61: When no one else dares to deal with the murderous child Ben, Rick's son Carl does what needs to be done.
62 - 66 (Fear the Hunters): The group learns that they are being hunted by a group of cannibals. That is a big mistake on the part of the cannibals.
67 - 70: The group are discovered and taken in by The Community, but many in the group have a difficult time thinking that their safe-haven is truly safe.
71 - 84 (No Way Out): Drawn by the sound of gunfire, a herd of the undead swarms The Community.
85: Having defeated the herd and saved The Community, Rick tries to focus the survivors on realistic long term goals to not only rebuild The Community, but to make it both defensible and sustainable. He also worries that Carl will not recover from his gunshot wound to the head.
And now (as of this writing) I am completely up to date with The Walking Dead. After all that reading, my eyes feel like zombies.
Reading a grand total of 36 issues in a two to three day period of time had me taking notice of how writer Robert Kirkman tweaks and plays with his narrative formula. The Walking Dead, like any series, cycles repeatedly through a variety of story templates. One template is the emotional and psychological erosion of Rick's humanity.
Rick likes to make a big show of his supposed reluctance at leading the group. He even frequently steps down, or to the side, so that another might lead. But things go wrong, of course, and Rick quickly steps right back up again and does "what needs to be done". Rick does this because few, if any, are truly willing, much less even able, to admit "what needs to be done". Whatever that action is, both on the surface and beneath it, is unpleasant and nasty.
But Rick does it anyway, even though he claims to not like doing whatever it is that has to be done, and afterward he makes a big show of hating himself for having done whatever it was that he did. After every unpleasant action Rick has committed, he has a soul-searching moment with somebody (Shane, Lori, Tyreese, Dale, Abraham, The Community Doctor) who consistently waivers between supporting Rick's actions or condemning them. Usually they condemn those actions, for dramatic tension, of course. Whenever a character does make a show of supporting Rick or his questionable actions, watch out. That is tantamount to the character announcing that he or she is retiring in two weeks, or that they have a baby on the way.
A side pocket to this particular character cycle are Rick's father and son bonding moments, when they talk about all the horrible things they have recently done and how, as long as they feel bad about having done those horrible things, that means they are still good people and have not become bad people. It's kind of like The Courtship of Eddie's Father
somehow crashed into Night of the Living Dead
.
Another cycle is the safe-haven one. The group leaves Atlanta and finds a gated community it believes to be safe. It isn't. They wander across Herschel's farm and believe it to be safe. It isn't. Fleeing the farm brings them to the prison, which looks perfect. It isn't. After the prison falls, they try to survive on the road long enough to get to Washington D.C. They can't. Which brings them to The Community and, well, it's the gated community and prison all over again. Same story, different location.
In each of the these locations, of course, there are plenty of arguments about what they should and should not do. If there are newcomers to the group, or they meet another group, the question of trust always comes up.
Rick loses a hand to the Governor. Dale loses a leg to the Hunters.
One of the prison inmates is a serial killer. One of the group's adopted children is turning into one.
When the serial killer is discovered, Rick nearly beats him to death. When the child murders his twin brother, Carl executes the boy. Both of these events are linked to Andrea and Dale. Andrea had been attacked by the serial killer at the prison, which left her face adorned with a nasty scar. The murdering child and his victim brother were Andrea and Dale's adopted children.
And so on and so forth. The series just cycles through the same stuff over and over, it just looks different enough each time to hold my interest and the difference keeps me from becoming bored with it all. When I finished issue 85 I would have picked up issue 86 if it had been available. I think that says it all.
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