Robert Kirkman says that The Walking Dead will go three hundred issues. Unless he has something else up his sleeve, I don’t see this tired series going to much more than one hundred and fifty. Sure, the show is wildly successful, but the comic has begun repeating itself, which is never a good sign. Don’t believe me? Rick and his crew rushed the prison, and had to deal with the inmates. Then they met with a bunch of new people, and they had to deal with the Governor. Rick’s merry bunch went along and met a new crowd of people in the gated community, and had to deal with them. Then they met Jesus, then the new community and now they have to contend with Negan.
Let’s be frank, Negan simply is a less interesting Governor. Where that character was insane and unpredictable, Negan is a Hollywood psychopath. Lots of big talk, lots of “I’m dominating you” speeches, he’s smug, says lots of taunting things and struts around acting “crazy”. In short, Negan is boring. Walking Dead #103 is a throw away issue. It’s here simply to get readers invested in hating Negan so when he gets his comeuppance, in what is sure to be a blood bath, we all cheer and talk about how cutting edge the series is.
Issue 103 opens with Jesus following one of Negan’s members back to camp. After two pages of that, the rest is Negan coming into Rick’s camp and taking half of everything while saying inflammatory things such as “Did I bash some Asian kid’s dome in?” Between that and the fact that Negan’s barbed wire-encrusted baseball bat named “Lucille,” it’s hard not to roll your eyes. Negan takes everything, talks down to Carl, says more inflammatory things and then tells Rick “I just slid my cock down your throat, and you thanked me for it.” Ohhhhh, he’s craaaaazy!!!!
No matter what happens with Negan, the writing is on the wall for Walking Dead. Remember issue 100? Remember how much hoopla was involved and how it seemed like drastic changes were coming for Rick and his gang? Well, that didn’t deliver at all. Instead, we got Glenn’s death for no reason other than to use cheap theatrics to try and pull at our heartstrings. When Rick’s wife died in issue #75, it was a shock, it was brutal and while it came out of nowhere, it didn’t seem like it was there just for shock value. Glenn’s death was exactly the opposite. A cheap shill to try and create an emotional connection to an otherwise lackluster issue 100.
At this point, Kirkman would be better to wind down Walking Dead as opposed to spending two hundred more issues with Rick and the gang meeting people who are assholes and fighting them. The Negan storyline may end with some “shocking twist” but at this point, who cares?
And I still hate the art
(2 Story, 2 Art)
