‘The Walking Dead Volume 2: Miles Behind Us’ – Kirkman, Adlard (Image)

Welcome back to my occasional re-read of the ‘Walking Dead’ comic books; an attempt to get all the reviews, for the series, in one place, slightly hindered by the fact that I ditched my collection just before I moved house late last year. It’s going to take a little longer than expected then but that’s ok, it’s all about the journey isn’t it? ;o)

Payday is looming on the horizon but at the same time, seems to be taking its own sweet time getting here. We’ll have to wait a little longer then before I can pick up new books but that’s ok, we’ve got ‘Miles Behind Us’ to keep us ticking over and as luck would have it, it’s one of my favourite volumes in the series :o) Just a quick warning… These books are pretty old now so I’m going to assume that people have read them, there will probably be spoilers then. Cool? Cool. Let’s go.

Atlanta was never safe to begin with but now, even the outskirts and surrounding area are crawling with the undead. The camp is no longer a viable proposition and the only way forwards is to hit the open road and see if there is anywhere that our survivors can call home. Danger waits but so do new friends.

‘Miles Behind Us’ doesn’t hang around in showing us how precarious things are for Rick and his band of survivors. And it is Rick’s group already. Shane may have held things together but people were going along with him rather than actively following him. Rick has just naturally taken charge and people seem to be happy with that. There may not be much of a plan but having some sense of purpose seems to be all that this group needs right now; keep moving and something will turn up. And things do turn up, it’s just that those moments are exactly the ones that Kirkman uses to let us know that although the trappings of civilisation may still be standing, the dead lurk amongst them and all it takes is a moment’s lapse in concentration for things to get nasty. Kirkman is happy to kill people off to show how nasty things can get. ‘Miles Behind Us’ has two moments in particular when this happens; the Wilshire Estate is my favourite as Kirkman really lays the fear on thick, showing us that all it takes is a gunshot and a few zombies can suddenly become a horde. Adlard shows just how claustrophobic it can be when there is no way out and all you can see, in front of you are zombie faces.

The other moment is at the barn on Hershel’s farm. It’s funny to see how straightforward the plot is at this point, the time on the farm taking up maybe half a book here rather than the full season that it got on TV. I don’t mind either to be honest (I may be the only person who actually enjoyed Season 2 but that’s another story), just interesting to see. Here, it’s very quickly dealt with here but is no less effective for it.

I mentioned ‘Soap Opera’ in my last review… While we’re still not quite there yet, it’s definitely getting closer with people starting to pair off and poor Glenn left jealous and on his own, at least for most of the book. I’m going to give the book/series the benefit of the doubt for now. There is a lot of focus on what people have lost so I guess it’s natural that people will look to each other for comfort. Having the one guy who didn’t ‘pair off’ find someone, when he least expected it, felt a little contrived but then you look at it and think to yourself, ‘it’s the zombie apocalypse, everyone deserves a little happiness.’ ;o) That Soap Opera is getting closer though and you know what? Maybe that’s ok? Zombies are cool but it’s humans that carry the plot here and people are going to do what they do.

‘Miles Behind Us’ is an interesting book to read then with a decent mix of things that make you go ‘shit, no!’ and things that make you really think about this apocalypse is shaking up. It’s not so self contained either. The last three pages really set things up for the next few volumes. Our survivors are going to prison… ;o)