You can pickup your copy of The Walking Dead #193 now where all good comics are sold!
Synopsis
“THE FARMHOUSE” Out in the countryside, trouble is brewing for a certain someone.
Review
After 193 issues The Walking Dead is coming to a surprise close this week. It came as a huge shock to me as I’m sure it did to many, especially following so closely behind the death of Rick Grimes.
This issue is going to divide audiences as most endings do. On one side will the camp who would have preferred to see the bleaker ending defined by Robert Kirkman in the letter to fans which comes at the end of this issue.
The rest will find this a satisfying ending for those characters who were able to survive the apocalypse.
Reading it I couldn’t help but feel like Kirkman felt an overriding need to give the characters closure and that closure was not simply dying through war or by walker attack.
So instead we’re greeted by a time-jump and a world which has really begun to put itself back together.
It seemed inevitable that the story of The Walking Dead would end up being told by Carl as one of the last survivors. Reading this come to pass only makes one wonder exactly how the TV series will handle it’s ending given that many of the characters seen in this issue have left or died already.
There’s plenty on intrigue in seeing what happened to Carl, Sophia, Maggie, Hershel (Jr.), Michonne and the others but what this issue does do is take the joy out of the journey of getting there.
The time-jump feels a little knee jerk, particularly given recent events in the “present day” timeline and because of that this ending does feel premature. But that being said Kirkman has been able to envision a new world order in the space of 71-pages and that is quite the achievement.
Particularly of note is Maggie’s role as POTUS and the importance of the railroad connecting the east and west coast societies. Though this is no longer a technological nation it’s certainly one which is coming together and beginning to thrive once again.
There’s mention of the world outside the safe-zone but sadly it isn’t something we get to explore at length. The walkers, bar one small group, are jettisoned here to make sure that all the series ensemble cast is given a good farewell.
Whether you ultimately feel satisfied with this ending or not it is certainly a well thought out bookend to what has arguably been one of the runaway successes of the last decade.
Verdict
It’s the end of the line for The Walking Dead and the series goes out with an emotional conclusion which plays more to its characters than it does to its story. An interesting time-jump is marred by perceived fan service but it’s certainly an ending nobody saw coming…
6/10
The Walking Dead #193 is written by Robert Kirkman with art by Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn and a cover by Adlard and Dave Stewart.
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