The Walking Dead #130 – Review

By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (pencils), Stefano Gaudiano (inks), Cliff Rathburn (grey tones) and Rus Wooton (letters)

This was a pretty interesting issue.  The Walking Dead delights in being a “slow burn” and that can be frustrating while readers are waiting for the story to coalesce (like a kid waiting for the Jello to harden), but once it does turn the corner and develop a sense of direction, TWD is able to instill more of a sense of anticipation that just about any other comic that I read.

This issue seems like it might be turning the corner to doing something real.  I say that mostly because of the sheer number of players in motion right now.  You’ve got the newcomers getting settled, we’ve seen them find Negan and resist his charisma, Rick is out visiting Maggie at Hilltop, Carl is having employment challenges, and maybe the zombies are changing.

Probably my favorite part of this issue dealt with Negan.  I liked how quickly he saw that his “HELP ME!!!” charade wasn’t working on the newcomers and we even saw him revert back to vintage Negan.  I really do wonder what Kirkman is going to do with Negan in the long term.  He’s too interesting to kill, and Kirkman probably could have killed him at the end of All Out War, but he’s such a fun character that Kirkman kept him around.  It was probably like when you were a kid and your parents told you that you were too old for some of your toys and they were right, but you kept one stuffed animal anyway because it was awesome.  I’m looking forward to what becomes of Negan.  I also enjoyed that the possibility of the newcomers naively letting him go didn’t come to pass.  That could have been a good story, but it would have been a little too fast.  I mean, surely anyone who has survived the zombie apocalypse this long isn’t a dummy.

The Walking Dead #129 – Review

By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (pencils), Stefano Gaudiano (inks), Cliff Rathburn (grays) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: Locking Negan up was always going to be a bad idea…

Review (with SPOILERS): If The Walking Dead could have a sub-title, it could be, “Hoist by one’s own petard.”

This whole shift in tone for The Walking Dead over the last several issues has really focused on a kinder, gentler and older Rick Grimes.  To me, he seems almost like Herschel, and I almost felt like they had made him too old.

But, what we saw in this issue is that he’s still the same old Rick.  For one thing, the scene where he beats the hell out of the highway patrolman shows how he continues to put a lot of stock in symbols.  Whether it is The Prison, some walled town, or now a Road, Rick always looks at these sorts of symbols as things that show that humanity is getting its act back together.  Or he’s had some selfish motive for valuing the symbol.  With the Road, it is obviously important because it is linking the various human settlements, and those settlements are important because moving from single-cities to a network of connected communities is a natural evolution.  But Rick really cares about the Road because his son is going to live in another community and he needs the Road open so that he can go see his son.  If a few highway patrolmen need to get flogged so that Rick can see his son, so be it.

You also see Rick’s ego coming into play with Negan.  He tells people that Negan is a prisoner because their community is too civilized to execute him.  But, the real reason is that Rick wants to rub his victory in Negan’s face.  He wants to visit Negan every day and spike the football in front of him.  That’s why he brings Negan his food personally, but makes a minion clean out Negan’s shit bucket.  The clever thing is that Negan knows the score.  He knows that Rick is making a mistake by not killing him for prideful reasons, and he knows that Rick will eventually pay for making the wrong choice for the wrong reason.

The other development in this issue is that we see the newcomers find Negan.  One of our commenters last month pointed to this possibility; that the newcomers would find Negan, he’d fill their heads with lies about Rick and they’d release him from jail.  I’m happy to see this storyline moving forward.  As readers of these reviews know, I’ve grown weary of the deliberate pacing of The Walking Dead.  It is has never been a fast comic book, but it has gotten slower over time and my opinion is that stories need to move more rapidly as they age.  And this story is gracefully moving forward.  I’m not entirely sure I want to see another round of Rick vs. Negan, especially after finishing two years of . But we’ll see what Kirkman & Co. come up with for these two…

The Walking Dead #128 – Review

By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (pencils), Stefano Gaudiano (inks), Cliff Rathburn (grays) and Rus Wooton (letters)

SPOILER ALERT

The Walking Dead has always been a slow-paced story, but this story is setting the bar higher (or lower?) than its ever been.

You’ve got Rick wandering around town talking about bread and giving out relationship advice.  You’ve got Andrea aggressively questioning the newcomers.  You’ve got newcomers talking about whether this place is trustworthy.  You’ve got Rick and Carl discussing his career options.  There just isn’t much to grab onto yet.

It’s all well and good to watch the characters that we’ve (mostly) grown to like living their lives, but I also don’t want to see The Walking Dead become even slower paced than it has been before.  It makes me wonder if Kirkman doesn’t have a plan or that he’s out of ideas and is just milking the story.

But, since we know that TWD isn’t going to become Archie, the danger will have to come from somewhere.  Right now we’ve got three possibilities.  I just hope we get on with developing these stories:

1. Negan – He’s clearly not going to stay locked up in the cell forever.  And Kirkman is making great efforts to remind us of Negan’s attempts to manipulate Carl and befriend him, but Carl is going away to be a blacksmith.  Hmm… That seems odd: Reminding us of the Carl/Negan dynamic in the same issue where it is announced that Carl will be leaving the city.  Regardless, I’m amazed at how much charisma Negan has lost by growing his hair out.  He’s like the anti-Samson.  Grow his hair out and take away his bat (the jawbone of an ass?) and Negan is just a dude in a cell, and not a very interesting one either.
2. Newcomers – Well, they clearly didn’t come all this way to fit quietly into Rick & Co’s lives.  But, beyond the obvious mutual suspicion, I don’t see a THREAT looming here.  The newcomers don’t seem to be evil and we know that Rick’s crew isn’t evil either.  So, what bad could happen?  Maybe they’re legitimately new characters who are going to be built up  to join the main cast and there won’t be any stress and conflict.  Jesus joined without any real stress.  Still, it seems a waste to not make something stressful happen.
3. Zombie! – It all seems a little too convenient with the zombies right now.  It reminds me of a movie where there is some pompous corporate jackass boasting about how how *they* have “mastered the weather cycles of Earth” and how the “planet works for US now…” only to learn the hard way that Mother Earth will NOT be controlled and the corporate jackass is killed by a hurricane/shark/earthquake/Godzilla.  It’s the same story any time the arrogance of man allows him (it’s always a man) to think he can control the uncontrollable, and it comes back to bite him.  That’s kinda what I see going on with the zombies.  They’re basically a force of nature now and Rick & Co. seem to be getting a little cocky with how they can herd and control them.  It’s like the zombies aren’t even dangerous anymore… They’re just flood waters to be diverted into a ditch.  You know that won’t last.  To be honest, I’d like to see another round of the zombies being scary.  The political stuff with Negan and other survivors is fun, but it doesn’t quite compare to the horror of being gnawed alive or seeing your loved ones eaten in front of you.

The other thing I’m struck by is the change in Rick.  He’s kinda gone very quickly from a guy who yelled a lot and covered a lot of pages entirely in word balloons to a man of few words.  I mean, you could totally see that scene with him and Eugene talking about Rosita playing out differently with Rick going on for pages about the nature of relationships.  Now he’s almost Herschel-like.  I understand that this is a new Rick, but the combination of his shorter dialog and his new visual appearance makes him seem a little too old.  He’s not acting like a 40 year old man who has had his eyes opened, he’s acting like a 65 year old who is dispensing advice while letting the young folk learn lessons themselves.  I suspect this is just something for writer and artist to work out.  Either the dialog OR the art change would be okay, but the combo ages Rick a little more than they probably intended.  They’ll probably get this recalibrated in a few issues.

Watching the Rick/Carl dynamic continues to be interesting.  I’ve been complaining for months that TWD isn’t showing enough forward progress in the story, but if you look at where Carl was in the first story arc to now, he’s changed a lot.  Back then he was very much a child and now he’s a young adult.  Nevermind that he’s probably aged more rapidly than the rest of the cast, Carl has come a LONG way.  Kirkman clearly has some sort of plan for Carl/Rick/Negan because “Carl Grimes – Apprentice Blacksmith” isn’t going to be a very popular comic.  I have no idea where this Carl story will end up and that’s kinda fun.

The Walking Dead #127 – Review

By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (pencils), Stefano Gaudiano (inks), Cliff Rathburn (grays) and Rus Wooton (letters)

A jump forward in time is a good idea for this series.  Much of what happened between the end of the last issue and the first page of this issue was stuff we didn’t really need to see.  I mean, there was a lot of reestablishment of agriculture, getting new haircuts and picking out sunglasses to wear over your eye.  That’s not terribly compelling storytelling, and we readers didn’t need to be dragged through that stuff.  It’s over and done with.  Now we can just get on with the storytelling about murder, zombies, and whatever else Kirkman has planned for us.

Unfortunately, what they’ve jumped forward to isn’t very compelling.  I mean, if you and I were actually survivors of the zombie apocalypse, you would TOTALLY want to live in Rick’s little town.  But, we’ve already seen these attempts to “be happy” and recreated civilization before.  They tried it in the prison and the Governor messed it up.  They did it before in Alexandria/Hilltop and it was ruined by zombies and Negan.  Even though Rick & Gang seem to have better stuff this time (better farms, better administration, etc.) and even though it seems like he is more the leader than he’s been before, from a storytelling standpoint, this is really the same-old, same-old…  This is just the appearance of giving Rick’s group something nice only for it to be ruined again.  We’ve seen this dynamic before, and I just wish that out of all the possibilities in this world, Kirkman would show something different.

Black Science #6 – Review

By: Rick Remender (writer), Matteo Scalera (art), Dean White (colors) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: Grant McKay and Co. are stuck in another hostile environment.

Review (with SPOILERS): I’m really happy with where this series stands as it heads into a short hiatus (presumably to allow Matteo Scalera to work ahead on the art).  Mostly, it’s just rewarding to see that Remender isn’t totally committed to the cookie-cutter stereotype characters that he created earlier in the series.

The revelation that Kadir and Grant might not really be the characters we originally thought is very refreshing.  I really didn’t want this series to be about the noble crusading scientist who is beaten down by the evil venture capitalist.  Who needs that type of class-warfare story?  If you want class warfare, it is being done tremendously well by Greg Rucka over in Lazarus.  So, it is refreshing to see that Kadir isn’t as villainous as he was originally portrayed, nor is Grant McKay as wonderful as we were lead to believe.  That doesn’t mean that this will be a role reversal with Kadir being the hero.  In fact, I hope it doesn’t end up that way.  Stories are more interesting when there aren’t defined heroes and villains.  Humans have a variety of competing compulsions and storytelling that limits people to being purely good/evil is tiresome.  Kadir seems to be financially motivated, but he’d also rather not have reality destroyed.  Grant kinda wants to make the world better, but like most scientists…..he falls into that trap of being more interested in his own research and then feels the need to rationalize a story that makes that research vital to humanity.  These characterizations of Kadir and Grant now ring true with both the scientists and venture capitalists I know.

Also interesting was this concept that Grant is polluting all of reality with his Pillar devices.  Here we see Grant and Kadir run into another Pillar under construction by the chief scientist of this bizarre Possessed Ape species.  This ape probably didn’t get the idea from THIS Grant McKay, but the implication is the all of the Grant McKays are a scourge on reality as they flit about in their Pillars causing mayhem.  It reminds me a little of the argument that time travel is impossible…..because if it WERE possible, someone from the future would have invented it and we’d have time travelers wandering all over the place in present day.

The Walking Dead #126 – Review

By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (pencils), Stefano Guadiano (inks), Cliff Rathburn (gray tones) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: The final battle between Rick and Negan?

The Review (with SPOILERS): What a lame anticlimactic issue!  The Walking Dead made its bones by being the series where anything could happen, but I think this could be the issue where it jumped the shark.  It’s the issue where preservation of the valuable characters and branding took priority over exciting storytelling so that Rick Grimes & Co. could continue to be exploited on TV, in video games, etc.  That doesn’t make TWD a poor series going forward, but it won’t be #1 on my must-read list anymore until it convinces me that “anything can happen” again.

This resolution to the Rick/Negan war is deeply unsatisfying.  It isn’t just that I’m blood-thirsty and want some DEATH!  I want to look forward to a story that doesn’t seem just like the stories I’ve seen before.  It seems like the next story will be Rick and his crew repairing Alexandria and we’ll be back to having Alexandria, The Kingdom, and Hilltop working as walled cities.  We’ve seen that.  We’ve seen this discussion of how to build a better tomorrow and how to rebuild society.  It happened on a small scale at the Prison and we’ve watched it for the last 50 issues in Alexandria.  I really don’t want to watch another story cycle of urban planning, wall construction and farming; with interludes of zombies and banditry.  I’m sure there will be wrinkles to this coming story and they might be fun, but for the first time in The Walking Dead history, I’m not looking forward to what happens next.

I’m also disappointed that nobody died in this issue.  It isn’t that I get off on death, it’s that I like to see the group continually reforming to react to new situations.  What is enticing about post-apocalypse stories is that they give us a glimpse of people like us without the same rules that govern our lives.  It’s kinda like, “What if there were no police or laws…  Would you kill that neighbor you hate so much?  Would you steal food from someone to feed your own children?”  We’ve seen this group of Rick & Co. for a long time now.  Rick has always been the leader.  Andrea has always been the sniper.  Maggie is the moral conscious.  Carl is the little boy growing up badly in the apocalypse.  Michonne chops off zombie heads.  I’d kinda like to see what happens if Rick isn’t around anymore.  Who leads?  Where do they want to take the group?  Or what if Carl dies?  How would that change Rick’s perspective and actions?  What if Andrea died and Rick had now lost Lori, how does that change Rick?

I guess my problem is that I want The Walking Dead to do something new, and this feels very old to me.  Now I’m very cynical about everything to come.  I just don’t believe that Kirkman will kill his major characters.  I won’t be excited by cliffhangers anymore.  Kirkman has to re-earn that sense of anticipation, because he squandered it with this event.

The Walking Dead #125 – Review

By: Robert  (writer), Charlie Adlard (pencils), Stefano Gaudiano (inks), Cliff Rathburn (gray tones) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: Is Rick dying or not?

Review (with SPOILERS): I hada lot of “mixed feelings” with this issue.  It’s honestly been a difficult one to even review.  It’s just not an issue that inspires a single, unified feeling, just lots of stray thoughts and disappointments. And that’s a fail for this issue.  The action is coming to a crescendo, and it should inspire a solid feeling rather than a bunch of stray thoughts.

Teasing death is cheap: This cliffhanger would be a million times more effective if Kirkman hadn’t just yanked the football from in front of us a few issues ago.  I mean, we just saw this BIG tease that Rick was going to die because of the zombie-goop bolt.  That turned out to be a total nothing, so why should we get excited that Rick has nicked Negan’s neck with a knife?  Charlie Adlard could have drawn that scene any way he wanted to (or any way Kirkman asked him to).  It looks like a nick for a reason.  If they wanted to kill Negan, that knife would be buried up to the hilt.  They could have used either of these implied death cliffhangers, but not both.

Too much talking!: My goodness did Rick go on and on before trying to stab Negan!  They were building a better place, they were working together, blah, blah…  It’s the same rhetoric we heard back at the Prison and countless times in Alexandria.  I get it and it’s a noble goal.  It’s what we would all strive for in the apocalypse, but farming and blacksmithing don’t make for a very compelling story.  I know that Rick was talking about that to distract Negan so he could stab him, but he could have talked about anything.  He could have talked about surrendering.  He could have talked smack.  But, instead he talked about a theme that has already been kinda played out from a storytelling standpoint.  We’ve seen TWD do a “Let’s re-establish society!” theme for 40+ issues.  It’s time to see something else.

Negan is great: I really hope Negan isn’t dying because he’s so much fun.  Honestly, when he started agreeing with Rick’s spiel, I thought he was just going along with it to pull Rick’s leg, and the next second he was going to say, “What?  Are you nuts?  Just listen to yourself, Rick?  You sound insane!”I thought we were going to see him try to whack Rick with Lucille.  Negan is such an outstanding character, so well-written and drawn, that thinking Negan was about to play his own little trick on Rick is a perfectly plausible explanation.  It’s a credit to the creators that we can even speculate about such things.  Comics are usually pretty literal, but Negan allows for subtext.

So, where does all this leave us? I’m afraid I can’t look forward to any of the major storytelling possibilities.  If either Rick or Negan dies next issue, I’ll feel like this story was too long.  It isn’t that we didn’t need the All Out War story, but twelve issues and making artistic compromises to achieve bi-weekly shipping probably wasn’t necessary.  On the other hand, if both of these guys walk away unscathed next issue, it will feel cheap that they’ve both had their deaths teased, keeping the story from moving forward.  What would be next?  All Out War II?

Black Science #5 – Review

By: Rick Remenber (writer), Matteo Scalera (art), Dean White (painted art) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: Grant has to deal with a mysterious, masked assailant.

Review (with SPOILERS): Last issue of this series put it right back on the top of my reading stack.  It was fast and furious and ended in a really cool place with a nifty-looking villain (?) appearing to possibly menace Grant McKay and our heroes.

This issue wastes no time dragging out the mystery of this masked man, it’s Other Grant.  It would be wrong to think of him as Future Grant who is on a sort of Back to the Future mission to help out.  No, this is just Other Grant from another reality who somehow has knowledge about the normal sequence of events that takes place in alternate universes.  Except in Other Grant’s native reality, his Pillar exploded and killed his children and now he seems to be on a mission to stop Our Grant from killing his kids.

The Walking Dead #123 – Review

By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (pencils), Stefano Gaudiano (inks), Cliff Rathburn (gray tones) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: Negan attacks!

The Review (with SPOILERS): Pretty big event on the final page, huh?  Robert Kirkman has either done something very brave OR very eye-rolling.

The topic for discussion is – of course – the fact that Rick Grimes was shot with a bolt from a crossbow on the final page.  Negan’s plan of attack has been to smear all of his Saviors’ weapons with zombie gunk, so this would imply that Rick is infected with zombie goo and is going to die.  He isn’t shot anywhere that can be amputated either – right through the abdomen.

If Kirkman really and truly is killing Rick, that is a very brave decision.  He is the main character and it is his story that we’ve followed since issue #1 back in 2003.  Rick is also the central character of the highest rated drama on cable television.  Can you imagine telling your friends who watch TV, but don’t read the comic that, Rick is dead in the comics?  The thought of that might actually sell some comics…

However, it would make a lot of sense to kill Rick.  I personally think his story has been used up for some time.  It isn’t that we can’t keep having stories with Rick in them, but wouldn’t it be interesting to see how a survivors group of Michonne, Maggie, Andrea and Carl managed after Rick was gone?  We’ve never seen that dynamic.  It would be new and fresh and The Walking Dead could use a little freshening.  It isn’t so much that I want to see the group do any particular thing, it’s just that I feel like I’ve seen the story with Rick in charge.  I’d like to try something new.  Let’s see what ELSE this group of humans can do.

The Manhattan Projects #18 – Review

By: Jonathan Hickman (writer), Nick Pitarra (art), Jordie Bellaire (colors) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: Allegiances shift and new antagonists come to the fore….

Review (with SPOILERS): This issue of The Manhattan Projects was pretty interesting because it closed a chapter while opening a new set of possibilities.  I still think TMP is a little light on overall narrative, but the reshuffling in this issue will allow our oddball characters to be odd in new ways.

• End of Oppenheimer?: Evil Oppenheimer has been a central character since TMP began and the prime antagonist for the last 6-7 issues.  Is he really dead?  Or did he just just download his brain into the Omni-President’s AI?  I did seem like Oppenheimer was “cured” of his dual personalities before he was shot….
• Turncoat Einstein: As he says, he is “not a good man”.  All along, Einstein has never really been a team player.  He’s kinda done his own thing and it’s just so happened that his goals align with those of the team.  Now that the team is massively realigning, it’ll be interesting to see how Einstein fits into the new power structure.
• McNamara is charge: What a great character he has been!  It’s tempting to call him a Rambo-wanna-be, except that he can really dish it out.  He kills the funny blue alien all by himself, takes the alien’s ear and now wants to carpet bomb the galaxy.  He’s kinda like a young version of how left-wing folks see neo-conservatives like Rumsfeld and Cheney.
• Groves turncoat?: We’ve gotten used to the idea that Groves is somehow the ally of the scientists, but he’s really just been a man on a mission….and now we see that he’s still looking for dragons to slay.  Remember, he was pumped full of truth-serum when he joined McNamara.  He even got a promotion out of it!

The whole thing is a welcome shake-up for the series.  I’m not sure that TMP is ever supposed to really be about anything…..there is no massive storyline.  Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that TMP is a comic series where the plot exists to service the characters.  I enjoy TMP not so much to find out “What will happen next?” but just to see what these whackos are up to.  It’s the comic equivalent of people watching.  That makes it somewhat unique in my pull list and it’s why I try not to get too bothered when I can’t remember plot details like what is/was going on with the FDR A.I.  It doesn’t really matter….the cool thing is that there a FDR A.I. exists at all.

Black Science #4 – Review

By: Rick Remender (writer), Matteo Scalera (art), Dean White (colors) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: The protagonists try to escape from an alt-WWI while their leader is wounded.

The Review (with SPOILERS): Honestly, I don’t know what to make of this silly comic series.  The first issue was lights-out great!  The second issue was good, but concerning.  The third issue was kinda mediocre.  And, now we’re back to lights-out great.

If I had to give an opinion on this series it is that it will be somewhat inconsistent, but capable of blowing your socks off.  That alone makes it worthy.  Life is too short to even bother with comics that don’t have the potential for greatness.  That’s why I don’t usually bother with 3rd-tier Avengers books anymore: no potential for greatness.

There are a whole raft of attributes that make this a sharper issue than last:

• WOW-level art: I took some stick last month for saying the art is issue #3 wasn’t quite as good as the previous issues.  I stand by that assessment.  This issue (like issue #1) is just loaded with images that will melt your eyes.  For me, there are two levels of good art.  One is just having the basic storytelling correct and not succumbing to weak panels.  That is a harder task that you might think with so much frenzied action – but Scalera is up to the task.  The second level is: Are there images that just have that singular quality where you go, “WOW!”?  I started to make a list of the panels that made me double-take, but it would probably be easier to list the panels that didn’t cause that reaction.  There are original pages in this issue that I want and I’m irritated that Matteo Scalera’s art rep doesn’t have them up on the site yet.  I won’t tell you which ones because I can’t take the chance that other people might buy them.  It’s inspirational art.  So, what sets this art apart?  It’s just got that little bit of extra energy to the whole sequence when Ward is fighting his way through the Techno Native Americas.  The art looks incredibly like that of Sean Murphy.  Everything is energetic, well-framed and detailed.  Then, we shift gears totally and see that Scalera can draw an incredibly soft-looking pretty woman AND imagine a world that is straight out of Star Wars.  Who knows why the art wasn’t quite to this standard in the last two issues?  Maybe Sclera had something going on in his personal life that knocked him off schedule, maybe the subject matter didn’t excite him as much…Who knows?  And who cares, because any series that can look like THIS is worth reading.
• Shift away from Grant McKay: I have a feeling that Grant McKay is going to be the Rick Grimes of this series.  By that I mean, central character who I don’t like as much as the supporting cast.

The Walking Dead #122 – Review

By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (pencils), Stefano Gaudiano (inks), Cliff Rathburn (gray tones) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: After Alexandria is abandoned, both Rick and Negan prepare for the final battle.

The Review (with SPOILERS): This issue is mostly set-up for whatever comes next.  Judging by the letters page, we have four more issues left in the “All Out War” storyline, so the pacing really makes sense: Rick and Gang are bracing for the final battle, Negan is preparing a special type of weapon and Dwight might have some help on the inside.

Starting with Rick & Gang, it’s all pretty standard stuff: Rick knows they need to attack, Andrea is vigilant, Ezekiel is pulling himself back together, Maggie is dealing with her new leadership role, Health deals with only having one leg, Jesus is having a moment of quiet…  The only real call to action is that they don’t have enough food for the entire group.  That fact tells us that everyone hiding inside Hilltop is not an option: The people in there NEED to fan back out into the countryside again, and that isn’t an option until Negan has been dealt with.

It’s all fine build-up inside of Hilltop; nice little character moments.  I’m not sure that I care that much about character-building at this point in the story – I’d rather get onto the climax – but there’s nothing obnoxious and offensive about seeing this stuff.  And hey, Jesus is gay!  Who knew?  Subversion is awesome…

Meanwhile over in Negan-land, things are getting decidedly weird.  Negan has the great plan to smear zombie goop all over the Saviors weapons, and while I do think this foreshadows a sad death or two for Rick’s team (as they waste away from a scratch), it also seems really dangerous for Negan’s men.  I mean, he has thoroughly coated the barbed wire on Lucille with zombie goop, would you want to ride down the road holding onto that thing?  Oop! Hit a pothole and scratch your hand on the barbed wire.  Seems like it would make more sense to just stop on the way to Rick’s compound and get some zombie goop on the way.  And wouldn’t all of their weapons already have zombie goop all over them already?  I mean, it isn’t like we’ve seen the Saviors pouring peroxide all over their weapons before.

The Walking Dead #121 – Review

 

By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (pencils), Stefano Gaudiano (inks), Cliff Rathburn (gray tones) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: Alexandria is burning!

The Review (with SPOILERS): This is a pretty good issue of The Walking Dead mostly because it has forward momentum from a plotting standpoint.  Even though there is some lurching and creaking, this story is clearly moving through a metamorphosis to “whatever comes next”.

So, let’s go through the events of the issue, because a LOT happens.  Certainly a LOT more than we typically get in an issue of The Walking Dead.

• Leaving Alexandria: It’s burned and ruined.  While I have some factual problems with the storytelling, I’m glad to see Rick & Co. away from this stronghold.  The Walking Dead is like a shark and it dies if it stops moving forward.  Even with Negan out there, the status quo in Alexandria has been too comfortable.  The story doesn’t need zombies clawing at the walls all the time, but it needs more stress because stress is the fuel for dramatic tension.  It should always be zombies, bandits, cannibals, food rationing, disease, weather, a less than ideal gender ratio, etc.
• Leaving Alexandria II: I’m very pleased at how quickly the decision to leave Alexandria happened.  Rick just kinda said, “We’re leaving.” and then it happened.  A part of me feels that the pace is inconsistent with some of the other storytelling in the series: This feels like there could have been a caption box saying, “Two days later…”  But, I’ll put that aside because I’d rather see them get on with the story rather than Rick arguing with some housewives about how Alexandria isn’t safe anymore and beating himself up over whether it is all his fault.
• Leaving Alexandria, fact check: How ruined is Alexandria, really?  I mean, it still has good walls.  Aren’t walls the most important thing in the zombie apocalypse?  Just erect some tents or find the place that sells those $799 aluminum carports or go to Home Depot and get some of those $599 tool sheds.  And can you really put all the belongings of the whole community in a couple of buses?

Black Science #3 – Review

By: Rick Remender (writer), Matteo Scalera (art), Dean White (colors) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: More background on the Pilar project.

Review (with SPOILERS): This issue is a perfect example of why I hate to see fans proclaiming a series as “great” after an exciting first issue.  So much can go wrong or change in the space of a few issues, that you really need to see a little more before registering a definite opinion on a series.

Where this issue goes wrong is in how far away from the original premise it has gotten after only a few issues.  That first issue was just electric.  We were dumped into the middle of this bizarre aquatic planet with frogmen and fishmen doing battle and some astronaut dude was running for his life.  Nothing was explained and we mostly had to figure it out ourselves.  Then – JUMP – we ended up on some weird future-tech planet at the end of the issue.  It almost seemed like this series could just be folks hopping around and trying to get home: cool world after cool world.  It felt really fast-paced and – screw the back-story – because those frogmen with the electric tongues were SO COOL.  Oh yeah…..and the art was incredible.

The second issue was a deviation from the first in that we started getting more backstory on the characters and less of the fantastical world they were exploring.  That wasn’t good.  And lots of the characters we really stereotypy.

The Walking Dead #120 – Review

By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (pencils), Stefano Gaudiano (inks), Cliff Rathburn (gray tones) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: Negan goes on the offensive.

Review (with SPOILERS including some from much earlier in the series): Honestly, I have kinda mixed feelings about this issue.

On one hand, the All Out War seems to finally be rocking along, supporting characters are dying, bases are being destroyed, old friends come galloping to the rescue…  On the other hand, we’re still not done with the storyline.

I was actually sitting down to write a totally positive review until I remembered the last time that Rick & Co. were rousted from a base (by the Governor in issue #48).  Even though some of the Governor’s raid happened in the previous issue, the action in issue #48 is gloriously tight.  The deaths of supporting characters like Herschel’s son and Alice the Doctor only get a panel or two.  Herschel just gets a BLAM and he’s dead.  Even the death of Lori and baby Judith gets all of two pages (one full-pager of them getting splattered, one of Rick looking back and then urging Carl to run).  The Governor died over the space of a couple pages.  By the end of the issue, Rick and Carl are on a hillside overlooking the carnage of the prison and holding onto each other.  The End.

In this issue, we spent longer on the plight of Heath and Denise than we did on Lori, Herschel and the Governor combined.  That doesn’t necessarily make this a poor issue, but it’s a little window into how The Walking Dead has lost a few mph off its fastball over the years.  People talk about issue #48 years later for a reason.  It is tight, condensed, pulls no punches, etc.  Nobody will ever talk about issue #120 in such glowing terms.

The Walking Dead #119 – Review

By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (pencils), Stefano Gaudiano (inks), Cliff Rathburn (gray tones) and Russ Wooton (letters)

The Story: Tides turn in the war between Rick and Negan.

Review (with SPOILERS): After the weird, messy issue that we got last month, this was a return to normalcy for The Walking Dead.  It wasn’t a great issue, but at least it wasn’t filled with weird art and odd story-telling constructs.

The main plot point of this issue was Negan turning the tide on Rick & Company.  This happens via Ezekiel’s failed attack and I’m not sure how to feel about this.  On one hand, it seems strangely unplanned for Rick’s army to have no contingency planning for a failed attack.  The upshot of Ezekiel’s failure is that not only did he fail to wipe out the outpost of Negan he was responsible for, but that such outpost would then be free to help Negan out of his zombie problem from a few issues ago.  As we saw by the end of the issue, this allowed Negan to “steal a march” on Rick.

It just seems really odd that there was no plan if any prong of the attack failed to avoid just this sort of problem.  What happens is that Ezekiel basically went home and cried for a few hours, when instead he should’ve  sent a runner to Rick to let him know what happened.  Why didn’t they think of this in advance?  Why didn’t Michonne suggest it to him?  I mean, it seemed like Rick had everything else planned out, right?  On the other hand, these guys are all amateur generals, so it isn’t too unsurprising that they would overlook something like this.  Probably if Abraham was still alive, he would have pointed out this problem with Rick’s plan.

Let’s just say that “mistakes were made” and leave it at that….

The Manhattan Projects #17 – Review

By: Jonathan Hickman (writer), Nick Pitarra (art), Jordie Bellaire (colors) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: A strange alien comes to the aid of the captured scientists.

Review (with minor SPOILERS): This issue is great if you love the characters and events of The Manhattan Projects.  If you’re someone who demands that the PLOT be paramount, this probably isn’t the issue (or series) for you.

Over the last 4-5 issues, TMP has tried to implement a more structured plot where not-Oppenheimer became the antagonist.  I’m not exactly sure what his motives are/were, but he was working in cahoots with President Kennedy and Secretary of Defense Westmoreland and captured all of the other scientists of The Manhattan Projects.

The problem with this plot development is that it started to detract from what made the series so great.  TMP is at its best when it relies on strange circumstances, strange characters and visual gags.  The plot is really incidental to all the cool stuff like finding out that this slavering monster that Einstein and Feynman discover talks like a surfer dude or that when Oppenheimer injects truth serum into someone, he just leaves the needles sticking out of the side of their neck or seeing Westmoreland all loaded up like a cross between Chuck Norris and Sgt. Elias from Platoon.  THIS is the stuff we read TMP for.  I can’t say that I really care about the “plot” all that much.  In fact, the “plot” often gets in the way.

Black Science #2 – Review

By: Rick Rememder (writer), Matteo Scalera (art), Dean White (colors) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: Grant McKay & Colleagues find themselves stranded on another strange world.

Review (with SPOILERS): When the first issue of a new series is as electric as the first issue of Black Science, it is always interesting to see how the next couple of issues shake out.  You always wonder if the comic will be AS good now that you’re expecting awesomeness.

The final analysis is that this issue is good, but not as incredible as the first issue.

The main difference is that the art isn’t given as many opportunities to sing.  The first issue found our protagonists stranded on this bizarre aquatic world where they encountered battling frog-men and fish-men.  It was full of pictures of these weird alien creatures and featured all sorts of opportunities for Dean White to whip out some really electric colors.

The Walking Dead #118 – Review

By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (pencils), Stefano Gaudiano (inks), Cliff Rathburn (gray tones) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: Rick & Co. press the attack against Negan’s men.

Review (with SPOILERS): Right from the first page, this was a strange, disjointed and sub-standard issue.

We start with a dust-up at the Hilltop settlement between Mayor Gregory and Maggie.  It was just so odd to start an issue with this story.  Usually TWD flows directly from issue to issue.  When you read the trades, you usually cannot tell where the breaks between issues happen.  This scene has nothing to do with Negan’s speech about rape that ended last issue.  So, it was very weird to start with a character we don’t care about (Gregory) and a character that has been totally absent (Maggie) for the whole of the war with Negan.  I’m just not sure what the point of the confrontation was?  Gregory is just a weasel and when Negan pushed him aside a few issues ago, I honestly thought that the zombies had probably eaten him off-panel.  Gregory is such a non-character that I was totally fine with that resolution.  So, it is weird to see Kirkman devoting pages to his survival and return to Hilltop with a few of his henchmen?  I didn’t realize he had Kal and those other guys with him.

Then Maggie starts yelling at him and for the first time I became aware of how much speechifying is going on in TWD.  I mean, there are a LOT of people standing on soap boxes in front of slack-jawed civilians, telling them how we’re going to fight and how we’re going to live.  Rick has done this a LOT; Negan does it too.  But for some reason, when Maggie and Gregory are bickering about whether Gregory is a dick or not, I thought, “So, do all the people just stand there and watch like it’s Shakespeare in the Park?”  It really is weird when you think about it.  I’m not saying this was the worst speech in TWD history, but it is the one that made me think the speeches were weird and that they were happening too frequently.

Black Science #1 – Review

By: Rick Remender (writer), Matteo Scalera (art), Dean White (colors) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: A scientist trapped on an alien world in a parallel dimension tries to escape hostile aliens and save his family.

The Review (with SPOILERS): This is the most electric #1 issue I’ve read in a while.  I won’t say it is “the best ever” because there’s too much hyperbole in comic reviewing and I don’t have comprehensive notes in front of me allowing me to compare it to Saga #1 or East of West #1 or American Vampire #1 (or many of the other exciting #1s of recent memory).  Still… I’m tempted to say that I liked Black Science more than any of those just because it is so darn electric.  I you didn’t have this on your pull list, do yourself a favor and check it out.

The thing that really puts this issue over the top is the art from Matteo Scalera and Dean White.  I guess Scalera has been around the Marvel Universe for awhile, doing issues of Deadpool and Secret Avengers (the old series).  More recently he’s been doing some work on Indestructible Hulk.  If you look at the original pages from those series, you see some nice art, but nothing that prepares you for THIS.  I mean, the art in Black Science is off the chain.  It’s nuts.  There is a lot about Scalera’s art that reminds me of Sean Murphy.  It isn’t just that some of his characters and layouts looks very like something Murphy would do (I bet they’ve hung out and compared notes), it’s the way that Sclera is able to mix cartooning and realism in a panel and not have it look weird.  The characters are cartoony…..so they can overact, emote and really demonstrate action.  But the environment they find themselves in is largely rooted in realism.  It’s a very difficult balance to pull off and most artists can’t do it.  Do you remember that old Simpsons episode there Bart and Lisa both work for the local TV news?  Lisa is technically correct compared to Bart, but Bart is more popular because they say he has “zazz”.  It’s kinda like that: Sclera has zazz!  It’s almost like some artists have a charisma to their art that takes it to another level.  Scalera has “it”.

The colors are also really something else.  Dean White has been around for awhile, so we know that he can color a comic book, but this is still very arresting.  I’m a dunce when it comes to color theory, so I won’t even try to talk about complimentary colors and all that stuff.  Let’s just say that there are a LOT of colors in Black Science #1 that you won’t typically see in a comic, much less see them all on the same page.  Electric pink, electric blue, electric green…  Wow!

Even the lettering is next-level stuff…

The Walking Dead #117 – Review

By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (pencils), Stefano Gaudiano (inks), Cliff Rathburn (gray tones) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: Having trapped Negan in his compound, Rick begins the next phase of his plan.

The Review (with SPOILERS): This is an issue that is just “doing work.”  The big event was last issue when Rick feigned an attack on Negan just so the gunshots from the skirmish would draw the zombies down on Negan’s compound and trap him.  That was kinda cool and very unexpected, using Zombies as a weapon.  Here we just see Rick moving on to wipe out Negan’s outposts before they learn that Negan is in trouble.  That’s all fine and I’m sure there will be some interesting bloodshed, but seeing Rick & Co. attack nameless thugs isn’t all that exciting.

The more intriguing thing is that Rick sends Michonne back to their home-base to give Andrea and Carl assistance “in case Negan counterattacks.”  Hmm…  Let’s just say that there is a lot of ominous foreshadowing about Andrea and the Alexandria Safe Zone.  We have all this talk about Negan making a counterattack.  We have Negan’s own little speech about how the key to crushing Rick lies in attacking Andrea.  We have this thing about how Michonne and Ezekiel are all lovely dovey/flirty before being split up.  It seems like Ezekiel is going to do the dangerous thing (attacking the outpost) while Michonne is doing the safer task of guarding the home base.  I can’t say this is going to end well.  I’m not sure what will happen in Alexandria, but all signs point to it being bad.

Negan also gets a nice turn in this issue.  The Governor was never this interesting.  Seeing his little speech where he thinks he has Andrea in his grasp, only to realize that it is really someone else with short hair was really cool.  That single panel where he realizes his mistake, turns his head to the side, squints his eyes shut and squeezes the bridge of his nose…  Awesome job, Charlie Adlard!  That is just what people look like when they’re frustrated and realize that a strand of hope has been ripped away.  I also loved that Negan has a very keen tactical sense.  He knows that it was hopeless to fight through the zombies.  His bravado wants him to kick ass, but he is too smart to do something hopeless.  But then he also realizes that they are dead meat if they sit trapped in the compound for very long.  I can’t wait to learn more about Negan.  Who was this guy before?  He’s too smart to just be some common thug.  I wondered for awhile if he was some ex-high school jock who had a loser job before the apocalypse and he is now getting to relive his big man on campus days. But Negan is way too bright, aggressive and tactical to imagine him with a loser job.  I love that he’s such a rich character that I’m actually starting to wonder about his past and ascribe personality traits to him that haven’t been exhibited on the page.

The Manhattan Projects #16 – Review

By: Jonathan Hickman (writer), Nick Pitarra (art), Jordie Bellaire (colors) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: Having been imprisoned by one of their own, the scientists of The Manhattan Projects must come up with a plan.

Review (with SPOILERS): This doesn’t have to be a long review: It’s a very good issue (again), but nothing spell-binding or exceptionally weird happens that merits two paragraphs of discussion.  If you’ve enjoyed the series, you’ll enjoy this issue.  If you are new to the series, this is probably not the place to start.

What continues to strike me about this “Finite Oppenheimers” storyline is how TMP actually feels like it has a coherent plot for the first time.  The first ~12 issues did have a nominal plot, but the plot felt like it was there to service the zany things that Hickman and Pitarra were doing with the characters.  Now, it feels like we have a story with a true antagonist in Oppenheimer who has a real motivation: He is arrogant, ambitious, prideful and covetous of recognition; he wants to be recognized as the BEST scientist.  It also feels like we’re starting to see his opposite number arise in Einstein.  This issue made me feel as if the other TMP scientists are supporting actors to Einstein’s leading man.  I could be wrong about that, but we’ll see how it plays out.  Certainly, Einstein v. Oppenheimer sounds like fun.

There are weird little events in this issue too, but nothing that compares to things that have happened in the past.  I don’t think the series has shot its wad, it’s more like it just isn’t quite as funny this month.  Even then, there are still things that would be remarkable in another comic, but TMP readers have gotten immune to such things.

The Walking Dead #116 – Review

By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (pencils), Stefano Gaudiano (inks), Cliff Rathburn (gray tones) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: Rick and Gang have besieged Negan’s compound.  Now what?

Review (with SPOILERS): Well, what do you know? Rick learns lessons from past experiences!

The big plot twist in this issue is that we were expecting a gun fight and instead Rick twisted the script by causing just enough of a ruckas to draw all the zombies down on Negan’s position.  Remember how Rick and Gang were mobbed by zombies inside Alexandria back around issue #83?  Well, that zombie mob was caused by Rick and Gang having a quick gunfight with some roving thugs at the gate.  If I remember correctly, over a series of 5-10 issues before the zombie mob, TWD showed us little snippets of shooting noise in Alexandria catching the attention of various zombies in the DC-area… And that led to a major zombie herd mobbing Rick’s people.

So, it is a neat plan.  It isn’t what I expected and I’m glad that the comic has the ability to still surprise.  Surprises are fun and that’s my main take from the issue (despite some of the criticisms I’m going to level below).  It’s also fun to see the zombies actually be a threat again after being pushed to the background for nearly 30 issues now.

Maybe part of the reason that it wasn’t expected is that it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  I mean, we’ve never had any indication that Rick was aware of how the zombie herd descended upon Alexandria?  It isn’t like he’s been going around hushing people or saying, “Stop all that shooting!  You’ll draw the zombies down on us!”  Heck, just a few issues ago, Rick staged an impromptu attack on Negan’s men that lead to a few shots being fired.  Why didn’t that draw the zombies in?  Not enough noise?

The Manhattan Projects #15 – Review

By: Jonathan Hickman (writer), Ryan Browne (artist), Jordie Bellaire (colors) and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: A battle inside the mind of Oppenheimer.

Review (with SPOILERS): This issue is a clever little diversion from the main ongoing story that shows us the multiple personalities at work in Oppenheimer’s head.

Honestly, I’ve never totally comprehended how much of Oppenheimer’s brain is just a fractured personality and how much of it is true cannibalism.  But here’s my theory: the Oppenheimer from the story is Joseph Oppenheimer and Joseph has multiple personality disorder.  Further, Joseph is a cannibal and THINKS that he absorbs the personalities of the creatures he consumes.  He isn’t really absorbing any personalities, he’s just a crazy man and cannibal.

Anyway, it was just a wacky treat to step inside of Oppenheimer’s mind and see the forces of Blue (Robert) and Red (Joseph) battling it out.  All the different types of Oppenheimers!  And remember,Robert Oppenheimer is really and truly dead; Joseph murder him, ate him and pooped him out… He’s GONE.  This blue manifestation of Robert is really just Joseph’s crazy mind thinking that Robert’s absorbed personality is fighting him.  Crazy, huh?  And all the different types of Oppenheimers!!!  I have no concept of what life is really like for a multiple personality person, but if this is really what their brain is like, it’s kinda scary.  Joseph is self-sorting his personalities into Red vs. Blue and having them fight.

The Walking Dead #115 – Review

By: Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (pencils), Stefano Gaudiano (inks), Cliff Rathburn (gray tones), and Rus Wooton (letters)

The Story: The good guys finally team up to attack Negan!

The Review (with SPOILERS): Let me know when this comic is ready to do something… Not much really happens in this issue.  It looks like something could happen for a second, but then we get another unlikely event (producing the mayor of Hilltop) that prevents anything serious from going down.

At this rate, would anyone be surprised if in the next issue someone comes up behind Rick and says, “I think you may have left the toaster on at your house.” And Rick will have to shout to Negan, “YOU STAY RIGHT THERE YOU SUNNOVABITCH!!!!!  I HAVE TO GO BACK HOME TO CHECK ON SOMETHING!!!!!  SO WE CAN’T FIGHT UNTIL NEXT ISSUE!!!”

There are several BIG problems creeping into The Walking Dead. One of the problems are these delayed payoffs to big storylines.  TWD has always been a slow burn, but I don’t recall prior arcs actively trolling the readership in the same way as this Negan storyline.  I mean, we’ve been hovering on the brink of war for over a year now.  There have been several instances where it looked like a premature climax would surprise us, but nope! That was just a tease for one more issue.  I guess that’s the problem… This doesn’t feel like a story slowly developing.