The Walking Dead vol. 24: Life & Death

I went into “Fear the Walking Dead” with all the optimism that the quality of the show and Robert Kirkman’s involvement would allow.  It was not rewarded.  Even if there were some nice moments in seeing civilization slip away, they were outweighed by a cast of characters that were boring at best and actively unlikeable at worst.  This is in addition to the fact that we were served up a whole lot of zombie tropes in these six episodes, with a military that was incompetent/corrupt/evil being the biggest offender there.  For some reason, AMC was so impressed by what they saw here that they greenlit a second season before the first had aired.  I can only hope that the showrunners start displaying some of the willingness to buck convention that has defined the franchise so far next time around.

In the meantime, season six of the main show kicks off this Sunday and it has momentum to burn coming off of Rick killing the doctor right in front of Morgan and as the narrative heads into a variation on the “No Way Out” arc.  Hopefully that will wash the bad taste of the spinoff out of my mouth.  That would be in addition to the latest volume of the comic, which knocks it out of the park again.  There’s so much good stuff here that it’s time to break out the bullet points:

• A missing character makes their return in this volume.  I’m dancing around this in case someone hasn’t read this volume, but if you’ve been reading the series so far it should be pretty apparent as to who I’m talking about.  Frankly, it’s good seeing this person again as they’ve been gone too long.  Their absence does lead to some drama with Rick as they “hug it out” over the idea of whether or not they deserve to be happy after all they’ve done.  The way Rick offers a definitive answer to this situation and seeing their rapport in action is an immensely satisfying immensely satisfying affirmation of one of the series’ key relationships.

• We get to see more of how this world is changing.  If you told me back when vol. 1 came out that people would be getting ready to hold a big festival twenty-three volumes down the line, I would not have believed you.  Yet here we are and people are making and selling goods and enjoying the actual benefits of living in a community.  Hell, when Rick checks in with Dwight the idea of an election among the leftover Survivors is even suggested.  Civilization is slowly re-asserting itself in this series.  It’s just a question of how it’ll look in twenty-three more volumes.

• Negan is still a grade-A bastard.  Given that he’s been locked up in a basement for the past few volumes, you’d expect that his next major storyline would involve his escape.  Kirkman lets you know here that you’d be wrong.  In fact, a locked-up Negan is looking to be just as much trouble as a Negan who is free to do as he pleases.  Particularly when he points out to Rick that the only reason the leader keeps his enemy alive is to convince himself that he’s a good man.  Their previous war was fought with melee weapons and firearms.  This next one is going to be fought with words and it will likely be just as entertaining.

• Maggie has a much different idea about how threats should be dealt with.  It may be a very on-the-nose page transition from Rick and Andrea talking about Negan to seeing Maggie deal with Gregory after his attempt on her life, yet it shows that the two survivors are their own people when it comes to dishing out justice.  I understand why Maggie had to do what she did, as Gregory would’ve likely continued to try and turn the community against her if he had been kept around.  What I don’t buy are her sentiments that this should be the last time something like this happens.  She’s done it once, now it’s just a question of when she’ll have to do it again.

• The Whispered prove to be formidable antagonists.  Or at least their leader does, mostly.  After seeing them in the wild for the past few volumes, we finally get an up close look at this group and how they function.  Their leader, Alpha, is convinced that this world has offered them all the freedom they need and that what Rick has built is nothing more than a shrine to a bygone era.  She may be crazy, but she’s got plenty of followers and the zombie equivalent of an A-bomb at her disposal.  I’m with Rick on how he calls her out about how dumb this is, but there’s no denying that she has him over a barrel at the end of the volume.

• If only Kirkman hadn’t tried to humanize her.  The volume’s only real false note comes when Alpha, while smacking Rick around, confides that she can’t protect her daughter and asks him to take care of her.  Considering all that she had said to Rick just a few pages ago, it really undermines the threatening vibe that Kirkman had been trying to build with Alpha.  I get that he wants to show that there’s more to her than this survival of the fittest ethos (and get Lydia to formally join the supporting cast), but this was not the way to do it.

• Things end on a dramatic note that will likely be driving the series forward for quite a while.  There are deaths.  Many of them.  Even if the majority of them are “redshirts,” artist Charlie Adlard sets up an effective visual motif which establishes that even if we didn’t know these people they meant something to other members of the cast.  As for the two that should be easily recognizable to longtime readers… they hurt.  Alpha has also likely gone and made the wrong person mad with one of these deaths, so the coming conflict with the Whispered has just got a lot more personal.

Even though things seemed to be going great for everyone just a few volumes to go, that peace feels incredibly fragile right now.  It’s also leading to some real excitement on my part as to where the story is going to go next.  While he may have a big hand in “Fear the Walking Dead,” Kirkman’s knack for turning conventions on their head and compelling character drama are largely missing there.  At least they’re still fully evident in the comic that started it all.  Now he just needs to find someone who really understands them — like showrunner Scott Gimple on the main show — to make the spinoff a worthy addition to the franchise.