Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Walking Dead #67
Image Comics
Kirkman, Adlard & Rathburn
This issue's solicitation teased that Eugene was going to reveal all. Finally, after five plus years of this series we were going to be treated to some sort of explanation of the whole zombie mess. However, this issue starts off with a heart to heart between Rick and his son, Carl. This issue explores and deals with Carl's emotions towards killing his little friend. It's a powerful issue, but it's also very surprising.
Some time has passed since Rick and company killed the hunters from the previous issue. Rick and Carl are alone looking for some food when they begin to converse about their actions in recent issues. Rick tries to calm Carl's conscious by admitting the actions, such as killing other people, are horrible, but not as bad as if these actions become "normal" to the point where they become numb to them. As long as the actions are still difficult to execute (no pun intended) then a person can still consider themselves normal.
While this exchange is extremely powerful it actually comes off as a little strange. Carl's dialogue is too grown up. On the one hand you can make the case that he's aged beyond his years because of the whole zombie situation, but this set of dialogue feels like his character is being pushed beyond its limits. It's not bad by any stretch, but I found myself questioning if Carl would or could actually say these lines. He's been so quiet to this point its tough to say what he's really capable of or what's he's actually thinking. Carl's not the only one who opens up a little bit in this issue.
Eugene is the man who has coached the group into heading to Washington DC. He was working for the government at one point and has led on that he knows and understands what has transpired that created the zombies. Well, he shows all of his cards in this issue and it is shocking. I won't spoil it but there is a massive curveball thrown into the mix in this issue.
The artwork again captures all of the right emotions. There's a lot of crying, some fighting, some yelling and a couple of zombies. The art makes its way through the emotions as great as ever. As the weather seems to be getting colder, the group begins to wear some different clothing and the artwork handles all of this very well. This might seem like a minor detail, but its one thing to draw characters wearing the same clothes for twenty issues, but it's another thing to show them wearing layers and jackets in some panels and not others. It all looks great as you would expect.
We learn something about Carl in this issue and like it or not he seems to be aging quite rapidly. We also seem to find out some new information with regard to the zombies and we learn a thing or two about Eugene I suppose. It's a fun issue again. If you haven't checked out this series you might be surprised at the heavy emotions in this issue but it's too good to pass up.
4 out of 5 geek goggles
