 Alright, so this series... I don't think it needs any introduction, okay? It's The Walking Dead. The comic series was huge in the aughts and was still pretty big in the 2010s up until when it ended, pretty abruptly last year, after 16 years going, and the TV show was a massive phenomenon about 10 years ago, and it slowly faded away into irrelevance, though I think it's still... I think it's still going on. But yes, I was a big fan of the comics for a long time, and I mostly read them in compendiums, which are... oh, shit, these... oh god, this is heavy, doesn't it? I thought, but yeah, those four compendiums are the entire series altogether, and I mostly read it in those, and up until recently I hadn't read this final one. I knew the series was over, but I just something about it didn't... I wasn't that excited about picking up the ending, and then recently I just decided, you know what, let's finish that off. I've already read a lot of it, let's read that one last big volume and see how it turns out, and overall, I would say it's fine. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. Now, this one I think the non-spoiler section is gonna be fairly short, and then I will have a longer spoiler section than usual, so I don't know exactly we'll see how that is, and I'm sorry if I'm slurring my words a bit. My brace has got adjusted, and my tongue keeps bumping up against them, so I'm trying to avoid doing that, and just whatever. But yes, for those six people who don't know, The Walking Dead, is just about the zombie apocalypse. Like, there's this small town sheriff's deputy named Rick Grimes, who is shot one day, and then wakes up in the hospital like a month later, and everyone's gone, everyone's dead, and dead people are up and walking around. And apparently this universe is a world where the zombie trope doesn't exist in media, so they've never seen movies or anything with zombies, so they're like, oh, shit, these things. Well, that's horrifying, and they need to figure out how to deal with it. And then right after that, Rick sets off, manages to meet up with his family, and then the whole rest of the series is basically just them surviving. There's no bigger goal that they're working towards. They aren't trying to find a cure or rebuild the government or anything like that. It's basically just them surviving. And that's kind of an issue with something that's this long. I'll get a little bit more into that in a minute, but yeah, that's a problem. It's also a little annoying to me, and I know this might not bother everybody, but it is annoying to me that we didn't get a chance to see the world actually fall apart. Like, we see the world very briefly when it's normal, and then we see the whole world after it's gone to shit, but we don't see it slowly fall to pieces. Like, we don't see, okay, it's starting to get worse, and then the government collapses, and then every man for himself, and then a whole bunch more people start dying until it's just a small group of survivors who know what they're doing, which I get that not everyone wants to see that, but personally, I would have enjoyed it. Now, this series can be split into like five or six major arcs, depending on how you measure it. Like, there's the beginning arc where they're wandering around for a little while, and then they reach a prison, an abandoned prison, and manage to make that their home for a while, and then they have to leave and they're wandering around for a while longer, and then they reach this place called Alexandria, which is another settlement, and they manage to live there for a bit, and like, just depending on how you cut it up, you can say it's split into more or less arcs, but generally, I think five or six is a good number, and after a while, like, I really, really love the first couple. Don't get me wrong. And my personal favorite actually comes later on, but while I was reading this final compendium, this final volume, it just wasn't clicking with me quite the same way, and I was trying my damnedest to think about what exactly it was, because all of the characters were still pretty strong. All of the violence and all that was about the same, you know, it wasn't getting like excessively dark, or well, not more excessively dark. The series does turn into misery porn at a few points, and it's just depressing to read, which is a bit of an obstacle. But, you know, it wasn't getting worse near the end or anything like that. It was staying kind of the same, and that's when it hit me, oh, it's the same. Like, every story arc, while there are some variations, is kind of the same. There's a group of bad humans who are out there trying to kill the good guys, and the good guys have to fight them. And I'm simplifying a bit, I know, but it really is not that, they're not that different from one another, and that wouldn't have been a problem had the series not gone on for so long. Like, if you had basically just cut out this last compendium, or cut out the bulk of it, and just skipped straight to the final arc after the third one, then I think this would have been a lot better pacing-wise. But just, well, yeah, I don't have a whole lot else to say. Like, it kind of becomes repetitive. It's the same things happening over and over again. Like, they introduce new characters, and most of the time, they just wind up getting killed. You know, whether they get a little bit of characterization or not, they almost always just wind up dying, and sometimes it's shocking. Even at the end, there's one or two shocking deaths, but yeah, it's really only at the beginning that they really hit you with that, oh man, I was not expecting him to go, that sucks. So after a while, the shock just wears off, and well, yeah, there's nothing more I can add to that. It's just, it should have been a lot shorter, but as it stands, every individual arc is still good. You know, each individual arc still, well, not all of them, but most individual arcs still have some goal that they're working towards, which is very helpful, and most individual arcs have some internal pacing that's pretty good, and they all have some action which is fun, because the action in the series is really good. Even near the end, it was getting to be pretty tense, and the fighting is more than just, oh shit, here's a horde of zombies, or here's bunch of people, let's defeat them by being badasses. They usually have to be a lot smarter than that, and you can see their progression from the beginning to the end, where they just aren't really scared of the zombies anymore near the end, or well, they still have a healthy fear of them, but they aren't going to be paralyzed by seeing two or three at a time. They're like, oh, okay, let's just get out our weapons and take care of them. It's not that big a deal anymore. I think the strongest part of this series is the characterization, because even more minor characters do have some personality to them, and the major ones, the major ones that last very long at least, also have a lot of personality to them, and they're pretty flawed human beings overall, like even Rick and the main good guy characters do some pretty awful things now and again, and it's never made 100% clear one way or the other whether they're doing the right thing. So yeah, okay, I enjoyed that, and well no, that's just about it. The characters in this are extremely strong, like even though a lot of them were just being introduced just to get killed off, I understood that, but they were still enjoyable to read about. They have some good conversations with one another. They sometimes can be super badass. They can sometimes be really kind. The only thing that bothered me was the constant romantic interactions, like someone's leaving something else or someone else for a different person, or there's some marital problems between these two people. I just didn't care that much, and it doesn't get that much focus, thankfully, but still, it could have been a lot better. So the main two characters that I just really will remember for a long time is the main one, Rick Grimes, and his son, Carl Grimes. Now, Rick, like I said, was just a small town cop. He's not cut out for all the stuff that's going on, but he just says, okay, like, I'm gonna survive. I'm gonna survive. I'm gonna get my kid through this. I'm gonna get my friends through this, and we're just gonna start rebuilding. And that last part is what really stuck with me with him, because, excuse me, my mouth is getting really dry right now. I don't know why, but Rick does not want to resort to violence all the time, especially after the beginning of a series. Like, he always wants to talk things out. He tells people all the time, like, hey, we don't have to fight. We can share. We don't have to take. We can share. We can work together. It's not us versus us. It's us versus the zombies, okay? They're gonna kill all of us if we don't figure this out and come together. And that's just a really solid through line that he keeps throughout. Even though his character and personality does change throughout this, his desire for peace stays consistent. And when I think back on Rick, I'm not gonna think back on the successes that came from him being violent and from him fighting really well, because there are some of those. Don't get me wrong. He's not a pussy. He can fight when he needs to. But I'm not gonna be thinking about those. I'm gonna be thinking about his much bigger successes, which came when he was able to bring people together for a common purpose. Like, he's a natural born leader. He's phenomenal at what he does. And so yeah, for that reason, I think he made a pretty great protagonist to follow throughout all of this. And I'm glad that he was the main character. Now, his son, Carl, starts off as really, really young kid. And you see him just be dumped into this world full of violence and constant death and fear. And we see him try to adjust to this and how much difficulty he has doing that is, uh, well, that's, that's something to behold, let me tell you. But, excuse me, we also see him grow up a little and start to realize, okay, I don't, I'm not a little kid anymore. I don't need to be as afraid as I was, but at the same time, he's kind of angry at not only his dad, but at the world and at other people. And we see him as a surly teenager, sort of get over that and also become a better person partially through his father's influence. And I can't really get into a whole lot of that without spoilers. But yeah, Carl Grimes, also a really phenomenal character. And there are a couple of major villains in this too. There's obviously tons of minor ones, including the zombies, but the major villains are for the most part good. Like, uh, there's one called the governor who is the first major villain who is kind of just a psycho, but he's really good at being a psycho. So it worked. There's another one called Negan who I'll have to talk about in the spoiler section, but he's a absolutely phenomenal villain. Like, you really feel that, yes, he feels as though he's doing the right thing, but he's also a bully and a little bit of a sadist. So he's not a good person. And there's this woman called Alpha who was very disappointing. But for the most part, the villains in this are just like the main characters where they have some personality and you kind of get where they're coming from. You know, everyone's just doing what they have to to survive here. And some people decided that the best way to do that was to take from others. So I think that about wraps up the non-spoiler portion of this. Would I recommend this? Only if you're looking for something that's really, really dark, like something Berserk level levels of dark, I think you would probably enjoy this. But even then the plot does not have a whole lot of focus. And sometimes it just turns into misery porn, because at least with Berserk, all of the darkness and violence and all that is serving a purpose. Whereas in this, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. So just be aware of that and be aware that it's super long, but there are a couple of good points in the middle where I think you can just stop and say, okay, yeah, that's that's the end. They all have happily ever after. And that would work pretty well. But yeah, if you're not looking into that, then I don't recommend it. Or if you're just not a fan of zombie stuff, I don't blame you and I don't recommend it. Now onto spoilers. So let's talk about that final arc for a little bit. Basically, after Rick and them have been wandering around for a long time, they found Alexandria, like I said earlier, and they managed to build that up into a network of communities which all work together and protect one another. It's more of an alliance than anything, like they each have their own leaders, but they all pretty clearly respect Rick and they all work together pretty well. This group of people who wear zombie skins and are convinced that humanity are just animals. We need to get rid of civilization and all that, come along. And at first I thought, okay, this will be a really great big arc, but it winds up being over really quickly. Like it's a lot of stuff happens and it don't get me wrong, but it's mostly just like the whispers and a zombie horde attack the settlements and cause a lot of damage. Like their leader Alpha dies pretty quickly and without much fanfare, and then the second in command takes over, but he also dies pretty quickly and without much fanfare. So that's disappointing, but the actual final final arc is where they find another network of communities over in Ohio, which is huge, way bigger than theirs. It's about 50,000 people and it calls itself the Commonwealth, and they kind of enter into negotiations to let themselves enter the Commonwealth. And the Commonwealth has some pretty severe problems with a class stratification and the right on the brink of a civil war. And so Rick basically has to step in and get everybody to calm down without killing each other because the zombies are the real enemy. And overall, I think this is a pretty solid arc. I liked that it was a little more complicated than just these are the bad guys, let's fight them. And well, no, no, that's about it. It's just I liked that it was a little more complicated. There was still some action, though, so don't worry about that. And I liked, again, just seeing how Rick is always saying to people, hey, come together, there's no need to fight, we need to share rather than take. But then Rick is assassinated afterwards. And the guy who did it is caught and put into jail for forever. You know, he's never getting out. And then it just cuts forward like 20 years or something. And Carl is a grown man. And the world has been more or less pretty well rebuilt, not all the way, but pretty well rebuilt. The zombies aren't really a threat anymore. They're starting to link up more and more settlements. And things are working out pretty well. And Carl just sees that there's a traveling circus with some zombies as I don't know, attractions or something. And he kills all of them. And he gets in trouble for that because that's destruction of private property. But he says, like, hey, these things aren't pets. We have to treat them as the threat that they are. Otherwise, all of this stuff that we built will come crashing down again. And a lot of people like look at Carl as, wow, he's the son of Rick Grimes. Rick Grimes is the man who made all of this possible. He brought everyone together and all that. And it just ends with Carl telling stories to his daughter about Rick Grimes and how amazing he was. And we get the sense that, like, yeah, Carl really misses his dad, but he's really proud of his dad. He's glad that his dad was there to build all of this. And it couldn't have been done without him. And so basically it just ends the same way as World War Z, where the zombies are still around. They're still a threat, but humans have just learned to deal with it. And so I think for a long-running series like this that isn't really building towards anything, I think that's about the best ending you could have done. And it's pretty solid. Don't get me wrong. But it's not amazing. A few months ago, I reviewed Why the Last Man, which was another comic series. And that one was kind of building towards something. But when we got there, it was done in a very unsatisfying way. And it just kind of felt like, yep, life sucks. That's it. Life sucks. And so a lot of people in the comments were saying, like, yeah, it's difficult to find a serialized comic that actually ends in a decent way. So I think this one we got with The Walking Dead was about as good as we could hope for. And finally, to close out the spoiler section, I got to talk a little bit about Negan. Now, he's amazing villain. Crazy manchild, loves just swearing a lot. He loves inflicting violence on people. But you can clearly tell that he does feel responsibility for the people underneath him. He really does want to protect them and want to provide for them. And he does have his own moral code. It's kind of twisted, but he does have it. And so he's not the worst guy ever. I would still say he's a bad person personally. Excuse me. But he's not the worst guy ever. And after the all out war arc where Rick and the others finally overthrow him and bring about the peace that they can start rebuilding, rather than killing Negan, they put him in prison. And he's in there for several years. And at first, I didn't like that they kept showing him in prison because, well, it just felt kind of like the, let's call it the Silor effect, where if you've ever read the, or excuse me, if you ever watched the TV show Heroes, there was a villain in the first season called Silor who was basically just going around killing people and taking their powers. And it was, he was a really solid villain because for a long time no one knew what he looked like. No one knew what his real name was. They didn't know exactly how many powers he had. All they knew was that he was very difficult to find and very strong. And he was killing people. And once you do meet him and get some of his backstory and everything, he's still a really creepy solid villain. But after the first season, they didn't really know what to do with him, but they still kept him around and kept him doing stuff. And it was just really obnoxious and awkward. And it took away from what was a really phenomenal villain. And I was afraid they were going to do the same thing with Negan. But no, they actually took it in a different direction. Like he leaves prison and he actually starts helping out Alexandria and them. And it becomes more of a story of can someone like that be rehabilitated and can someone like that be redeemed. And in that way, Negan's storyline kind of parallels Rick's because, excuse me, because Rick has also done a whole lot of violent stuff, mostly at the beginning of the series. But then he keeps telling people come together. We don't need to fight. He becomes a peace broker. And Negan, he doesn't really become a leader again after that. But he also becomes a man of peace. He doesn't need to go out killing people. He doesn't need to bully others into submission anymore. And so, yeah, I think his character arc was really good, really solid. I liked where it ended up. So that's about all I have to say. Like I said, Walking Dead really long. This is just one quarter of it right here. And really good series, I would say overall, but does have a lot of issues, mostly with plotting and pacing. And it just gets repetitive. So if you're into dark stuff, if you're into zombie stuff, then I'd say sure, maybe go ahead and read through this. And like I told the non spoiler people, there's a couple of good stopping points. I think you might be able to check online and see that. But I would say after they reach Alexandria and make it safe, that's a good stopping point. And the end of the all out war arc is also a good stopping point. But it's up to you at the end of the day. I think this is solid series. But there's not a whole lot of people who would love it, love it. Thanks to everyone for watching another long comic review of mine. And thanks to everyone on my Patreon list as well, including but not limited to Oppo Savalainen, Alex Humva, Ashley Watson, Ava Tumor, Bee Quinn, Brother Santotys, Christopher Quinten, Emily Miller, Joel, Johnny St. Clair, Madison Lewis Bennett, Ronnie, Sarkis Avakian, Taylor Briggs, Tobacco Crow, Tom Beanie, Topher Wheeler, Vacuous Silas, and Vaivictus. You guys are pretty cool. And I've been needing to do more comic reviews. And I keep meaning to do some manga reviews as well. But, you know, it's difficult to find a good time to fit it into the schedule. And it's difficult to find ones that people know about and will watch. So I don't know if you want more of this, then just let me know. Share this video around, like the video, comment on it, all that stuff I'm supposed to say at the end here. And anyways, thanks for watching. See you later. Bye.