The world was taken by huge surprise at the beginning of this month when it was suddenly announced that The Walking Dead comic would be coming to an end. Before the announcement, several future issues were said to be in print with the expectation that the series would be active for years longer.
Now that the story and the comics are finished, we’re still settling in over the impact of this change. There’s been a mixed response from fans, of whom half agree that it was a good thing the series is over, while the rest argue they would’ve liked for it to continue. If you want to know both sides of the conversation, here are 5 reasons why we believe ending the series was the right decision, and 5 reasons why we’ll be missing The Walking Dead.
10 In Favor: There Was Nowhere Else To Go
Once the survivors arrived in Alexandria, the time started where The Walking Dead began to seem as if it didn’t have much else to do. Thereafter, the formula became the same where we saw the heroes in their community, only for another community to arrive to cause trouble in paradise.
Before you knew it, the new community would turn out to have dastardly intentions of their own, culminating in a war for supremacy. Stories like this showed the series didn’t have anywhere to go, and the Commonwealth was just a larger scale of this angle; it made sense not to have that plot end and another similar one begin.
9 Against: We Had Stories To Learn About Before They Aired On TV
The TV series has deviated quite a lot from the comics, but by and large, the overall plotline has remained around the same. Those who were aware of the comic book story knew what to expect from the TV show, but this had the effect of making the experience better, as the show’s presentation had a fresh take.
Now that the comics have ended, the TV series might do away completely from adapting the source material’s stories and delve into stuff that we could find rather boring. At least the comics had us in a sense of security over what to expect in the future.
8 In Favor: There Was No More Rick
The creator of the comics had once shared that the comics would run for 300 episodes at the very least and that Rick would only die a little while before that. With his death in Issue 192, the rest of the series wouldn’t have had the same charm if the 300 mark was fulfilled.
No matter which character might have taken the lead role, Rick had his own draw and fans who had purchased these comics for almost two decades recognized Rick’s character as the face of The Walking Dead. With Rick’s demise, the ghost of his absence might have ruined the comics going forward.
7 Against: It Had Become A Habit To Read The Series
Even though The Walking Dead hadn’t been very great for about a decade now, it was still something that had become a habit of fans to purchase. Despite many people complaining over the angles that were presented, there was still a sense of attachment.
Now, ardent fans will have several months or more of confusion over which fandom to turn toward to now that The Walking Dead comics won’t be arriving anymore. Plus, the 200th issue’s impending arrival had us all believing it would be a huge event like the 100th, a chance we’ve now missed.
6 In Favor: Walkers Weren't Important Anymore
The name of the series was alluding toward the zombies that had taken over the world, but it had been a good decade since these zombies had even remotely been a threat anymore. Even the creator had admitted that he didn’t think zombies were important and that they wouldn’t feature as a threat in the future.
There’s only so many times we can have conflict within humans, though, and the repeated human antagonists were starting to run thin, especially because none could compare to Negan. If a zombie show didn’t know how to write stories about zombies, then it had no business existing much longer.
5 Against: Wasted Potential
The Commonwealth storyline seemed to be heading toward a similar arc we had seen with the Saviors, but Rick’s impassioned speech that had ended a civil war before it could start had us thinking things might be different with this plot.
There were many ways the story could go forward with this angle, and our intrigue level was higher than it had been in many years. However, the final issue petered out this arc before it could gather steam, and we’re left to ponder over the wasted potential that was there and for what could’ve been.
4 In Favor: The Same Things Kept Happening
We’ll elaborate on what we mentioned before by pointing out the pattern The Walking Dead had started to take. When the show wanted to deviate from the communities angle, it then turned to making the characters nomadic for short bursts.
For instance, we saw both in the Saviors’ War and the Whisperer War how zombies overran the communities, and even the final issue hinted this might be a problem in the future. Along with that repetition, we also always saw a distinct character incidentally come across the heroes and then reveal a previously unknown territory.
3 Against: Carl's Story Was Intriguing
It’s a surprise Robert Kirkman had the ending remain so open because the story was pointing toward Maggie and Hershel becoming future antagonists. Stuff like Negan returning or the Commonwealth having something of a totalitarian government had us hooked throughout Issue 193, and the comics could have proceeded from here.
The story would have been different too, with Hershel perhaps planning a sneak attack or attempting to frame Carl for something he didn’t do. Carl could also have been shown to move farther into the world and the comics could have shown us how the larger world was now. Pretty much a lot could have been explored with Carl, so it’s a shame we won’t find out how the Issue 193 tension was resolved.
2 In Favor: Current Characters Weren't Interesting
By current characters, we mean the characters that had existed from before the time jump. With Dwight and Rick’s death, there were seldom characters remaining we had an attachment to, and the character of Carl would have had a mountain to climb in order to retain fan interest.
Even though characters like Glenn and Abraham had been dead for almost a decade, the characters introduced after their demise could still never hold a candle to them. The Walking Dead tried harder by giving us rather edgier characters, but their appeal would never sustain after the first couple issues.
1 Against: No Chance To Find Out The Cause Of The Outbreak Now
Although the creator of the series had said time and again that we would never find out the cause of the zombie outbreak, there was still hope he might reveal this at the end. After all, Kirkman did swerve with the fans dozens of times for us not to take him seriously.
Unfortunately, the series came to a close with not even a slight clue as to how or why the walkers came into being. Now that we have a definitive ending, there is no way we will be having a resolution to this burning question that has already lasted for almost two decades. It looks like we’ll just have to think of scenarios ourselves.