Comic Book Review: The Walking Dead #60 |

The Walking Dead #60
Written by Robert Kirkman
Illustrated by Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn
Published by Image Comics
Reviewed by Joseph Copeli

The Story: The dead walk again and they hunger for human flesh. The remnants of humanity go to extreme lengths to survive in this harsh new reality. Rick and his group struggle to survive in a world of walking dead, but the living pose the greatest threat to their survival.

The Recap: A slightly unhinged Morgan joins Rick, Carl and Abraham. They head to the police station and find the supplies there untouched. After loading up, they start making their way back to the main group. After running head-first into a herd of hundreds of zombies, Rick crashes their car. The four are then forced to try to escape on foot.

This Issue: Rick, Abraham, Carl and Morgan attempt to misdirect the herd away from their friends by taking a detour into an abandoned house. Dale decides to keep his family at the farm house the group has been using and let the others move on, but the appearance of Rick’s quartet and the herd following them forces everyone to pack up and escape.

Not so much happens plot-wise in Walking Dead #60, but there are plenty of character moments which amply display why this series is so beloved by its fans. Continuing with the thread of previous issues, Robert Kirkman continues to mentally abuse Morgan, having him find children in an abandoned house who were drilled to death by their father. Charlie Adlard skillfully walks us through the creepy old house, classic horror-movie style, having Morgan slowly shuffle through the house as he looks for items that make noise and finds blood and gore in every room. With tears in his eyes, he looks like he’s about to break, and it seems many of the other characters see it too.

One subplot I was glad to get back to was suicidal Maggie. For several issues, she was blank and removed from the group before hanging herself in the middle of the night. This thread was left open for a while as Maggie didn’t want to talk about it, but she finally opens up to Glenn and to the readers this issue. Not surprisingly, she was depressed about losing her entire family. Instead of staying a depressed character, Maggie actually lightens up after her suicide attempt, claiming that she saw the “other side,” and found it empty. As discouraging as that might sound, it’s actually a moment of light in this series: Maggie realizes that even their screwed up existence on a zombie-infested world is better than empty darkness, especially with Glenn’s love. If she should lose Glenn though…
Dale takes an interesting turn this issue. His desire to separate from the group is not new; he’s tried several times before, in the belief that a smaller group can survive well and to simply stay out of the way of trouble. This issue, he decides that rather than be on the road, he wants to stay at the farm house, even after hearing that a herd of thousands of zombies was heading his way. His anger gets the better of him and he starts blaming Rick for all of the group’s brushes with danger. To be fair, Rick was always acting in the group’s best interests; he just seems to attract trouble, but it’s not his fault as much as the crazy world they live in. Dale has always been a supporter of Rick and I can’t wait to see him turn on Rick, especially now that Rick seems to be coming back into his old role of leading the group.

My favorite part of the issue is Eugene’s discussion of the zombie herd’s “mob mentality.” Although he claims there is no logic or reason, Eugene actually does a great job of convincing me there is plenty of logic and reasoning in the zombie herd’s actions. As he describes it, one zombie passing close to a house might make another think there’s someone inside. This, in turn, causes the first zombie to also think there’s someone inside to eat and both start banging on the house, attracting the rest of the herd. Makes perfect sense to me.