Comic Info
Comic Name: The Walking Dead
Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: Robert Kirkman
Artist: Charlie Adlard
# of Issues: 6
Release Date: 2009
The Walking Dead #63
Reprints The Walking Dead #61-66 (May 2009-October 2009). The survivors continue their journey, but are faced with a new challenge when one of the twins Ben kills the other twin Billy. With no source to help Ben, someone kills him in the night…forcing a rift among the survivors. When Dale disappears during the night, the survivors are forced to join a preacher named Father Gabriel Stokes at his nearby church. When it becomes obvious that the survivors are being hunted, they make a grisly discovery and could change the survivors forever.
Written by Robert Kirkman and illustrated by Charlie Adlard, The Walking Dead Volume 11: Fear the Hunters follows The Walking Dead Volume 10: What We Become. The black-and-white series continues to be popular and well-received by critics. The Walking Dead #63 featured a copy of Chew #1, and The Walking Dead #64 featured a copy of Viking #1.
This volume continues an even darker turn in the series. With the last volume, the youngest among the survivors were showing the results of growing up in a world filled with death and murder. Here, a child kills because he doesn’t understand and another child kills because he does. It is pretty disturbing and works to raise questions about right and wrong.
The Walking Dead #66
The series also loses its last “good” person with the death of Dale. Dale was the moral compass of the series and the only one among the survivors (after Rick essentially went crazy) to stop and ask if what the survivors were doing was right. With his death, I worry that the series will lack direction (Glenn and Maggie also show some hope, but no one listens to them). I like that a series isn’t afraid to be dark, but I feel I need a break from the darkness.
At this point, I find Rick to have been lost. With the last few volumes, he’s shown that he’s peered into the abyss and cannot return. Much like Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, the character is just too far gone to be redeemed. The character’s decision to kill/mutilate the rapists in the previous volume were at least justified, here the murder and death of the hunters at the hand of the survivors prevents any chance of redemption…no matter what Dale or Carl says to him.
I enjoy The Walking Dead, but the series is getting dark, dark, dark. The series which has always been a rather hopeless trek at least had people with strong morals that you could identify with, but now the series seems to have lost any admirable characters with the death of Dale. The idea that people with “good” qualities can’t survive is a worthy idea to explore and that appears to be where the book is going. The Walking Dead 11: Fear the Hunter is followed by The Walking Dead 12: Life Among Them.
Preceded By:
The Walking Dead 10: What We Become
Followed By:
