'The Walking Dead' #150: Closing In on Its Biggest Conflict in Years
In the course of celebrating and reviewing The Walking Dead's landmark 150th issue, this post will contain spoilers. If that will ruin your day, turn back now. Maybe try our gallery of the series' 15 coolest covers ever.
Nearly two years ago in real-life time, Rick Grimes led three communities in a gruesome but successful campaign against an F-word-crazed, spiked-bat-swinging tyrant named Negan. The Walking Dead's 12-issue All Out War arc was one of the book's most disturbing and depressing stretches; it was also one of its best.
Enter #127, May 2014, an unprecedented two-year time-jump in the story. Rick and Andrea live together, Carl calls her "mom"; together they're the First Family of Alexandria, one of three safe, agriculturally and socially flourishing colonies. The Hilltop, led by Maggie, and the Sanctuary, headed by Dwight, form a three-pronged civilization with Alexandria. Peace reigns, save for interpersonal squabbles that sometimes turn bloody but rarely descend into chaos. Suddenly the biggest event on the horizon—in a story that grew from unending slaughter and white-knuckled survival—is a community fair. The problems are pre-zombie-apocalypse-sized.
It was a beautiful narrative development, The Walking Dead's biggest shift in its then-11-year run. But with Rick Grimes' buzzed hair and post-war cane came a fear, on readers' and Rick's part alike, that if shit went down, our man wouldn't be up to the task.
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