As a whole, The Walking Dead was an incredible comic that took the zombie apocalypse into some truly unsettling realms. It focused on the degradation of society in ways that few stories in that medium do, having the zombies as a secondary threat to humanity destroying itself.
Some of the villains introduced here were great, providing the foils you need to drive a great story. It did have a few ups and downs, however, many finding the ending lackluster. Here is the good, the bad, and everything in between of The Walking Dead's arcs.
10 The Farm
No matter the medium, the farm is always the weakest part of The Walking Dead series. Everything feels as if it grants to a halt, and while the time spent there isn't as excruciating as it is in the show, it still feels like a downgrade from the prior storyline with Shane and waking up in the apocalypse.
Some of the characters introduced do at least help pick it up, namely Hershel, but it's not enough. It's too slow a string of chapters without much development beyond Hershel.
9 Repercussions Of The Whisperer's War
It's hard to give this time period a proper name, but it's the two volumes that come directly after the war, dealing with the remnants of the Whisperers and the remains of the saviors.
There are some interesting moments spread in it as Negan's character development takes center stage in a lot of it, however, it felt like filler before the final story arc. Dealing with Beta felt rather dull after Alpha's demise, and Sherry's attempted uprising ended with a whimper.
8 Days Gone Bye
It's the first volume of the series and one that, while rocky, gets the series off on good footing. A big reason for that is Shane, who provides a good starter antagonist who has an instant connection with Rick.
His dip into insanity is a bit quick, but it helps set the tone of what this new world can do to people. The fact it all leads up to Carl being the one to shoot Shane is great, quickly stripping away the innocence of the youngest character.
7 The Prison
The prison is where The Walking Dead truly starts to find it's footing and starts pushing into the greatness it became known for. The prisoners were the first real look into how depraved people could be and showed that some people are beyond saving.
It also details Rick's psyche slowly beginning to break down and leading to his great, "We are the walking dead" line that's so iconic. It has a few slow moments here and there but blends in the action well.
6 The New World Order
The final arc wasn't the best ending the series could get and had more than a few missteps in it. Introducing an organization like the Commonwealth makes total sense in theory and provides a nice change from the usual heartless dictatorships that the group's dealt with in the past.
The issue is more how a group that spanned this big had remained unheard of until now. There were just a lot of messy portions to it, but it did at least have an excellent moment with Rick killing Dwight.
5 Fear The Hunters
For a group that only lasted one volume of the series, the hunters made a profound impact. Of all the psychotic things that were done over the series, children had by and large remained untouched.
That changed when they admitted what they did, having eaten the kids that were with them. It was so horrific that you understood why Rick and his group resorted to the barbaric means they did when dealing with the foes. It's an arc that captures the true darkness in The Walking Dead better than most.
4 Woodbury
The Governor was the first lengthy villain the group had to deal with and was certainly a memorable one. He was completely off his rocker, from the way he tortured others to the floating head he kept.
He ramped up the danger the prison presented up to 11, pushing the survivors further than they had before. Some fan-favorite characters met their ends in this arc as well, showing that absolutely no one was going to be safe from it, not even members of the Grimes family.
3 Alexandria
Alexandria helped bring the actual zombies back into the forefront of the story as foes, putting humans more on the back burner. It's a nice change of pace as the herd assaulting the town led to some of the most intense and horror driven chapters in the whole series.
It also confirmed that Rick is the right man to lead, even as he suffers more and more causalities, death always seems to follow him no matter where he goes. His loss of Jessie Anderson showed how fleeting any sort of relationship can be in the series.
2 Whisperer War
While the stories post Negan were hit or miss, the Whisperer's arc delivered in spades. They offered a different type of foe in Alpha and Beta, one who was a brute and the other who was meticulously brilliant.
The way they were introduced was epic as well, killing off multiple survivors and planting their heads directly on pikes. It set the tone for the whole arc and led to one of the more surprising developments, that of Negan as an anti-hero.
1 The Saviors
No other arc was ever going to come close to this one as no villain can match Negan in terms of his charisma and depth of character. He's the sort of psychotic that is unsettling, while maintaining a leadership quality that The Governor lacked. He truly felt what he was doing at the time was right, giving him redeemable qualities that were lacking in other villains.
He also has a hand in the most iconic death in the whole series, when he beats Glenn's brains in with his bat. The arc as a whole had so many layers of development to it and had by far the most action.