Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

The Walking Dead #150The Walking Dead #150
Image Comics
Kirkman, Adlard, Gaudiano & Rathburn

The big anniversary issue of "The Walking Dead" reads a lot like a regular issue. Sure, the comic has a bunch of variants, included one by the book's co-creator and plaintiff in a lawsuit involving the Walking Dead show, Tony Moore. It also clocks in at thirty pages for the regular price. As for the story, its a fairly ordinary one with one sequence of some very graphic panels. This is a good comic book with a shift in the direction and stance Rick has taken with his people to this point. Overall, this is a good read.

The comic begins with Dwight leaving his community. This is an anti-climatic scene because we've seen so little from these characters and been given such a small amount of information regarding the politics of their community. The scene just doesn't carry much weight. Quickly the book moves to Rick revealing his plan to arm and train a dedicated army to deal with The Whisperers.

This is an interesting scene because his 180 comes with little in the book that would convince the reader that his stance could have changed so drastically. People in the community wanted revenge for their loved ones getting killed, but Rick didn't want things to escalate, mostly out of fear of more loss of life. Rick is now talking about arming themselves in preparation of attacking The Whisperers to keep their community from falling apart. But how do the two connect? An all out attack wouldn't be for revenge? Wouldn't it still lead to more of his people dying? If anything it reads like Rick wants an army because that's how things go: there's an attack and then an all-out war. It seems to be the formula.

Rick then gets jumped walking alone. This scene occurs at night by two individuals. Rick fights back with some gruesome results.

The book is a good read. The climatic scene gets the reader's blood pumping a little faster, but there isn't any real danger for Rick. Reading this comic you know that Rick will survive no matter what. It made the attack seem like shock for the sake of shock. However, the artwork makes it memorable.

Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle ReviewsThe artwork performs at the highest level during the Rick attack. Without revealing details, the artwork gets up close with the blood and gore. These are some powerful panels, even if the danger to Rick is not substantial. The flow in these panels are also a tribute to the way the artwork depicts the action and the details in these grizzly close-ups. In other areas some of the details do suffer. There is one panel of Andrea and she barely has facial features despite being the only character in the panel. Thankfully those are few and far between. The comic shines when its most needed so that's a big positive.

"The Walking Dead" hits its big anniversary issue with a bit of a turning point in the story line. Rick reveals his plan to arm and train a dedicated army. However, Rick is attacked in the issue that leads to a very bloody and gruesome fight. This may not be highest level or suspense this comic book has seen, but the images are very memorable. This is a good read and seems to move the overall story along quite a bit. I recommend checking this, over-sized, three dollar comic.

4 out of 5 Geek Goggles