I've been a little rough on Kirkman's Marvel projects so far, so let me just be clear on this one point: I still love The Walking Dead. To my mind, this is Kirkman's ideal book, where his talent is best put to use, and I'm glad to see it rolling on even as he becomes Marvel's next big thing. Kirkman reveals in the letter column that the conclusion this issue was actually going to come earlier, but he opened up the story a little more in #7-12, and I have to say I think he made the right choice, because the conflict that happens in this issue is believable thanks to all the stress and character-building of the last few issues, and the final moments of the issue have a lot more punch because we've really seen what these characters have gone through to this point. I've also become quite enamored of Adlard's work on this book, and he and Rathburn do a bang-up job on the art this issue.
It's been said many times before, but it bears repeating that the strength of The Walking Dead is not in its scare factor or its zombie moments, but in its strong human characters. Though this is undoubtedly a comic with a strong underpinning of the zombie genre (as pioneered by George Romero), it could almost work as a post-apocalypse story with another cause, because so much of the heart of the book is how people deal in a world that has just been shattered. Kirkman's focus has mostly been on the strength in people, but in these last few issues, we're starting to see how some of them are falling apart, whether it's Allen's understandable but weird temper after the loss of his wife or the gamut of emotions and actions that we see in Hershel in this issue. It's fascinating, and sometimes heart-breaking, stuff to watch.
This is a book with a big cast. At times, it can seem a bit unwieldy, and a quick "who's who" in every couple of issues, complete with headshot pictures, wouldn't hurt the book at all. However, it should also be said that Kirkman and Adlard are handling this large cast better than most, and in this issue we really do look in on a lot of the cast members and get a feel for who they are and what they're up to now. The budding romances, born out of tragedy, the worrying dangers that only the reader sees lurking in the shadows with our wider view of the situation, the desperation and fear and anger that is welling up in all of them, I believe these characters and how they're reacting to this situation. That belief, and the ability of Kirkman to make all of this real while also making it entertaining, is the key to the whole book.
This might be the issue where Adlard and Rathburn really won me over to thinking of this as "their" book as much as I thought of it as Tony Moore's. The intensity of the arguments between Hershel and some of the others is incredible, and the tension in those scenes, where you're never sure what's going to happen, is a big part of what makes these emotional scenes work. Little details, like the shot of Carl reaching for his gun or the tears of frustration on Lori's face, show off some of the subtext of what's going on, and reward longtime readers who know what Carl has had to do before or the stresses that Lori is really dealing with. Then there's that last page surprise, which also needs to be a perfect, awe-inspiring visual, and Adlard and Rathburn just nail it.
To be completely honest, I've been a little worried about this book. Kirkman's taking on a fair amount of work at Marvel, and I worried that this book might suffer in quality or schedule (OK, more than it did) as a result. Kirkman himself notes in the letter column that the status quo of the book could have seemed repetitive, and this issue goes a long way toward answering that charge and shaking things up a little more. And though I'm still nervous that Kirkman doesn't have a planned-out ending in mind, ala the successful Vertigo "60+ issues and out" style, I'm beginning to see that he really could do this book for years and years without it ever getting old. 9/10
