The Walking Dead #92 – Review

By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (artist), Cliff Rathburn (gray tones), Rus Wooton (letters) & Sina Grace (editor)

The Story: New stuff pops up, but is this going to be a threat or an opportunity?

Five things: 

1. Glad to see something intriguing happen! – I was really hard on the last issue of TWD.  The last “big climax” a few issues back (the unsuccessful insurrection by the Arlington natives) was kind of a dud and then when we have a few issues of fumbling long-standing characters, I did start to wonder if this series had jumped the shark when Andrea started talking to Dale’s hat.  So, it was nice to see TWD get back to a sense of mystery and exploration.  We haven’t had that in a long time (since Rick’s gang came to Arlington) and exploration is an important part of this series.  Just having a new scenario to exert some new forces on the equilibrium the characters are settling into is a great thing and can power the series through rough patches.

2. Interesting new scenario. – The new scenario is neat and kinda makes sense.  So far, Rick’s gang has mostly been out in rural areas.  Not a lot of people = not a lot of settlements.  Now we’re in the Washington, DC area and it makes sense that there would be more pockets of survivors and that they’d start to interact like a big game of Sid Meier’s Civilization where you can achieve supremacy via diplomacy, economic prowess or military conquest.  It sounds like Rick’s group was that “nation” in Civilization that was off in the corner doing its own thing, but will now be forced to find a way to deal with these other groups and who knows if their weaponry will be sufficient to be taken seriously.  Just the sense of exploration makes me a little giddy even if a nay-sayer would say that this scenario is similar to the prison/Governor set-up from ~60 issues ago.

3. Shoosh! Carl’s getting his memories back… – Man, this is going to be rough.  Poor kid and poor Rick.  Can you imagine having to tell your kid that his “dream” of killing another child was no dream… That it really happened?  And imagine telling him that it was the right thing to do because the other kid was a sick bastard.  If Kirkman keeps handling Carl this way, it’ll be a powerful reminder of just what a screwed up childhood this world forces on the kids.