Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Walking Dead #75Walking Dead #75
Image Comics
Kirkman, Adlard & Rathburn

The anniversary issue of Walking Dead asks you to pay an additional dollar for the usual twenty two page story that also contains a fun little back up story and a few photos of the TV show cast. It's worth it because the back up story is hilarious and the main story does what I thought could never be done: turns Rick into the villain. I'm not spoiling anything because this has been building for a few issues but this issue is the final straw where it seems he has totally lost his mind. The comic has other elements that help make the issue the perfect embodiment of what this series has been about from the beginning.

Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle ReviewsThe issue starts out with continuation of the previous issue where the Priest tries to rat out Rick and his group to the leader, Douglas. Douglas won't hear anything of it. Shockingly, it turns out that Douglas and his crew have also committed heinous acts while trying to survive. Maybe someone should tell Douglas how the Priest locked out his parish to die during the zombie invasion?

Later Rick chats with Pete. Pete's son had a black eye in a previous issue and the conversation leads Rick to believe Pete is beating on his wife and kid. Rick finds some counsel with Douglas and even Michonne and confronts Pete. Things get ugly. Real ugly. Rick ends up with not a lot of support after his actions truly show him as having lost his mind.

The argument could be made that Rick still has supporters out there that just didn't show up in this issue. Of course Rick isn't really a bad guy but to read through this issue it is difficult to side with him. On the other hand we just don't know exactly what Pete is up to and that plants a nice seed of doubt.

The back up is tremendous. It's an alternate future for this story drawn (with color) by Ryan Ottley and it is just a blast to read about the origin of the story and then watch the madness of it unfold.

The issue is one of the best in this series. There is even an incident with some zombies and some humans that really encompasses how tough this series can be to read. I'm not sure how a new person would fair picking this issue up but the story is highly entertaining and the comic contains a lot to hit much of a reader's emotional spectrum. This is a great read.

5 out of 5 Geek Goggles