It’s time for another chunk of black and white Walking Dead goodness (well, in terms of storytelling, not so much tone…) as we get some dramatic send-offs and some horrifying moments before we reach the all-too-familiar (for those of us who watched the TV show first) location of Alexandria. Let’s take a look!
This double-bill starts as it means to go on as after a brief moment of happiness at finding a working van Andrea discovers one of her and Dale’s adopted twins, Billy, dead with the other, Ben, standing over the body claiming its okay because “Billy we come back”. The group of obviously horrified at the child-on-child murder and more importantly Abraham says that they now can’t trust Ben not to do the same to them but also can’t tie him up every night, so… well, puts forward the idea to kill him. Andrea and Dale are obviously upset (to put it lightly) but a lot of the group, including Rick and Michonne, sadly agree, though are disgusted with themselves for saying so. It all comes to naught though as that night Carl sneaks into where Ben is and kills him before sneaking off with only the mentally unstable Morgan seeing him. So lots of children killing children going on in these opening pages! The group manages to regroup and follows a priest called Gabriel back to his church for a new safe-heaven, but it doesn’t remain safe for long as zombies pour out of the woods and during the attack poor one-legged Dale is bitten, though he claims it was just his shirt that was ripped.
*Gasp!* Rick said a naughty word!… Twice!
Later that night Dale sneaks out into the woods to die but he is knocked out and kidnapped by a nearby group of cannibals, who proceed to chop his other leg off and eat it much to his shock when he comes to. He does get a little of his own back by revealing he’s “tainted meat” which causes everyone to throw up, and then they just drop him off back at the church and take a pot-shot at Glen for good measure. Everyone is rightfully angry so use Gabriel (who confessed to having locked out his own convent and fellow priests at the start of the outbreak in order to survive, for the record) to guide them to local areas that match Dale’s recollection of where he was being kept and find them, have a bit of a “cool showdown” where Rick holds his fingers up like a gun and then Andrea fires an actual rifle at them and then… Rick, Abraham and others proceed to spend the night horribly torturing and killing them. Yikes!
Dale’s last moments… were a few panels ago. This is just his corpse being shot. Still! Sad times…
Rick and co feel pretty crappy about it the next day, while Andrea tearfully says goodbye to Dale (and shoots his corpse in the head, obviously). This is the upbeat end to Volume 11! It swiftly jumps ahead a few weeks where we get the revelation that Eugene has been lying all along and he’s not actually a government scientist looking to help cure the zombie virus and instead just science teacher who’s good at lying. Abraham understandably gives him a brief thrashing and everyone wonders what to do next as their whole goal was to make it to Washington. Luckily hope arrives in the form of Aaron, who approaches the group to tell them about the Alexandria Safe Zone and although he is initial punched and tied up they do come round to the idea and after a few zombie incidents arrive at the gates…
I’ll get to the rest in the spoilers but honestly all the big action and drama in this two-volume chunk has already happened!
Overall Thoughts:
Yes, well… Happy children are a rare commodity, especially after Volume 11!
Volume 11 is a hell of a roller coaster, with emphasis very much on hell, while 12 has a few interesting moments but really is just setting up the rest of the series by finally giving our wandering group a place they can call home and making sure to really ram home the message of “this place feels safe” in order to, you know, make it not safe for future drama…
Volume 11 “Fear the Hunters”:
Volume 12 “Life Among Them”:
The group’s time in Alexandria is a pretty stable one for the rest of Volume 12. They get the sit-down interview treatment from town head honcho Douglas, everyone settles into houses with new roles (including Rick becoming a policeman of sorts again, complete with short hair and no beard!) and beyond Carl not getting on with local boy Mikey and Rick having to calm down his father Nicholas nothing really goes wrong. Everyone is told their guns will go to an armoury and are invited to a Halloween party the next day.
Argh! Clean-cut Rick looks so wrong somehow.
At the party people feel awkward pretending society is back to normal and Glen fakes being drunk in order to go snooping and find the location of the armoury. Rick meets up with him in secret and declares that he may have to take over if things go south. This whole part was adapted very closely in the TV series (minus some characters still being alive and Douglas’ wife being the head in the series) and given its not the most exciting made it a bit of a slow crawl. Still, I know they need to establish calm so they can create drama from it, and I have doubt they will in the next chunk!
Hogan Reviews 