Again, It's More About The Living

The Walking Dead tpb Vol. 19 "March To War"
Image Comics
Robert Kirkman, writer
Charlie Adlard, artist

More bad stuff happening for Rick Grimes and crew. As usual, not everyone in Rick's latest blended group is satisfied with the former policeman's leadership. Despite the internal challenges, Rick, Jesus from the Hilltop community and King Ezekiel have agreed to join forces to eliminate the threat posed by Negan and his band of Saviors. The three make their plans for an attack and begin to train those among their ranks less used to fighting. But it is key to their plans to keep the attack a secret until they are ready to move.

That all goes out the window when Negan makes his regular visit to Rick's community for supplies and tribute several days early. A conflict breaks out before Rick's, Jesus' and Ezekiel's forces are ready, and things do not go well for our heroes in this latest volume.

There are a few scenes in this trade where a group is traveling from one place to another when they encounter a few zombies that have to be dispatched. Each instance is dealt with matter-of-factly while unrelated conversations continue. Most all of the real action of these issues, as is typical of this series, concerns the living and how they act and react to each other.

That is what keeps me coming back to this series trade after trade: a zombie apocalypse might have kick-started the events, but it is no longer the primary motivation or driving force of the series. Living, breathing humans are. Cruel, compassionate, helpful, savage humans. And Kirkman just keeps ramping up the tension and drama, book after book.

How Could I Have Doubted Rick?

The Walking Dead Vol. 18: What Comes After
Image Comics
Robert Kirkman, writer
Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn, artists

Things looked very bleak for our band of survivors after they ran afoul of a street gang named the Saviors in the last collected volume of The Walking Dead. Some truly brutal things had happened courtesy of the Saviors' leader, Negan, and Rick truly seemed defeated. He agreed to turn over half of everything his group had to the Saviors in exchange for their "protection," thus falling in line as several other nearby communities of survivors had previously done.

It truly seemed like Rick had no other choice, that Negan had the upper hand. Even a number of Rick's own followers believed the former lawman was broken. Which is exactly what Rick needed to ensure that Negan and the Saviors would also fall for the ruse. Rick's real intent, this volume reveals, was to bide time and learn all he could about the Saviors, where their base was, how many men and weapons they truly had at their disposal. Once that was made clear, it all made perfect sense, so that I felt bad for believing less of Rick.

And this volume does reveal a lot of details about how the Saviors live and how Negan maintains control of his crew. The man is easily as insane as the Governor, although Negan's insanity manifests itself in vastly different ways. Unfortunately, things do not proceed exactly as Rick hoped when he started his plan to buy time and gain information. Rick does indeed gain some information and some much-needed allies, but as often happens in real life and with this ragtag band of survivors of the zombie apocalypse, some unforeseen curves are thrown into the mix. Just one of those curves is when 12-year-old Carl, disgusted by his father's apparent capitulation to the Saviors, decides to take on Negan's crew single-handed.