Walking Dead #83

Rick plans on getting out the town and goes back to how he and Glenn once escaped the zombies. By covering themselves in zombie guts they can walk among the zombies unnoticed. Meanwhile Michonne to the dying Morgan about how she really feels. It's not shown, but I assume Morgan goes zombie on her because she kills him as Rick starts to tear a zombie apart downstairs. Maggie decides to stay with Sophia so it will just be Rick, Carl, Michonne, Denise, Jessie and Ron walking among the zombies.

They depart and Ron urinates himself out of fright. This seems to attract the zombies and he gets bitten. Jessie tries to save her son and that leads to the zombies biting and eating her too. Douglas, at this moment is trying to commit suicide and sees the events taking place. He begins to shot at the zombies and yells for Rick to find safety. Jessie won't let go of Carl as the zombies continue to eat her so Rick cuts her hand off with an ax.

Douglas continues to fire away until a zombie bites him and he begins to fire wildly. Rick turns to see that half of Carl's face has been blown off by a bullet. Rick grabs up Carl and tells him to keep breathing. Carl gets to Denise at the hospital and tells her to save him as the issue comes to a close.

My Take: Interesting issue here. I don't know what I think of Carl dying. The number 1 rule of this series is that only Rick is safe in any given situation because the series is about him. If he dies, that's the last issue. Carl has been fair game from day 1, I think everyone has just gotten comfortable with his safety in any given situation over the years. I think it's especially jarring because the last issue was mostly about developing Carl as a character and helping to resolve the inner turmoil he had been feeling about some of the choices he's made during the long road of survival.

This issue also follows another main rule of the series. If the characters let themselves become a little too comfortable and a little too complacent, it's going to blow up in their faces in a really bad way. Take Rick during this town story arc. He was starting to reclaim a life. He had a love interest, he had a home and he had a job. He was allowed to be Rick Grimes, human being again. He and all of the survivors essentially put themselves into a death trap and how here they are. Scattered in various buildings and most will probably die trying to escape.

Back to Carl though. I'm not sure how the series progresses from here. If you go back through to even issue 1, Carl is what has kept Rick going. Rick has always survived for Lori and Carl. When Lori died, all he had was Carl. So what keeps Rick moving now? Does he just keep going because that's what he always does? Does Denise somehow save Carl and now he's deformed? Interesting possibilities for the future.

Really strong issue for me. Since the zombies showed up, I've been dying to get the next issue every month. As always, the book doesn't disappoint when things go horribly wrong.

I'd give this issue an A+.