Why The Walking Dead is the Best Comic Book Show on TV

Welcome back to Why It’s the Best, ComicBook.com’s ongoing column explaining why a TV show, [...]

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Welcome back to Why It's the Best, ComicBook.com's ongoing column explaining why a TV show, movie, comic book, or other property is the best of its kind. To be clear: I am arguing definitively why The Walking Dead is the best comic book show on TV. In future columns, I will argue definitively why another is. You can check out the previous editions of the Why It's the Best column by clicking here. Think of this as debate class, and this week I'm pro-zombie apocalypse.

But that's an easy task, since The Walking Dead is currently the best comic book show on television.

What You're Watching

The Walking Dead is now five seasons into the televised zombie apocalypse on AMC. Based on the comic book of the same name from Skybound, and imprint of Image Comics, writer and creator Robert Kirkman explores (with a talented team of writers and producers of course) what happens to humanity after the apocalypse. Zombies walk the Earth, and as far as the protagonists are concerned, the apocalypse is already over – they lost. Now it's up to a group of survivors led by former police officer Rick Grimes to figure out how – and if – they can live anything resembling their lives prior to the undead rising. They pick up new companions along the way, but lose just as many, sometimes to "Walkers," sometimes to other humans from outside their group, and sometimes to each other.

What Makes It Unique

The Walking Dead is the perfect definition of "anything can happen" TV. It has been made perfectly clear that no matter how central to a given plot, anyone on the show can die at any time. Sometimes it's shocking, sometimes it's senseless, but the show wants to reflect that is what death really is. The show is also unique in that the actual creator of these characters and the stories they're basing episodes on is directly involved, in the writers room, and actually still writing the comic book at the same time.

Why It's The Best

While the general tone of the show was set from the start, with scenes like "Don't Open, Dead Inside" scrawled on a hospital door or that famous zombie that had been cut in half reaching longingly toward our hero, the moment it became the best came a bit later. When the group lost Sophia, the youngest of their traveling band of survivors, everyone looked for her – until most of them didn't anymore. Just when it seemed like all hope was lost, viewers (and the survivors) found out how much worse it could get, as they watched Sophia emerge from Hershel's barn in the season two mid-season finale. In a heart-breaking moment, Carol's young daughter stumbles out of the barn after the group massacred the assembled Walkers within, and Rick shoots her in the head.

That's the moment: it's the moment that the characters on the show knew just how much things had changed, and it's the moment that viewers knew without a doubt that the show would "go there" with just about anything or anyone.

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Of course when I say "the moment," what I really mean is "the first moment," because things like that just keep happening on The Walking Dead. Somehow, the show avoids escalation, per se, and instead shows different versions of the awfulness of human existence. One isn't necessarily worse than the prior or the next, but each shows an aspect of humanity that is difficult to confront, uncomfortable to watch, and makes you question the nature of hope.

Now, that all sounds pretty freaking heavy, and it is absolutely meant to be. Over the past decade plus of covering genre entertainment, I've asked many creators, actors, and beyond what it is about science fiction and fantasy they love so much. They all say it's the way that fantastic moments can help you examine human nature. In the comics, Rick's best friend Shane utters the line that sums this up nicely for both iterations of this tale: "You think we hide behind walls to protect us from the walking dead! Don't you get it? WE ARE THE WALKING DEAD!" The show is full of quotes like that, too. "We've all lost someone." "We don't get to be upset." "You walk outside, you risk your life." It's a cavalcade of hopelessness.

So how can a show without any hope to speak of sustain a story for five years and counting, and why would you want to watch it? Because, just like Daredevil is called "the man without fear" because he's able to face his fears, the crew in The Walking Dead defeats hopelessness by demonstrating perseverance. They find ways to survive, but they also find ways to hope – it just so happens that most of those ways to hope wind up getting torn away from them in short order. That dangling of the carrot and the stick, makes it impossible to stop watching or to turn away, even during the show's most gruesome moments.

And while you can have all the deep, introspective looks at the nature of humanity you want, if you don't have a compelling cast of characters, you have the same survival rate as an unarmed kid walking into a herd of Walkers. Luckily, The Walking Dead has you covered in the cast department, both from an actor point-of-view and when looking at the characters themselves. There's Rick Grimes, the mostly-reluctant leader of the group, who starts off as the likeable and plucky go-to- guy you can always count on. After five seasons, the group can still count on him, but that's more because he has evolved into a pretty awful person at times. He's more than willing to do the hard thing, and that's often a morally questionable (at best) choice he's making. It's interesting to grow to truly dislike the main character on a show, and that's a testament to Andrew Lincoln's job delivering on great scenarios given to him. Steven Yeun's Glenn has had a couple of those moral compromises (it's impossible not to in this show's universe, it seems), but his fan-favorite status is centered more on his earnestness. When Glenn loses hope, you know the sh*t has really hit the fan; he's who fans look to for the last shred of "it's going to be okay."

Daryl Dixon, as played by Norman Reedus, is a character original to the show, who has yet to appear in the comics. He has a different kind of earnestness than Glenn, one of someone who has already seen the bad, and is willing himself past it; that includes the bad in himself, which is likely why fans have taken to him with a fervor unmatched. "Daryl Dies and We Riot" is a common phrase first appearing on fan-made shirts then onto official merchandise, and many fans say they'd quite simply quit the show if Daryl ever bites it (or rather gets bitten?) – a fact Robert Kirkman half-jokes just makes him want to kill the character off more.

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Michonne and her katana make for the most badass zombie killing machine alive. Danai Gurira has lent a quiet vulnerability to Michonne, giving her depth while also keeping her the strongest overall character on the show. Scott Wilson's Hershel went from slightly insane to a voice of reason. Chandler Riggs is growing up in front of our eyes as Carl Grimes, and we just don't know which way Carl is going to go – though he drifts toward the darkness of his father. Melissa McBride's Carol has fully embraced that dark side, but truly believes she simply does what's necessary, and has strength in her outright, 100% conviction.

It goes on and on. Villains like David Morrissey's Governor or Andrew West's Gareth are utterly terrifying. The enigmatic Morgan played by Lennie James is easy to cheer for (especially when he becomes a martial arts fueled asskicker himself), and newer characters like Ross Marquand's Aaron make you want to trust them despite being betrayed by so many characters before.

When these characters feel loss and despair, the viewer feels it – that could sound like a bad thing, but the way the show plays it works well, and the way the actors portray the events works even better. Glimpses of real love, of playful childhood moments, of something so simple as a couple of friends having a drink and actually smiling in a world where, as Hershel said, "you walk outside, you risk your life," are so instantly precious, and help to revive your heart as you watch just as much as it revives those characters.

The Final Word

The Walking Dead is about hope. The Walking Dead is about perseverance when hope is lost. The Walking Dead is about the zombie apocalypse. The Walking Dead is about survival. The Walking Dead is about morality. The Walking Dead is about humanity. The Walking Dead is about base emotion. The Walking Dead is about conflict. The Walking Dead is about the power of coming together. Every one of these is true, and could be argued as the most important thing to keep in mind when watching this show. And that's why The Walking Dead is the best comic book show on TV.

The Walking Dead returns in October.

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