Robert Kirkman

Finally our long national nightmare is at an end. Finally no one has to read anymore Walking Dead comics.

I found this a volume of two halves. The first half was enlivened by the "Negan reforms" subplot, Negan being one of basically two characters I have ever given a shit about in this series.

But then Negan departs the series and it goes on to be more "Rick waffles about a thing." Rick's community discovers a massive society out in Ohio, but they are dystopian. I found a lot of this show more improbable. The first journey to the other society was very lengthy and protracted over weeks; by the end of the book, it felt like the characters were zipping back and forth in hours. (There's one bit where a group of characters comes to the rescue of another by coming a day later. Why would you decide one day after someone left to follow them in the case they needed help at the end of their weeks-long journey? And how come you couldn't get one group member to run a little faster and catch them up?) The new society has a rule that everyone automatically gets the same social status as they had before the zombie apocalypse... but like, why? And how would that be enforced? Why would everyone buy into it?

There's potential in finding a new group of survivors who did things differently than Rick and thus were more successful (usually they only find less successful groups), but as always Kirkman manages to strip the debate of all nuance by making the people with a different perspective slatheringly evil. And as always Rick seems like he's going to face a moral dilemma, but doesn't have to make an actual hard choice because events take it out of his hands.

The epilogue issue is dumb, too. Everyone venerates Rick, but I don't know why, because what useful thing did Rick ever actually do? In his final issue, Rick talks about how they can create a new society with potential to undue the mistakes of the old one... when we actually see the new society, it's just as shitty as ours. Well done, mate, you sure showed how good your values were.

Plus the revelation that the series's back cover blurb is an in-universe inscription on a statue of Rick is staggeringly stupid.

Anyway, I don't know why I staggered all the way to the end even though I never really liked this series except in short spurts, but it was always a quick read at least. You couldn't pay me to start watching the tv show, though. show less

What I really want is for The Walking Dead to come to an end, but that's the one thing it can never do. The forty-eighth issues collected here are relentless, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way. Characters are killed off, maimed, tortured, &c. in a way that's rare in serial fiction-- but you soon learn not to get to close to any of the characters as a result. (Except for poor, perpetually subjugated and neglected Carol. She was my favorite.) Luckily(?), there's an eternal flood show more of new characters to come in as old ones depart, so that there's always someone that Rick Grimes can feel bad about when they're killed.

But this means it will all never end. What I want is for the characters to successfully build a new civilization and fly off into the sunset, utopia in their wake. But The Walking Dead is very specifically design to stop that from happening: it's about the impossibility of human kindness in these circumstances. Or perhaps, all circumstances. No matter what you do, someone else will come along and screw it up. For the series to end, positively or negatively, would be dishonest, so it must continue to lurch forward from contrived plot to contrived plot, aimless like the zombies that litter its pages. And like the main characters often do, I feel like I should end it all because nothing worthwhile is ever going to happen... yet I'll continue to slog through until the bitter end, because knowing is better than not knowing, even when there's nothing good to know. show less

The Good: The previous volume was slow and full of setup that we could only hope would pay off. Something to Fear is everything a reader could have dreamed of and more. Absolutely mind blowing. Huge, unexpected twists that change EVERYTHING. The introduction of Negan will make the groups interactions with the Governor seem like a minor altercation. This is exactly what the series needed. Action, emotion, and a bad guy that will chill you to the bone. Absolutely renews my love of the show more series.

The Bad: Not a thing. show less

When I heard the comic was ending, I was surprised, but OK with it. I wasn’t sure if I was that interested in the Commonwealth storyline or if there was really much more story to tell. It seems Kirkman had this planned as the end point for a few years. Without his heartfelt letter to the reader at the end, I would have rated this four stars. But his final words for the readers got me, people, and made me want to give that man a hug.
I have immensely enjoyed Charlie Adlard’s artwork show more throughout the series. This last installment had some really powerful spreads—more than once I turned a page and found myself exclaiming aloud.
“Why are you swearing?” my husband asked, silly man.
I’m very happy with how this ended, all of it, who survived and who didn’t make it. It’s a bummer Rick went out the way he did—killed by a vengeful punk instead of dying in battle—and Carl finding him as a zombie was a shock I should have been prepared for but wasn’t. I still thought killing him off was the right move.
Herschel seems to be the Kylo Ren (OK, maybe not that bad) of the story, and that was surprising, but I loved the ending Carl got after the time jump. I’m curious to know how he ended up with Sophia, but I was happy with that too. His relationship with Lydia was kind of creepy.
There were a few bumps along the way, but I have really enjoyed this series, and I’m glad to have seen it through to the end. show less