Released on July 1st, 2020
I went into a comic book store for the first time in years today. I usually just read them digitally because it's light years easier. But Robert Kirkman decided to help out comic book stores because they've all suffered through this pandemic (the ones around here were closed from the middle of March until the middle of June) so he decided to release a new, free Walking Dead comic. It's kind of a big deal since The Walking Dead ended last July with #193 (which was a surprise at the time...nobody knew it would be the last issue...they even released fake issue cover solicitations for #194 and a few others...and #193 was a triple size book for just $3.99). This new issue, a one-shot titled Negan Lives!, is basically just a book to show what happened to Negan since the last issue he was in was #174. The biggest surprise in this new book is the post-script by Kirkman detailing how originally he had Maggie shoot and kill Negan in #174 but artist Charlie Adlard talked him out of it. Honestly, Maggie killing Negan would have been a better ending for him. But he's back now, for one issue at least. Reading this book kind of just made me sad, though. The Walking Dead was never that great the last few years (it probably reached it's peak with The Governor storyline which ended in #48), but it was still one of the most engrossing books on the stands. Since it came out for ten years, I was used to consistently reading it and being immersed in that world. So reading this new issue just made me sad that it's still not around...especially since Kirkman seemed to keep saying it would continue forever (and the original idea for the book was just that...to showcase not just the zombie apocalypse...but what life would look like years and years after that). In this issue, Negan is milling about alone and depressed when a group shows up and tries to kill him. They fail, but a cute girl in the group ends up liking Negan enough to be saved and the two of them decide to go on a journey to recover his dead wife's remains and bring them back to bury her. And that's it. Kind of pointless, especially considering that we're still left with Negan alive and his future uncertain. Will there be another Negan book in a few years? Who knows? But this book did get me to go to a comic book store for the first time in a long time. I was actually kind of surprised they still had a bunch of copies of this book on the stands (Comic Book Universe, another local store, mentioned on their Facebook page that there probably wasn't enough copies of it to ever make the shelves after giving it to the regulars and subscribers...so I didn't fucking go there). I went to Showcase Comics in Swarthmore. I've been going to that store on and off for probably twenty years. They moved three times to different locations in the Granite Run Mall (I remember buying a cheap, somewhat damaged copy of The Punisher #1 from that first location) and finally when the Mall closed they moved to Swarthmore. The store had a mother with a bunch of her kids running around. And like a typical comic book store, the owner rang me up while talking on the phone (great customer service, idiot...you put the phone down when you have a customer). But I at least got what I went in there for. I got Negan Lives!, which was $4.99, the Fire Power OGN, which was $9.99, and the Free Comic Book Day Fire Power #1 which was, obviously, free. I probably won't be going back to a comic book store for the foreseeable future. Digital is just way too convenient. I'm shocked comic book stores still exist. Those kids in the store today might have been the first kids I've ever seen in a comic book store. It's usually old heads like me...this dying breed. **1/2
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