What They Say:
The events of No Way Out have affected everyone in the Community, and not everyone has survived to pick up the pieces. Reprinting issues #85-90 of the Eisner Award-winning series.
The Review:
After far too long of a break between reading volumes, going into the fifteenth volume of The Walking Dead was both difficult and surprisingly easy. With the group having dealt with some real problems and losses recently, including that of Ron and Jessie which has impacted Rick heavily, there’s a strange sense of breakdown over everything. The community that they’ve managed to hole up in is essentially a mixture of the prison and Woodbury in a way as there are plenty of defenses, but there’s a crumbling going on with the people involved. Or at least with Rick, considering how badly Carl was injured previously and the fact that he’s now in a coma. It’s been particularly brutal for Rick and seeing him cope the best that he can is really showing a man that’s close to the edge in a lot of ways, but enough so that his mind is pushing back on him. In one of his darkest moments, he’s again on the phone with Lori but even his mental vision of her refuses to speak with him.
That’s pretty damning.
A large part of this book is pretty mellow compared to what’s gone on before and that does work to its advantage, as it’s kind of the lull between storms. For Rick, it’s all about being close and caring for Carl as best as he can while Denise cares for him as best as she can. But the more time he spends with Carl, the more worried he’s getting about just how much Carl has changed since the death of his mother and baby sister. While there is a lot of appeal in seeing Carl “man up” over the course of the series, Rick’s finally admitting out loud that he’s seeing the loss of his little boy and it really pains him. Rick’s focus has been all on protecting his family for so long that now that all he has left is Carl, seeing him fall apart is killing him inside. And it’s starting to bleed out into his conversations with others, including some pretty tearful moments that allows him to realize what he needs to do when Carl wakes up from his coma.
The community that’s managed to eke out an existence here is definitely undergoing changes due to Rick’s group arriving here. While Rick goes through some good and much needed changes here, his style and that of those that have been with him for so long naturally do grate a bit on others, since there is a somewhat superior (and deserved) attitude since they survived out there in a way these people did not. What makes it both worse and better is that because of that outside world experience, they can view the community in a way it needs to get it fortified. But that doesn’t go over well with some who have survived here. It’s really interesting to see how Rick comes up with the right ideas to provide defense against walkers and how they can approach the community as it feels like the same kinds of conversations that must have gone on in Woodbury early on with the Governor. It’s basic and smart tactics and the experience works in Rick’s favor. But it’s also an “all must pitch in” kind of thing, which when it comes to ditch digging, doesn’t go over well.
So it’s little surprise that some of the discontent that comes up has at least a few people intent on taking out Rick, “taking back” their community and going back to how it was before Rick took over everything. Nicholas has plenty of reasons to be like this, but there’s that disconnect in just how justified he is in actually following through with it and whether he’s really feeling it out in full. Some are with him, but when events finally hit, it doesn’t go well for all involved in it since there’s an accidental early discover and Rick’s group is certainly not the type to really just roll over. And there are plenty that do see the wisdom and smarts in what Rick has proposed and started doing, as well as the way certain things are changing up about who will do what and that everyone must do something to protect the community. It really does come down to the idea of community and the united front that must exist in order to survive, more now than ever, and more now after all that Rick and the others have saw.
Thankfully, the last few panels work us towards something that has made sense for quite some time as we get some solid discussion between Rick and Andrea over things that have gone on recently and how she’s seen the way Rick has started to fall apart. The two are almost the only ones that have been there since the beginning, outside of Glenn and Sophia at this point, so there’s an understanding between them with what they’ve won and lost. With Rick’s belief that he’s simply died inside after all the losses, Andrea’s line about how they know what happens to the dead makes a lot of dark sense, since they can come back and Rick should be able to well even if it is just a dead inside thing. It’s quiet, simple, honest and really beautiful to see it unfold as it does here.
Digital Notes:
This graphic novel compilation via Comixology contains issues eighty-five through ninety of the series in one file that has a total of a two hundred and twenty-two pages. As these replicate the original issues, there are plenty of letter columns, credits pages, flip-over books (with looks at Witchdoctor and Elephantman) as well as interviews with the writer of the Walking Dead novel.
In Summary:
The Walking Dead continues to hit some strong notes here as it moves this community storyline forward, dealing with ways to shore up what’s protecting all of them, expanding their overall knowledge of the area outside and working to really make it a community. The open nature of discussing what needs to be done is well handled and it has some interesting ideas, whether they bear fruit or not, it’s good to see the slow but steady focus from survival in the present to thinking long term. Particularly from Rick, with all that he’s gone through in order to survive. The cast of characters in this new community is still a bit hard to really latch onto, but they’re slowly being expanded and revealed in a good way as well, making them more compelling components of the story and starting to fear more about the personalities and how they may clash in a big and violent way.
Grade: B+
