombies are the backdrop, not the antagonists.Exactly. We are shown early on (and particularly when we meet the governor) that no matter how terrifying zombies are, they will never be as scary as the monsters regular people can turn into. The true monsters here are not the shambling ones. It’s even one of the most interesting aspects of this series that the zombie plague, which is understandably the most important issue at first, eventually becomes nothing more than another manageable day-to-day problem. People adapt to the most incredible things, given time. To kids raised in that post-apocalyptic world, zombies aren’t scarier than rattlesnakes would be to people living in the southwest. Presented as a zombie series, The Walking Dead quickly turned into a “how do people try to rebuild civilization after a catastrophe” series. Sort of like the TV series Jericho, where the event that triggered the collapse is important only in the first few episodes, opening the door to stories about what people do from there. (I love a good civilization rebuilding story!) |
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Nov 17, 2019 7:57:32 GMT -5
If the zombies were the main antagonists, that would indeed be a problem. I wonder which 40 issue stint you read where it seemed that they were. It's kind of like Mad Max being boring because deserts are boring. If you don't like Mad Max, it's because of the people, not the hostile backdrop. Same thing here. The zombies are the backdrop, not the antagonists.Exactly. We are shown early on (and particularly when we meet the governor) that no matter how terrifying zombies are, they will never be as scary as the monsters regular people can turn into. The true monsters here are not the shambling ones. It’s even one of the most interesting aspects of this series that the zombie plague, which is understandably the most important issue at first, eventually becomes nothing more than another manageable day-to-day problem. People adapt to the most incredible things, given time. To kids raised in that post-apocalyptic world, zombies aren’t scarier than rattlesnakes would be to people living in the southwest. Presented as a zombie series, The Walking Dead quickly turned into a “how do people try to rebuild civilization after a catastrophe” series. Sort of like the TV series Jericho, where the event that triggered the collapse is important only in the first few episodes, opening the door to stories about what people do from there. (I love a good civilization rebuilding story!) I enjoyed Jericho and Jeremiah in this vein. Revolution (the one where electricity stops working) had a cool first episode but quickly got silly. |
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Nov 17, 2019 8:13:20 GMT -5
#43-48 “Made to Suffer” (October 2007-April 2008)      It's the first set of theme covers! New Characters: Bob, Gabe, Lilly, and Bruce live in Woodbury. The Story: In flashback to Woodbury, Bob the drunken former Army medic patches up Governor Philip from Michonne’s attack. The Governor concocts a false tale about being the innocent party beset by cruel visitors from a local prison. In case you didn’t know the Governor was psycho as well as cruel, he extracts his zombie daughter’s remaining teeth so that he can French kiss her safely.  Arriving at the prison, his forces open fire on the zombies surrounding it, then on the prison grounds. Andrea returns fire from the watchtower but gets grazed on the head, as depicted on the cover. From that angle, the image could be depicting a brain shot; it’s left deliberately ambiguous at first. But soon it’s clear that she’s OK, and she begins picking off the attackers. The Governor is forced to order a temporary retreat.  Rick has taken a bullet to the gut, though. Alice removes it and then gives him a transfusion of Patricia’s blood which is Type O-, the universal donor. Improbably, Rick is up and around a few hours later. What a superhero!  But while Rick is unconscious, Dale convinces a group to leave in his RV during the lull in fighting: himself, Andrea, Maggie, Glenn, Billy Greene, Carol’s orphan child Sophia, and the orphan twins Billy and Ben. This leaves those remaining seriously undermanned against a second attack. Also before Rick awakens, Michonne and Tyreese figure that the Governor won’t be expecting a retaliatory attack by ninjas, especially so soon. They don combat armor and track down the retreating forces. Bad idea. Tyreese is captured by a Woodbury squad led by Gabe, and Michonne is presumed dead. The Governor executes Tyreese with Michonne’s katana when the prison refuses to surrender.  Michonne sneaks up on the Governor and for some reason doesn’t just plug him and run. As a result, she’s forced to flee after reclaiming her katana. Her prioritization of vengeance and torture over tactical advantage is getting pretty infuriating.  When the next Woodbury attack hits the prison, the good guys are better prepared with grenades. Plus the RV returns, with Andrea on the roof playing havoc with the enemy’s unguarded flank. To prevent his demoralized troops from fleeing, the Governor recklessly orders the tank to be driven through the prison’s fences so that his men can engage at closer range. He probably should have done that in the first place, being the guy who brought a tank to a small arms fight.  By this point, Axel, Patricia, and Billy Greene have been killed. Rick, Lori, baby Judith, and Carl are trying to escape on foot with Alice. But Rick foolishly draws attention by calling out to wounded Hershel. Alice, Hershel, Lori, and Judith are all killed. But Lilly, the Woodbury woman who shot Lori and Judith, is so horrified that she shoots Governor Philip in the head and throws him to the zombies.  The fight has drawn many zombies. The Woodbury militia runs low on ammo and flees into the prison building proper, but they fail to secure the door, and dozens of zombies follow them in, presumably wiping them out. Rick and Carl flee the carnage.  Lettercols: Kirkman preemptively asks readers not to complain about the death of Tyreese, one of the two blacks in this story set in largely black Georgia. In an interview he reasoned that blacks tend to concentrate in cities, which were overrun with zombies. But the zombies in Atlanta were all white, judging by their rotting features. My Two Cents: Want to generate a visceral reader reaction? Kill a mother and her newborn, in front of her husband and young son. I won’t show the images here. They packed a sickening punch when I first read this story a couple of years ago. Small wonder that all the covers of this six-issue arc were given a red background. It closes the first big act of the series. It also ends the second twenty-four issue Deluxe Hardcover and the first big forty-eight issue Compendium, the one that I read. Kirkman kills about half of the cast while closing out the Woodbury arc. It's a semi-reboot situation. Patricia has sex with Axel before they both die, adding another couple to the growing "premarital sex leads to death" body count. But then this arc was pretty bloody overall, no? Like Watership Down, the Walking Dead is in part a story about contrasting communities. How do societies respond to deprivation? We’ve seen four community types so far: the RV encampment of issues #3-6, the Green homestead of issues #7-12, the prison of issues #13ff, and Woodbury, which contains some regular people manipulated into serving the psycho Governor. The message is that it's criminal when citizens prioritize "leader who makes my life seem better" over "leader who does the right thing." This arc gives us important insight into Rick when we see how quickly things collapse while he is out of commission in surgery. Michonne and Tyreese immediately take off on an ill-conceived, under-manned raid. Dale leads a gang of deserters that includes Andrea, the indispensible sniper. Dale and Tyreese were previously considered Rick’s equals in community leadership, but their failings become tragically apparent. The final battle would have gone very differently if Rick had all the manpower he was expecting.  Rick’s gunshot wound to the gut should have been fatal. First, contrary to movies, it’s not as simple as just removing the bullet. The gut is mostly loops of bowel filled with feces which spill out, causing a raging peritonitis which requires extensive antibiotic therapy. The damaged loops of bowel must be located, cut out, and the two ends sewed back together in a painstaking surgery that includes tying off the blood vessels formerly supplying the damaged bowel. Then follows a week of IV antibiotics that Rick clearly isn't going to get, plus IV fluids because the bowels shut off for several days while healing. Contra Alice, a prison infirmary is not going to have the supplies to type and cross match blood types. So it’s a good thing Patricia was type O negative (present in 8% of Caucasians), rendering that issue moot. Just one of many fictional examples of "non-medical writer tries to write medicine."  Rick’s younger brother Jeffery (weird spelling of Jeffrey) is mentioned. He gets his own spin-off mini-series later, despite Kirkman's early vow that all the action would be in the main series.  The cover to issue #53, and the similar splash page at the end of the issue, is one of the few times that Kirkman uses a cheap fake cliffhanger. In this case, it’s Alice pretending to hold Lori hostage in case bad guys happen upon them first. Instead it’s Rick who finds her and briefly has the fright of his life. Boo! Manipulative writer! Especially putting the fake cliffhanger on the cover. Note also that on the cover, Lori is kneeling outside by the broken fence, but in the interior story she's hiding in a prison cell. It was probably one of those situations where the cover was drawn first based on a story outline, but then the final story went a different direction, and Kirkman was obliged to insert this short scene to justify the cover at least a little.  Come to think of it, there’s another cheap cliffhanger when Gabe claims to have shot Michonne in the head, but then it turns out she was really far away and pretended to get hit so she could escape.
|
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Nov 18, 2019 1:47:12 GMT -5
#49-54 “Here We Remain” (May-November 2008)      New Characters: Sergeant Abraham Ford, his girlfriend Rosita Espinosa, and Doctor Eugene Porter, who is a different Eugene from the brute in Woodbury The Story: Rick passes out in a house, and young Carl is forced to draw roaming zombies away from him, shooting three in the process. Returning to the house, twice Carl almost shoots Rick, thinking that his fevered moaning means he’s become a zombie.  After a couple of days, Rick is feeling better. Rick and Carl go out hunting (without success) and find a man surrounded by zombies. He’s just been bitten, and Rick teaches Carl some hard truths about life in the zombie apocalypse. Rick is shocked when the phone in the house rings and promises ongoing contact with another group. Seems too good to be true, right? It is. The whole thing is in Rick’s head. Wonder why Carl didn’t say, “Dad, the phone never rang. You’re hearing things.”  Rick and Carl take a dead man’s car. For some reason, Rick makes Carl drive. Can’t a one-handed man drive a car? Anyway, they’re not too far down the road toward Hershel Greene’s farm when they encounter Michonne, then Maggie and Glenn. At the farm, they reunite with the others who fled in the RV. Rick doesn’t blame Dale for leading an exodus or Michonne for running off half-cocked with Tyreese; he blames himself for not getting his family into the RV. He wants Dale to take over leadership of the community.  Sophia and Carl’s story gets its usual one page of progress this arc:  Three new strangers arrive at the farm asking for supplies; they get a suspicious/hostile welcome from our battle-weary heroes. Newcomer Eugene says he was a scientist working on genetic weapons. He’s trying to make it from Texas to Washington, D.C. to help cure the zombie plague.  Pottymouthed newcomer Abraham is a for-real grizzled soldier who easily disarms Andrea when she gets too threatening. He explains how loud noise like gunfire tends to cause zombies to congregate into large herds which shamble together slowly but ineluctably. His demonstration summons just such a herd which he’s obliged to dispatch singlehandedly – and does. It’s inherently unsafe to set up a stationary base, he argues persuasively. Everybody packs up to move north. The community now numbers a manageable thirteen, counting four children.  Lettercol: Kirkman reports that his current plot outline consists of ten major arcs to carry the story through issue #300. Kirkman has been elevated to partner status in Image Comics. Congratulations! My Two Cents: Kirkman takes something of a risk with three and a half issues featuring only two characters, Rick and Carl. He fills the space well enough, with the previous story of “Rick’s gradual descent into ruthlessness” now compounded by “Rick’s gradual descent into madness.”  I don’t buy Abraham’s claim that stationary bases are unsafe. Our heroes spent at least seven months living at the prison without a zombie herd, despite numerous instances of gunfire. But it’s time for the story to move on to a new setting. Rick is correctly shown with an abdominal incision following his recent surgery. Let’s see whether it’s carried forward into future issues.  While Rick is unconscious, Carl has a lot of venting dialogue that sounds little like the speech of a child.  Kirkman puts in a plug for Gabrielle Zevin’s 2005 YA book Elsewhere.   The “special 50th issue” had two wraparound covers, including a hilarious and ridiculous superhero variant by Erik Larsen which depicts the glamorous antithesis of this series. 
|
|
