Being primarily a fan of more mainstream comics like Marvel and DC superheroes, it sometimes takes me a while to hear about and get into comics of other genres and companies. But I had heard about Image's series The Walking Dead from several people and wanted to check it out. So, earlier this year, I started reading the collected graphic novels from the beginning, and I was quickly hooked. I flew through all the volumes that were out at the time (1 through 15) in about a month. And I can safely say now that The Walking Dead is not quite like any other comic book series I have ever read.
In case you're unfamiliar, the book is about the zombie apocalypse and the adventures of Officer Rick Grimes and others as they struggle to survive in a world ruled by the dead. But it's also more than that. It's also about Rick and the other characters as people, as individuals, and how their traumatic circumstances strain their lives and characters and relationships. It causes them to rethink everything they thought they knew about life and humanity and morality, and thereby poses thought-provoking questions and dilemmas to the reader as well. In the introduction to the first volume of the series, author Robert Kirkman stated that he wanted The Walking Dead to be more than the shock value of zombies jumping out from behind corners and scaring people; he wanted it to be a realistic and poignant character progression as well. Having now followed all the characters on their journeys up through issue #100, which was just released earlier this month, I can assert confidently that Kirkman has achieved this goal well.
Like I said, this comic is not like most comics I have read. It features zombies instead of superheroes; the protagonists don't wear colorful costumes or have extraordinary powers, and they don't always even act heroically. The story is set in a grim, gritty, mostly realistic world (except for the obvious fact of the zombies) in which danger and death are very real. When a character dies, even a main character, they can't just come back to life a few issues later due to a clone or a retcon and act like nothing has changed; they are dead, truly dead. The only way they can come back is as a zombie which has to be re-killed, and the other characters all feel the weight of death hanging over them. It can be a rather sobering story.
The Walking Dead is a good, exciting story with well-developed characters, but of course it isn't for everyone. Aside from the subject matter and the realistic setting, another thing that makes it different from most mainstream comics is its content. As a zombie narrative, The Walking Dead contains a lot of violence and gore, as well as strong language and some sexual content. Even though the illustrations are all in black and white instead of living color, this much dark content might be enough to have a desensitizing effect on some readers instead of a sobering one. Readers, especially Christian readers, should use discretion when considering reading The Walking Dead. Although there are some benefits that can be possibly gleaned from the story, it may be necessary for some readers to forgo this series if it's too disturbing or offensive to them, and there is absolutely no shame in following such a conviction.
But, you may ask, what benefits could possibly be gleaned from reading such a dark, violent comic? For one thing, as I have said, the character development is great. The reader gets to see people from all walks of life unite together under a common threat. Throughout the course of the series, we get to know Rick and his wife and son, his best friend and fellow police officer, a simple farmer and his family, some prison inmates, a wandering woman with a sword, and lots of other characters. Their interactions and relationships with each other are usually portrayed believably and enjoyably. There are even some religious characters who I believe have been portrayed fairly and accurately, despite the secular content of much of the series. The farmer, Hershel Greene, retains his strong faith in God despite the tragedy he has endured, and reads from 1 Corinthians 13 when his daughter Maggie gets married to Glenn. Later in the series, a minister named Gabriel struggles with guilt over not trying to save more people when the zombie attacks first occurred. Kirkman introduces a variety of different characters with very different backgrounds and personalities, but develops them all well and depicts them all fairly.
A new character has also been recently introduced who, while not necessarily religious himself, may still be acting as a religious symbol of some sort. In issue #91, the reader sees a man from another community besides Rick's. The man has long, dark hair and a beard, and when he eventually introduces himself to Rick, he says that his name is Paul Monroe, but his friends have given him the nickname of Jesus. After all the hardships they've been through and enemies they've had to fight off, Rick and his group are initially distrusting of Jesus and tie him up for a while. However, Jesus just wants to introduce Rick's group to his own community of survivors, hoping that they can be mutually beneficial to each other. Although he has only appeared in a few issues so far, this Jesus character has not shown the reader any indication that he is deceitful or treacherous in any way, and Rick's son Carl affirmed that he thought Jesus was a good guy. Maybe this character is Kirkman's way of trying to bring a symbol of hope and genuine goodness into the dark, broken world he has created. I'll be interested to see more of this character and where Rick's interactions with him will take them in the future.
In addition to all the well-developed characters and the entertainment purposes for those who can tolerate it, I believe that one of the chief benefits of The Walking Dead is simply that it reflects truth. It shows us truth about humanity, namely the truth that we are broken and depraved and incapable of saving ourselves from destruction.
You see, the interesting thing about this series is that, even though it features zombies, the zombies are not really the villains. The zombies are mindless creatures acting only on natural impulses, incapable of putting together any elaborate, villainous scheme; they're more like a force of nature, a mere established fact of the way things work in this fictional universe. The real villains who oppose the humans are, in fact, other humans. Sadly, the breakdown of society as we know it does not see all the survivors working together for the greater good; instead, it brings out the worst in humanity and shows what people are really like when driven to madness by tragedy and not constricted by society's laws. Human survivors fight each other, betray each other, torture and rape and kill each other, often senselessly and needlessly, sometimes for fun, or sometimes just to gain power or survival in this depraved new world. In addition to protecting themselves from zombies, Rick and his allies have to deal with conflicts within their own groups, and with other groups of humans who want only to steal, kill, and destroy. Sometimes, when reading through the issues, I would get so enthralled in the human vs. human conflict and the character development it brought about that I almost forgot the story was about zombies. In short, it is not the case in this story that the humans are the “good guys” and the zombies are the “bad guys.” Despite the black-and-white drawings, the characters' moral standing is much more complex and multifaceted, and humans cause just as much death and destruction as anyone else.
The Walking Dead reminds me of a quote from the famed twentieth century American author Flannery O'Connor, who was a devout Catholic. She once said that sometimes the author of a story or literary work can, without necessarily pointing overtly or directly to God as the solution to our fallen nature, still show the truth that we are lost and fallen. She writes, “[the author] may find in the end that instead of reflecting the image at the heart of things, he has only reflected our broken condition and, through it, the face of the devil we are possessed by. This is a modest achievement, but perhaps a necessary one." I don't know what Robert Kirkman's personal beliefs are, and given the content of his work, I somehow doubt that he's a Christian. But, based on some characters he's written, he seems to be at least somewhat interested in and open to Christianity, and at the very least, whether or not he was trying to, I believe he has used The Walking Dead to illustrate poignantly and believably that mankind is twisted, depraved, and in need of salvation.
However, even I, after reading the series for so long, still sometimes have to wonder how much dark content I'm willing to tolerate and at what point it becomes less of a criticism on humanity's flaws and more of a reveling in violence and gore. There have been some excellent storylines and character moments over the course of the series, and I hate to say it, but after 100 issues, it almost seems like the book is getting a bit redundant. Similar plot lines continue to develop; Rick and his group will meet a community of allies who they can benefit from, or a group of enemies who they must overcome. People always die along the way, and sooner or later, any form of good civilization they could have is ultimately overrun by the zombies or by one man's evil to another. The current villain, Negan, seems very similar to the earlier and better-known villain, the Governor, in terms of his mercilessness and needless brutality; so far, I haven't seen much development that would make him a distinct character of his own. And this most recent issue, #100, featured an extremely violent act by Negan against a protagonist who had been in the story for a very long time, and for whatever reason, this act seemed to disturb me more than all the other violent ones I had seen so far.
The Walking Dead has indeed been good for showing us our broken condition and the devil we are possessed by, but if it's already shown us that time and time again, then is it still necessary to keep doing so? I don't know, and I'm hoping The Walking Dead hasn't reached that point yet, but I'm starting to fear that it might have. Part of me wants to keep reading the series, and I probably will read at least a few more issues, to see what happens next and if the storyline takes any new and interesting turns and if anything edifying or profound is done with the character called Jesus. But if the series begins to repeat itself over and over without doing anything new or different or more uplifting, then I may stop reading it soon.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that The Walking Dead is a well-written, truthful story that can be good for those who are mature and discerning enough to appreciate it--but each individual reader must decide how much they're willing to tolerate and how long they want to stick with the series. There is no verse in the Bible that says, "Thou shalt read this comic book because it only hath some violence, but not that comic book because it hath a lot more violence," so Christians must rely on their own conscience and convictions in deciding what to read, and not read anything that would tempt them into sin or desensitize them to the darkness of the world. Optimistically, I'm hoping to be able to enjoy and learn from The Walking Dead for a good while more to come--but only time will tell what the future of this series will bring, whether it will continue to reveal truthful insight into the nature of humanity, or just more unnecessary death and destruction.
