The Walking Dead #193

[cyberghostface]

The End

Comments

[angelophile]

Well, someone got bored and wanted to end the book in a rush, huh?

[stubbleupdate]

Well, someone always said that the book ends after Rick dies, huh.

[cyberghostface]

This was the planned ending for years, Kirkman just got to it quicker than he thought he would.

[cyberghostface]

In the afterword Kirkman said he had a different ending planned around #70, it would have ended on Rick giving a speech and then shifting to a statue of Rick and then zooming out and showing it covered in vines with everything in disarray and zombies roaming around. The idea being that Rick 'saved' society but only delayed the inevitable. But he thought that would have been too grim and would have rendered the series as pointless so he shifted gears to this.

But yeah I think this was as good as ending to be expected. I was a bit disappointed at how much of a non-issue Negan was although I suppose #174 was always intended to be his swan song (in more ways than one, the original script had Maggie kill him but Adlard convinced Kirkman not to.)

Should be interesting to see what the show does from this point on and whether or not they'll end it or keep on going past the Commonwealth arc. A lot of the key factors are already different -- Rick and Carl are gone, Dwight has moved to Fear the Walking Dead, Michonne is apparently leaving next season -- so maybe it would make more sense if they just did their own thing at this point.

[mazway_75]

That ending does sound pure Kirkman and half-expected it. Although I can see how it would outrage many and, as he says now, would have rendered a lot of the book majorly pointless.

[janegray]

What happened to Negan?

[cyberghostface]

He’s basically living by himself after helping Rick with the Whisperers. Maggie went to kill him for Glenn but saw that he wanted to die so she let him live to have him deal with the guilt over what he did.

https://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/7367839.html

This issue showed he’s still by himself and that Carl might have visited him a few times.

[janegray]

Thank you!

[commodus]

Fair play to them for not ending on a downer. If they just ended the story with everything destroyed and humanity wiped out, the entire story would have been utterly pointless.

[liliaeth]

pretty much, it's why I lost interest in the tv series to begin with, because there's just no hope, no nothing, everythign just kept getting worse, what's the point of watching something like that?

[mazway_75]

On the one hand, I give credit to Image for going along with Kirkman here and not hyping this for months as "end of an era."

Although a huge row going on how this has hurt comic retailers who had no idea this was coming and even pre-ordered the non-existent issue #194 and that this was a major slam against them.

[shadowpsykie]

so are walkers still a thing in the future?

[cyberghostface]

They’re very rare.

Oh crud, is this the last issue?

[deh_tommy]

Something I rather admired about the comic that I felt certain adaptations had missed (like the show and Telltale's Season 3 (and, to some extent, their Season 2 as well)) was the underlying sense of hope and community in the face of nihilism and despair. This has been alive almost as long as I have, and while I hopped on the Walking Dead train a bit late, I'll be sad to see this go.

[tripodeca113]

Me reading this oh there's been another time skip.

Gets to the end: The series is over? But they had another issues solicited after this? Well I guess that was a decent ending.

[matrix_dragon]

"But they had another issues solicited after this?"

They were fakes. A lot of comic stores are NOT PLEASED at the money they had to aim at orders for things that didn't exist.

[ayasugi_san]

Is it Batman #50 all over again?

[informationgeek]

Credit to the comic, this ended better than I expected. Heck, between this and the finale of Telltale's The Walking Dead, the franchise has ended more positively than I ever thought possible.

I mean, the ride really isn't worth it given how absolutely miserable this series was. Honestly, while the ending is fine... looking upon this entire comic run, I really don't see me recommending it at all. There's too much emptiness, running in circles, darkness for the sake of darkness, and so on even if the end is alright. Frankly, a person is better off playing Season 1 of The Walking Dead and calling it quits there.