Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Walking Dead #74Walking Dead #74
Image Comics
Kirkman, Adlard & Rathburn

This issue continues the process of turning Rick and his crew into the antagonists of the story. It's been a difficult build up and one that seems to be working, but only up to a point. This issue actually begins to place a divide among Rick's group from within in multiple places. I like the issue a lot because we are getting glimpses into various situations that Rick and friends are in. Some of them are in seemingly normal everyday routines but it's what's going on behind the scenes that are really making all of this fairly dramatic.

Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle ReviewsThe issue's most interesting development happens early on. Rick tries to give Andrea a gun. She is shocked and appalled that Rick and Glenn had stolen guns. They've defied the rules and broken the trust of the community before they even unpack their bags. Besides the fact that you might expect Andrea to a) want a gun and b) stay united with Rick and Glenn, it would seem that she is again calling Rick out on his power-hungry nature.

In previous arcs Rick's group has called Rick's character into question. Is he a natural leader or just someone who needs to control everything and happens to be charismatic about it? Rick almost let's out the dirty little secret to Andrea that his son, Carl, killed one of Andrea's adoptive sons. This confrontation was tiny but the seeds are there for a bigger blowup down the road. At this point there is no real reason to distrust Andrea's alliance.

We also have the community leader, Douglas, coming into some information about Rick and his group. Essentially, someone rats out all that they know about the things that Rick and the others have done in the hopes of surviving out the in wild for so long. The question now is whether or not Douglas will care. Will he find the savage acts to be alarming or will he dismiss them as being all part of survival?

Adlard doesn't get a lot of action in this issue but he does get to stretch his legs a little bit with some interesting splash pages. Adlard excels in transforming characters from ragged-looking into cleaned up regular folk. This entire arc has really illustrated his range well and you will find more of that in this issue.

In some ways this issue makes me think any confrontation between Rick and community won't be a gun fight. However, I do think this issue points to an exile brewing, but one that will turn to some level of violence. I'm pleased with the build up and this issue's approach to showing the current state of so many characters. This is a very good issue.

4 out of 5 Geek Goggles