Holy shit. 100 issues? We’ve come a long way in this tale of what truly lurks in the hearts of men, and while there have been a few slow points in the narrative, it has never, ever, faltered in its intensity. This issue is no exception.
As we’ve recently learned, there’s another community near Rick’s town named the Hilltop, and the two groups have made a deal. The Hilltop will share supplies with Rick and friends if Rick takes care of the local bully, Negan, who is in charge of another nearby town. He’s basically a mob boss, sucking people dry and showing them no mercy. Rick, who has become a rather hard man, agrees to this. Take out a bully? No fucking problem.
Well . . . that was BEFORE he met Negan. The Governor is a pussy compared to this guy. His partnership with Lucille makes him all the more brutal.
The genius of TWD’s marketing of this issue was the mystery of Lucille. Who is this person supposed to be? The new villain? As it turns out, Lucille is not a person, but a thing. Negan carries with him a baseball bat wrapped with barbed wire, and wait until you see what happens when he uses it on one of the main characters of the book.
Rick and a few other characters are on their way to the Hilltop, but it takes a bit longer than they thought it would. They camp out, and while Rick is watching out for danger, Negan’s crew sneaks up on him and subdues him. They then subdue the others, and Negan himself saunters out, full of snappy one-liners and menace. It’s an odd, prancing menace, but he’s a mighty scary guy, and he centers all of his ire on Rick, since Rick is the leader.
He’s pissed off at Rick, mostly because “ . . . I do not appreciate you killing my men. Also, when I sent my men to kill your men for killing my men, you killed more of my men. Not cool.” Negan’s plan is to break Rick’s team and get them working for him. Part of that is breaking Rick, who has been the big dog for far too long. He needs to break Rick down to pieces to show the others that resistance is so futile it shouldn’t even be a thought. Negan spends a great deal of time completely emasculating Rick, and there is nothing he can do about it. If Rick continues to resist, Negan threatens to have some of his guys run a train on Carl.
But Negan feels he needs to punish them, to show how heavy-handed his rule is. He lines them up and introduces them to Lucille. He then tells them that one of them is going to be beaten to death before the others get to leave.
Here’s the part where Kirkman gets clever. For those who pay attention to the letters column, you are aware that many readers have accused him of being racist, and they point out all of the horrible things that have happened to black characters (seemingly forgetting about all the horrible things that also happen to white characters) as evidence. Negan walks up and down the line, trying to decide who he’s going to kill. When he gets to Glenn and two other characters, he says, “Not you . . . . I’m a lot of things, but I’d never want to be called a racist.” What a pleasant little fuck you to sensitive readers!
But this is issue 100, so something special has got to happen. Someone important needs to die. And here we have a bunch of beloved characters lined up and waiting for their fate. Kirkman chooses wisely, thanks to a game of eeny, meeny, miny, moe. A character who has been with us a long time is murdered before everyone else, and it’s not pretty.
In fact, it’s so ugly, one has to wonder if Kirkman has a heart or not. To take such a popular character and kill him/her in such a brutal fashion is a pretty ballsy move. Lucille completely destroys this person, and it is very graphically portrayed. It is possibly the nastiest death scene in a comic book EVER. And the whole time, Negan grins and mocks his victim. When he’s finished, the person’s head is absolutely crushed to a pulp, one eye jutting out from the mess, still barely attached to the rest of the body. To top it all off, Negan says, in reference to Lucille's taste for blood, “Heh. Lucille is a vampire bat.” The only thing he feels bad about is that horrible joke.
When one of the survivors voices his desire to kill Negan, Negan says that he doesn’t want to hear that someone still needs to be broken. He threatens the rest with more bodily harm and rape before letting them go, staring down at the battered corpse of their dear friend.
It doesn’t get more ruthless than that. Negan is an incredible villain, and it’s a pleasure knowing he’ll be around for a while. Someone had to fill the Governor’s shoes, and Negan does that and more. Hell, he breaks those shoes open just by putting his toes in them.
If 100 issues and 2 TV seasons have not convinced you to read this series, then nothing will. And you know what? Fuck it. We don’t need you. Here’s to a hundred more.
THE WALKING DEAD #100
Written by Robert Kirkman
Illustrated by Charlie Adlard
Published by Skybound
$3.99
30 pages
[Kirkman also mentions something very interesting in the letters column of this issue: #100 is shaping up to be the bestselling comic book of the year. Not any Marvel or DC books. Not some superhero book. THIS BOOK. While you can't necessarily call an Image book indie, it is creator-owned. Don't you think it's mighty peculiar that a CREATOR-OWNED BOOK is the bestselling book of the year? Don't you think that says something about what the people really want?]
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