THE WALKING DEAD #193

 

  Robert Kirkman has, at least with The Walking Dead, always liked to shock. He's killed off just about every character in the series, usually out of nowhere. Some of the deaths have been grisly, like Glenn being bludgeoned by a barbed-wire wrapped bat, the numerous heads put on stakes by Alpha, and Rick's wife and infant daughter being blown apart during the infamous prison raid #48 issue. A few years ago, Kirkman abruptly decided to end his book, Invincible, seemingly out of nowhere. And last summer he released a surprise book, Die! Die! Die!, without solicitation or a preview. Well he's back again at surprising and shocking us. He killed off The Walking Dead's main character, Rick Grimes, last issue, and this issue, #193, is the final issue. The shocking thing is that nobody knew it was the final issue until Monday when rumors spread online (the book was released on Wednesday, July 3rd). Kirkman and Image Comics even tricked people into thinking the book would continue. They released fake previews with covers of issues #195, #196, and #197. We all assumed after Rick died that Carl, his son, would be the main character and the book would continue until #300 like Kirkman had noted he wanted it to. The other surprise out of this is that the book was 80 pages with the same price tag, $3.99. Not surprising was that it completely sold out everywhere instantly and most comic book store owners were rightfully pissed off. They probably would have made a lot of money if the final issue was announced in advance and they could have ordered hundreds of copies. Instead, they ordered their usual pile, probably ten or twenty, and sold out right away and then got badgered with phone calls and angry customers in the store wanting a copy and being fucked. I can see why store owners are pissed off about this, and The Walking Dead has always been one of my favorite comics month in and month out, even though it was never as good as it was in the early days. The last time the book was great was probably about fifty or so issues ago when Alpha and her pack showed up wearing the skin of zombies. The book of course reached its pinnacle with The Governor storyline and never reached that height again, though it tried by, basically, re-doing that storyline but with a different Big Bad; Negan and then Alpha. The Walking Dead was one of the very few comic books I usually read right away when it was released, which means it was good. Sometimes I even loved the letters page more than the book. All in all, it will go down as being a pretty legendary comic book. I read every single issue and own probably half of the run, though I don't own any of the early issues that are worth thousands of dollars. Kirkman noted in his afterward that he was going to originally end the book right before issue #100 but he decided not to and came up with more story to fill another hundred issues. His original ending was bleak; we would see a statue of Rick Grimes in the future...and pull out to see no humans but only zombies milling about. So the original ending was bleak as hell. Compared to how he did end the book, I'd say that bleak ending would have been better, although I am glad he continued so we got to see Negan and The Whisperers. This last issue takes place years in the future when Carl is older, married to Sophia, and has a baby girl. We get to see that Eugene has built a railroad, Michonne is now a judge, and the zombies are pretty much extinct and not a threat anymore. Negan is still alive, though we only get to see his house. The last scene has Carl reading a bedtime story to his daughter about his father and her grandfather, the "great" Rick Grimes, who, apparently, is a mythological hero. There's even a statue of him in town. The last page has Carl and his daughter in a rocking chair and he's reading her the story from a book. So it's a nice, safe ending. It made me sad, though I think mostly because the book I've read for so long was ending. I anticipated seeing what Kirkman would cook up for #200, which was right around the corner, because he usually always did something big for those landmark issues. And I thought I'd be reading until #300 to see the adventures of Carl and the others and see the new villains and adventures and horrific deaths. Kirkman isn't done with comic books. He still has two that are currently running; the rather boring Outcast and the trippy, entertaining Oblivion Song. But now that Invincible and The Walking Dead are over, is Kirkman's career over, too? Will he still be relevant? Or will he end up like Garth Ennis, who, after Preacher, kind of faded out as being a great comic book writer? I doubt we'll ever see a great, long series like this again from Kirkman, but who knows? Anything can happen, and The Walking Dead was on the verge of cancellation early on and look at what happened to it. As for this last issue, it's merely an okay one. Maybe it was best to end it now instead of trudging on with a book that's never going to be as good as it once was. But I'll miss it. It's going to be tough reading comics knowing The Walking Dead doesn't exist anymore. It's like a punch to the gut...which is kind of like how its always been reading this book. Which is an apt way to end it I suppose, with a shock. **1/2