‘The Walking Dead Volume 32: Rest In Peace’ – Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard (Image)


This is old news to everyone else but for me, ‘The Walking Dead’ comic book series finished a couple of days ago and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I mean, don’t get me wrong, every story has to end sometime and no matter what the reason was here (can you tell I’m still a little cynical?), it was clearly time for it all to come to a close. The story had run its course.

Having said that though, ‘The Walking Dead’ is a story that I’ve been reading for a long old time now, years in fact. Not just that, it’s a series that has kept me company through some tough times and now it’s not here anymore. Despite the issues that I’ve had with the series as a whole (namely the ‘find shelter, meet this week’s version of the governor, lose someone special and have to either find shelter again or bolster what you have’ approach), I don’t mind admitting that I’m sad to see it go. Oh well, that’s what re-reads are for I guess, that and finding new series to read. Any recommendations?

But I’m clearly getting ahead of myself a bit… Lets take a look at Volume 32. There will be spoilers by the way, I’m working on the assumption that I’m the last person to finish the series.

The tensions simmering in the Commonwealth have erupted into riots, on the streets, and Rick is right in the middle of it. Can he resolve the crisis peacefully before a zombie herd hits the streets of the Commonwealth? And even if he can, Rick may just face his toughest test yet in the aftermath…

After a disappointing Volume 31, it was good to see it all come to an end the way it did here; the way it was managed just felt right. What I found really interesting here was that whenever Rick has gone to war, he has always lost someone close to him but here, he is fighting to keep the peace and ends up paying the price for that himself. It had to end that way though… If Rick carried on, the story would have been about him and there was no more story to tell here.  It was almost like in order for the survivors to really move forward, Rick had to be put to one side and I can get behind that. Rick’s philosophy can continue to inspire but it didn’t need him to help it along. It had legs of it’s own now and that’s what takes us through to the final part of the book, and the series as a whole, what happened next.

When I’ve had nothing better to do, I’ve often wondered if ‘The Walking Dead’ was Carl’s story more than Rick’s. While Rick has to transition from the old world to this new one, the vast majority of Carl’s life has been the zombie apocalypse and living through that has made him who he is. It’s kind of fitting then that the last word belongs to Carl who now straddles that point between the zombie apocalypse and the new world that is being forged, in no small part due to his father. Kirkman paints an optimistic picture of the future and why not? Everything has been left lying around, all it needs is for the right people to put it back together again. There’s no reason why hope can’t come out of the zombie apocalypse, it just needs people to work together and make it happen; something that Rick was always trying to encourage.

Carl’s experience with Hershel though, introduces a note of caution that he really wants people to take on board. Don’t forget where you came from because if you do, you might just end up back there in the future. It’s a fine line to walk and for now, there are enough people (who remember) to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. But could it though? Well, that’s where Kirkman leaves it with an optimistic view of the future that is tempered with caution. And I think that’s the best place to leave this series. People have earned this respite but can they keep hold of it? Sometimes it’s good to leave readers with something a little open ended so that the story stays in your head for a bit longer. That’s what Kirkman has done here and it’s a great way to draw a line under things.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘Alien Harvest’ – Robert Sheckley (Titan Books)

Image
  Page Count: 326 Pages It feels like a while since I last had an ‘Aliens’ post here (‘Aliens: Genocide’, back in May , just in case you were wondering…) but I have been pecking away at ‘Alien Harvest’, a page here and then a few pages here. And that should be a little bit of a red flag right there. The four preceding ‘Aliens’ novels (or, one and a half omnibuses) were all very readable and, ultimately, a lot of fun despite a few misgivings here and there. ‘Alien Harvest’ though…? Honestly, it has taken me weeks to get through and if it wasn’t for my generally enjoying the franchise (and being an awkward middle-aged chap who sometimes, just won’t let a book beat him…), I’d have DNF’d this book and moved on without a second thought. I didn’t though (because I’m awkward and needed the win) and here I am, trying to make a little sense of how I feel about ‘Alien Harvest’. Lets see how I do… Royal jelly, the most illicit of Alien by-products, is keeping Dr, Stan Myakovsky alive. A once ...
Read more

‘Green and Grey’ & ‘Waiting Death’ (From ‘Soldiers of the Imperium: An Astra Miltarum Omnibus’ – Black Library’)

Image
  The weather is cooling down a bit, at least for now, but my tired (slightly overheated) old brain is taking a little while to catch up so, as you’ve probably gathered, I’m all about the short reads this week. Bits and pieces to keep me ticking over and entertained. And ‘Alien Harvest’, as well, but I already moaned about that yesterday , no more moaning about it today ;o) Anyway… I’m doing pretty well with my, kind of, resolution to read more books that I already own (it’s still a ‘work in progress’ but I’m happy with it) so it was no surprise that I decided to go for a couple of Imperial Guard short stories from the ‘Soldiers of the Imperium’ collection – a book that has gone unread for… lets just say ‘too long’. I picked one tale from an author that I’ve never read and the other tale? Well, does it count as a re-read if I listened to the audio-book years ago and could barely remember the plot when I came back to it the other day? Technically, yes, I guess ;o) Enough of that, le...
Read more

‘Wolverine : Old Man Logan’ – Millar, McNiven (Marvel)

Image
  Page Count: 256 Pages Long ago, there lived a Graeme who was having a pretty rough time and bought loads of comic books to cheer himself up. Some tough lessons, about the transient nature of money, followed but the comic books stuck around for a little longer so, things (kind of) balanced out ;o) One of those comic books was the collected ‘Old Man Logan’ and it was an awesome read (yes, I was that Graeme, in case you hadn’t worked it out). Thanks to the aforementioned transient nature of money, and the need for more, I had to get rid of my old copy but a couple of weeks ago, I saw another copy for sale and figured that it was time to pay ‘Old Man Logan’ another visit. When eBay is full of overpriced second hand copies, it’s nice to see Marvel do the decent thing and publish a new edition. Or, more likely, see an opportunity to make more money. Either way, I have a new book so I’m happy :o) A future world savaged and sundered by super villains, the United States ain’t what it used...
Read more