The Walking Dead, Volume 04: The Heart's Desire

Volume 4 of Kirkman's zombie series watches the characters slider further into despair and moral ambiguity as they attempt to re-build their lives inside the prison that they started to occupy in volume three.
The zombies are featured much less in this volume, allowing our human characters a little bit of 'down time'. In that time, though, we see Kirkman engage in discussions on the sanctity of life, one's place in society, the possibility for redemption, and the role of laws within society. If he keeps up the quality of writing displayed with this book and the last, I think this might end up being the greatest piece of zombie fiction ever created.

"We become them!" exclaims a beat-up Rick Grimes. "You think we hide behind walls to protect us from the walking dead! Don't you get it? We are the walking dead!" As much as I've hated Robert Kirkman's inability to tell a great story, I have to admit it that the six issues collected in the fourth volume of The Walking Dead series is the best thus far. We're finally hitting the primal instinct, the savage within all the characters that had laid dormant until the last panels feature Rick's realization and damning all hopes out of the everyone's mind. Unlike his television alter ego - though you can see it peeking through with the mid-season finale when he guns down the child-zombie - the comic series Rick knows what lays in wait. He's show more accepted that the world order that we've grown accustomed to is over. There isn't much of any hope left and all that there is left to do is survive.

Any zombie enthusiast will tell you that zombies are only plays a small horror percentage in the story. Most of the horror comes not from the flesh eating creatures, but from humanity. Or the fall of it. The reason why The Walking Dead bothered me so much is that it never shone through. Sure, with Shane going mental in the first book and Hershel's damning naivete have pushed the story through, it was never enough to actually do much of anything. And like any plot device, it was quickly extinguished. Snubbed out.

With Rick's fall - or delightenment (as oppose to enlightenment) at the tail-end of issue #24, the actual horror can begin - I just hope that Kirkman can continue it with such grace. show less

Oh, Robert Kirkman, you've shocked me once again. I'm always surprised how many completely unforeseen and utterly shocking things can be crammed into these short volumes. The Heart's Desire, the fourth volume of The Walking Dead manages to kill off even more "since the beginning" characters. The group is attacked by more zombies, even within the supposed "safety" of the prison walls. We continue to see the living hurting each other in ways even the dead can't manage. The devastation continues at a frenzied pace.

Tyrese is beginning to make me wish he never found our band of survivors. He crosses the line of morality time and again, often leading to the death of others. Yet, on his moral high horse, he leads the charge in questioning show more Rick's morality and ability to lead the others. New arrival, Michonne, starts out an interesting character, but soon annoys me as well. And Alan, finally starting to come out of his "my wife is dead" funk, proves to be not much more help than he was while depressed.

All these character flaws sound like complaints, but they aren't. These characters get under your skin. Love them or hate them, you can't help but want to know what'll happen to them next. These graphic novels are completely addictive, each taking the group places you never see coming. The Heart's Desire focuses a lot on the coupling and uncoupling of certain character sets, but beyond that, this volume really drives home the actual point of the entire series - the world as we know it is over, and it's never coming back. The rules have changed and The Heart's Desire marks a clear turning point for the survivors who need to come to terms with the fact that they must kill or be killed by both the dead and the living.

Each volume of The Walking Dead manages to be even better than the last, which seems almost impossible. I eagerly look forward to reading the rest of this series. show less

This edition shifts focus to relationships - a welcome change. The body count is lower, also welcome. Rick loses it. This issue is mostly focused on cracking under pressure.

Well, this is Volume 4 now and we carry on where we were left with a cliffhanger in the last volume. This story is slightly different compared to the others and actually deals more with their inter-human relationships within those prison walls. It's all about the characters and their futile attempts to plan their next steps in order to pretend a sort of normal life.
However, Rick realizes more and more how desperate their situation is and as a consequence he is pretty fast descending into madness. His breakdown, doesn't sit well with the rest of the group and they start to question his leader ship skills. Actually, I was pretty pleased that it is going that way, especially as I am not a great fan of Rick anyway. It always sort of show more irritated me that everyone looked up to him and sort of worshipped the ground he is walking on - with the argument Rick's worldview is best. I mostly just felt that he is an self-important cowboy who tends to hold long monologues.
LOL - I thought the best and most ridicilous part was when the Rick and Tyreese, the two alphas, get into a pissing-contest where Rick again gives us one of his extremely self-important and neverending speeches.
In this installment they finally introduced Michonne, something which I was really looking forward to since she is a fave of mine in the TV series - well, all I can say so far she is nothing compared to the brilliant bad-ass character. She is all but annoying, boring and even more antagonistic then in the series.
In the end it all comes down to the decision of the group to create a leadership committee made up of four man. And you know what annoyed me with that? Well, apparently the women didn't want to be on the committee as they felt they just wanted to be protected by the men. Haha. Especially, in this installment it becomes more and more apparent that Robert Kirkman obviously has got some kind of issue in regards to women. Well, the whole story was still as good that I do want to carry on reading to see where things with the group will go. show less

Literally, I finished this in about an hour. Once I started I could not put it down.
Completely and totally different from the TV and so much better! Complete insanity!

Adrianne

Michonne and her two "pets" show up in time to save Otis, the "you kill, you die" rule changes to "you kill, you live," Allen's accident makes Rick try out a new theory about being bitten, and a committee forms to makes sure not one person has to carry all the responsibility for the group. It's time for the group's tensions to run high since the incessant pressure is wearing on everyone and the story follows what would seem to be the natural way of things - it's my favorite part of the series, those high and lows that switch back and forth as circumstances change; it makes for a realistic story progression. The characters get increasingly human as they are forced to act less human.