With all the excitement over The Walking Dead‘s second season premier on AMC tonight and all the buzz surrounding it as this weekend’s New York Comic Con, I figured it would be a good idea to hold off until now to talk about the most recent issue of the longest running zombie comic book in the history of the industry.
And a little warning, there will be spoilers in this review. If you haven’t read this issue yet then you may want to step away from your computer and read this issue then come back. The review will begin after the cover…
THE WALKING DEAD #89
Written by Robert Kirkman
Art by Charlie Adlard
Published by Image
Cover price $2.99
A little catch up: After suffering a shot to the head, Carl went into a coma from which he recently awoke with fragments of his memory missing. One of those fragments was the death of his mother and his baby sister, Judy. When Rick reminded him of this, Carl’s response was pretty subdued, almost like he forgot they were dead but knew they hadn’t been around for a while.
Elsewhere in The Community, Nicolas has decided that Rick’s crew has made things worse than they had ever been and began to formulate a plan to bring them down.
Nicolas tries to convince Olivia and Spencer that Rick is dangerous and has decided the only course of action is to kill him before Rick kills them. It’s a bad time for Glenn to show up!
But before we see a bad situation get worse, we cut to Rick and Andrea after Rick’s breakdown last issue. It seems Rick is upset that Carl has to be as strong as he is for a child. He feels bad that his son will never know the joys of childhood but, as Andrea points out, Carl is doing it for Rick. He’s a boy wanting his dad to be proud of him but Rick doesn’t see it that way. He’s tried so hard to keep his son alive but wonders if it’s worth it if it costs him the child his boy should be.
As Rick and the others head back to The Community, Glenn has to deal with a very irate Nicolas who wants him and his group out. Now.
Glenn tries to defend himself by pulling out his gun but it just angers Nicolas and Glenn loses both the gun and probably some teeth.
Things get really out of hand as Glenn runs home and gets Maggie’s gun and tries to defend his family from Nicolas who seems to have snapped and wants all of Rick’s crew dead. Nicolas tries to plead his case to everyone gathering due to the commotion and lays it down: You’re either with him or your a traitor and will be dealt with accordingly.
A bad situation gets worse when Glenn comes out of his house, armed, demanding Nicolas gets away from his family. Both men are pointing guns at each other’s head when Rick, Andrea, Michonne, Abraham and the others return.
This issue ends on a very tense note. Who will the other members of the Community side with? Nicolas seems to think Rick’s arrival has made things worse. He’s content with simply staying in their little area, quietly living out the rest of their lives while Rick has the desire to expand and try to reclaim some of the world they have lost to the undead.
Lines have been drawn, the only question now is: Who is on who’s side?
I have to say, while reading some reviews of this series lately, it seems people have lost track of what this series is about. There isn’t going to be action in every issue, we have moments of humanity and character development in between the big blow ups like we had during No Way Out. These recent issues haven’t been showing a lack in storytelling but, in my opinion, they are showing the fall out of the No Way Out story. Everyone is starting to see their world in a different light and are beginning to reevaluate their place in this world. Since Rick and his crew arrived, there has been a lot of chaos in The Community, but is it Rick’s fault or has The Community been living with it’s collective head in the sand and not realizing what’s been going on in the world around them? When you really think about it, both sides have valid points but who is going to win the day?
Now, with the second season getting ready to begin it’s first half just hours from the time I’m writing this, I have to wonder where we will end up after this story. Just as I wonder where our characters will end up on the AMC program that has become it’s own thing and has made the ‘just because you’re a main character doesn’t mean you’re going to live’ rule more important than it’s been since Carl almost died from the recent gunshot.
Check out our coverage of the NYCC Walking Dead panel as well as our review of The Walking Dead: Rise Of The Governor which falls in the comics continuity!
It's all a dream, Rick is still in a coma. No way you get up from a coma and start fighting zombies. When he talks to his dead wife on the phone that's her at his bed side. If the zombies kill him he will die in the coma without waking up. I think he's gonna wake up to a wizard of oz ending just like dorothy and everyone is going to be there working in the hospital all nice and clean. Then he drops off back into the coma and gets eaten by the zombies and dies. But I will keep reading and selling THE WALKING DEAD because I love it.
Chuck—Savannah GA I own comic book stores
Interesting idea Chuck, although if memory serves Rick didn't just wake up from a coma and start destroying zombies. He recuperated with the father and his son who found him after escaping from the hospital first and up until that point was in a pretty bad state.
The show did a great job of capturing that actually.