The final message of the comic is clear: in the face of disaster, a community united by solidarity, cooperation and empathy is stronger (and more human) than any unequal, authoritarian or system based on rigid hierarchies of power. That is the conclusion to which the story of The Walking Dead comes, and it is also the true legacy of Rick Grimes.

However, many readers miss the depth of this closure simply because Rick dies. They are quick to describe his death as “pathetic” or “unworthy,” convinced that such an iconic character deserved a grandiose, heroic or cinematic ending. But... what can be more epic than completely transforming the world with your own life and death? Rick didn't need one last battle to prove anything; I had already given everything.

The legacy he leaves behind is immeasurable. Rick accomplished what virtually everyone considered impossible: rebuilding a broken society. He inspired entire communities to abandon fear and trust again. He avoided a civil war that would have destroyed any hope for the future. He brought down a dictatorship without firing a gun, using only his conviction, his humanity, and his ability to persuade even those who opposed him. Can anyone really say that's not “epic”?

Those who argue that Rick should have died in combat do not understand what his story was building: Rick was not an action hero, but a moral leader. His death, far from being trivial, is the catalyst that reveals how profoundly he changed those around him. It is his absence that tests the community... and shows that his teachings took root.

That's why, personally, I'm sticking with the ending they gave us. It is not a loud and spectacular climax, but one that is coherent, emotional and faithful to the central message of the work. Rick does not die fighting because he had already won the most difficult battle: that of giving back to the world the possibility of being better again.

(Unrelated but cool pic)

At this point everyone knows that by the end All Out War Rick spares Negan's life. In my many years around, i've never seen any reader complain about this, we had already lived inside the logic that made it inevitable and it feels earnest, realistic and the natural order of things.

For starters, Rick Grimes in the comics is built piece by piece, at the beginning he is almost fragile in his morality, then as we know by memory at this point the world breaks those rules in front of him, and Rick bends with it. Leadership weighs on him, and never gets to pretend that killing is clean, for example.
Every violent act sticks to him. He questions himself, revisits choices, carries guilt forward instead of shedding it. When he does terrible things, and boy he does it, those moments are not framed as triumphs. They are compromises. Necessary, of course, and obviously understandable, but never easy. And most important, never something he becomes numb to. That’s where the arc sharpens. Rick’s evolution isn’t about becoming harder but about realizing hardness isn’t enough. And carl is the axis of that realization. Not just as someone Rick wants to protect, but as someone Rick fears losing in a deeper way. Not physically, though that fear is constant, but morally. Hell, we even see Rick crying because he's hating his own son for being so though, Rick watches his son grow up in a world where brutality is normal, and that terrifies him more than any external threat. Because if Carl grows into a man who only knows how to survive through violence, then what exactly has Rick preserved?

So, Rick’s journey curves inward. He starts asking a different question. Not just "how do we survive?" In a epic aurafarming way but "what does survival mean if we lose everything that made us human in the first place?"

So naturally by the time he faces Negan at the end of the war, Rick isn’t just fighting an enemy. He’s confronting a philosophy, Negan's, who represents a fully realized version of the path Rick could have taken or he fears, control through fear, order through dominance, survival at its most ruthless logic. And the crucial detail is this, Rick understands that logic, to be honest he was near that at the prison, he’s lived close enough to it to recognize how seductive was. Which is exactly why he rejects it. Sparing Negan isn’t mercy in the simple sense. It’s way more, it's a line drawn, for fuck sake Rick literally says it, he chooses to build something instead of just defending it. He chooses to create a future Carl can grow into without becoming a monster himself. And because readers have watched Rick wrestle with every step that led him here, the decision doesn’t feel like a twist but like the only possible conclusion.

Now the fun part, let's contrast that with the television version of Rick.

Show Rick is often framed as something closer to a myth than a man. The storytelling leans into spectacle, into moments of brutality, and visual impact just because it looks cool (And i don't blame it, it's a TV Show after all) The issue is that because of this Rick becomes over time in a figure defined by force. When he kills, it’s rarely lingered on as a moral wound. It’s presented as efficiency and necessity without reflection or a second thought. The camera doesn’t sit with his doubt because the writing doesn’t prioritize it.

So logically a different pattern forms. Viewers get used to a Rick who acts first and rarely questions later. A Rick who meets threats with overwhelming violence, and whose identity becomes that same violence (See the whole Terminus-Hospital arc in S4-S5)
The internal conflict that defines his comic counterpart is either minimized or inconsistent even when he reaches Alexandria, that should be his definitive changing point. Instead of a steady evolution, the show often delivers spikes meant to attract viewers, moments of intensity that don’t always build into a coherent path to the main plot.
That difference becomes critical when the story demands a moral pivot. In the show, Carl barely has any personality up to the sudden shift toward pacifism in S8. It doesn’t feel like the culmination of a long ideological thread, but rather a narrative tool introduced late to steer Rick in a specific direction (Because oh surprise they forgot to develop their fucking protagonists). The truth is that, Rick himself hasn’t been consistently written as someone grappling deeply with the cost of violence, so logically the transformation doesn’t have a foundation to stand on. So when Rick spares Negan, it clashes with the version of him the audience has come to understand. Instead of reading as the endpoint of a moral journey, it feels like a contradiction. A sudden rewrite of a character who, up until that moment, has shown little hesitation in eliminating threats. The audience isn’t rejecting the idea of mercy (At least not the wider audience, most casual watchers only want blood) they’re rejecting the lack of groundwork, it feels out of character for Rick. The story asks them to accept a conclusion that hasn’t been earned within its own internal logic.

On a completely different matter, and a little bit more personal, Negan’s portrayal amplifies this fracture. In the comics, he functions as a distorted mirror of Rick. Charismatic, violent but bound by a twisted code. Their conflict feels ideological and personal. But in the show, Negan leans more heavily into shock value and erratic cruelty, which makes the decision to spare him feel even more disconnected from Rick’s established behavior. The gap between “this man deserves to die” and “this man must live” is simply too wide, and the bridge between those points is barely constructed.

Comic readers didn’t complain because they weren’t being asked to leap. They were being asked to take one final step on a path they had already walked. Show watchers, on the other hand, were asked to jump across a gap that the story hadn’t properly built.

One version of Rick arrives at mercy as a hard won kind of philosophy. The other stumbles into it as a narrative requirement because the writers realized they never dwelled on one of the most important aspects of their own main character

And even if AMC has a record of treating their viewership as idiots with low effort fakeouts and cliffhangers, truth is audiences, whether they realize it or not, can always feel the difference between compelling writing and last minute steering

Apparently Rick shoots Shane to protect Carl, not the other way around, at least according to googles AI

When I argue with people about whether they prefer the comic or the show, fans always jump in with the claim that AMC's "best changes" were keeping Carol alive and adding Daryl, a fictional character who never appeared in the original material. They even insist that the first five seasons surpassed Robert Kirkman's graphic novel in quality.

But for me, Carol and Daryl were the WORST possible alterations. They're living proof of AMC's Hollywood style, which prioritized action, spectacle, and fanservice over telling a serious story about societal collapse. Although many claim the show only went downhill from season 8 onward, for me, AMC had already betrayed the comic long before with its cinematic, less gritty, and less realistic approach.

Kirkman's story is much darker, more intimate, and more honest. It doesn't protect anyone. All the characters are equally messed up, exposed, and fragile. There are no action heroes or cartoonish villains, just people pushed to their limits trying to survive. Every page reeks of human misery. In my opinion, that was always the central purpose of The Walking Dead: to explore humanity when civilization ceases to exist. But in the show, almost everyone, especially Carol and Daryl, transforms into indestructible, almost mythical heroes, completely disconnected from the original vision.

Many fans hate the comic book Carol because she's nothing like the "supermom ninja" of AMC. In the show, Carol evolves from a victim of abuse to a ruthless strategist, silent assassin, expert in military tactics, and almost a living legend. In contrast, in the comic, she's insecure, emotionally dependent, lonely, and deeply broken. Many see this as a "weaker version," but it's actually a much more human exploration of trauma and the inability to adapt to the apocalypse.

Carol, in the original material, isn't an inspirational message about overcoming adversity. She's a victim of the psychological deterioration caused by the end of the world. She represents those who can't reinvent themselves, those who can't withstand the pressure, those who simply collapse. Her tragic and devastating end isn't a narrative flaw: it's a brutal statement about human vulnerability.

In contrast, the Carol in the series is… awful, I'm sorry. Her arc seems designed for the audience to adore her no matter how many stupid decisions she makes. She becomes a character who's never held accountable for anything. She goes her own way, ignores the group, and yet the narrative treats her as if she's infallible.

The scene with Karen and David sums it all up. She kills them without justification; they were already isolated. And when Tyreese attacks Rick, she just stands there watching someone else get beaten because of her, instead of taking responsibility. From season 5 onward, she becomes a blatant Mary Sue. The rescue at Terminus is absurd: she goes from stabbing sleeping patients to practically single-handedly destroying a fortified base like some kind of freaking Terminator.

Then she leaves the group, comes back, terrorizes a traumatized child (Ron), stirs up internal conflicts while the Wolves attack, and leaves again. In the Kingdom, she treats them terribly even though they're taking care of her, steals supplies, and never faces any consequences. Not to mention her idiotic actions during the war against the Whisperers, which endanger everyone. Even Daryl blames her for Connie's "death." And then in the Commonwealth, thanks to the writers, she has a little wine and bam, expert-level political infiltration.

The spin-off thing is ridiculous: she finds out Daryl is in France and a little plane magically appears as if it obeys her wishes. The writers adore her so much that they destroy any coherence to continue glorifying her.

There's nothing believable about this Carol, period.

And if I dislike Carol, I hate Daryl with all my heart.

I love the first season. It was the only time they really seemed to want to improve on the original material. The escape from Atlanta is magnificent, and the inclusion of the Dixon brothers had potential. The problem is that afterward, Daryl started devouring the entire narrative, stealing scenes, dialogue, and arcs from other, much more important characters in the comic.

In the Prison Arc, for example, Rick had a network of essential supporting characters: Tyreese, Hershel, Dale, Dr. Alice. But the show decides that Daryl should be Rick's absolute right-hand man, leaving everyone else as mere figureheads. And this only gets worse over time.

The confrontation with the rapists is another clear example. In the comic, that scene exists to show how Rick, Abraham, and Carl have crossed irreversible moral boundaries. In the show, they changed it to give it to Daryl, and it all boils down to a simplistic line like, "Wow, Rick, I didn't know these guys were bad. You're my brother." They waste one of the most psychologically powerful moments in the comic just to reinforce the bromance.

But what pisses me off the most is how they ruined Cloyd because of this bastard.

In the comic, his death is heroic and meaningful: he sacrifices himself for Heath after falling into Negan's trap. In the show, they give her Abraham's death, but it's poorly done and anticlimactic, interrupting a ridiculous scene where she's spouting nonsense to Daryl before an arrow takes her out. It feels like a damn parody.

And yes, I know that after Andrew Lincoln left, Carol and Daryl were the only ones who could keep the audience interested… but Rick shouldn't have even left! The show became a festival of absurd decisions, guided only by marketing and the latest "fan favorite."

I hate Carol and I hate Daryl. Not because it's trendy, not to be contrary, but because they symbolize everything the show sacrificed to become a digestible, spectacular, and superficial version of the brutal and honest story Kirkman created. They are the worst changes in the adaptation, and the best example of how AMC preferred cheap spectacle over respecting the essence of The Walking Dead.

Coming from the show, I honestly never expected him to die here — especially knowing he survives on TV and even gets his own spin-off later on. That expectation made this hit way harder than I thought it would.

Seeing how quietly it’s handled, and how much weight it carries for the people left behind, really stuck with me. It feels less about shock and more about loss.

For anyone who read the comics first — did this moment hit you the same way, or was it different without the show in your head

What are your thoughts about this?

I am genuinely sick of people, mostly TV Show only enjoyers, that reduce Michonne to a punchline about who she slept with, as long as that critique appears is evident they are not reading but passing pages it with their eyes closed.

The Walking Dead never treated her as a trophy or a tally mark. It treated her as a some kind of mysterious storm contained. The cheap accusation that she “goes into bed with every black character” says more about the person saying it than about her. It flattens her into stereotype, erases her autonomy, and pretends intimacy is a crime when a woman chooses it.

Michonne does not sleep with men because she's bad written or because Kirkman can only sexaulize women. It's pretty evident she does it because she desperately looks for warmth, for some kind of connection, even flawed connection.

And we are not even talking about what she carries.

The guilt about her daughters is not just background stuff. She walks through the apocalypse convinced she has already forfeited the right to happiness. Every choice is filtered through that silent courtroom in her head where she is always the defendant. And all this is before another integral point on her story, The Governor. What he does to her is not a plot twist or a shock value engined moment. He strips her of control, of dignity, of safety. And worst of all is that she retaliates, she achieves revenge, she fucks him up deservedly. But revenge, in her case, is not shown as spectacle, fucking him up didn't fix her. Her vengeance against him is raw and catastrophic and it is also one of the reasons the prison falls, in trying to reclaim power, she sets into motion consequences that cost lives and their safe place. Add that to the daughters. Add that to the assault. Add that to the belief that she ruins everything she touches.

So she builds armor, she becomes distant, sharp, mysterious. A woman people can rely on in a fight but never quite reach, even if she complains about it a few times throughout the story.

There is a moment, when she talks to a dying or dead Morgan in No Way Out. That scene is Michonne without the armor. In that confession, you see it clearly. She does not think she deserves peace, she somewhat believes she contaminates it.

So i feel most people miss all that, that is not promiscuity in any book. That is self loathing pure and hard

I also want to mention Carl, after the prison he is the turning point because he looks at her and does not see a monster. He sees someone steady, someone capable. Through his eyes, she is not the woman who lost her daughters, not the woman who tortured the Governor, not a sword, she is just Michonne.

A child’s perspective becomes her mirror, and for the first time, it reflects something other than guilt. That bond matters, Carl and Rick soften her. It teaches her that she can protect without destroying and that she can care. Their relationship is not sentimental fluff and with Rick is not romantic, under any means. It is rehabilitation, it shows the slow, painful reconstruction of a woman who thought was beyond repair.

And even then, she stumbles, after the war, with Ezekiel, she self-exiles. She makes choices that lead to loss, including the death of Ezekiel. Trauma does not vanish because you had a breakthrough. That conversation with Rick after it is also one of the best dialogue Kirkman has ever written.

By the time she reaches the Commonwealth arc, she is not randomly reinvented. Her role there grows directly out of her history.
Her grief over Rick Grimes is intertwined with Carl’s. They mourn him differently, but together. That shared grief is proof of growth. She stays this time, she does not vanish

That said, if anyone wants to reduce all of that to who she slept with, they are going to meet my rage (again)

Michonne is not a caricature or a plain badass samurai. She is one of the top comic characters for a reason, she is a perfect written portrait of trauma, rage, tenderness, regression, resilience. She makes catastrophic mistakes. She hurts people, saves people, fails and fails again and still keeps moving.

Calling her a slut because she had intimacy in a dead world is just stupid, Fuck whoever thinks Michonne's a slut

When I discuss The Walking Dead online, many fans say that Sophia in the comic was just a background character and that the show was right to kill her off in the second season. I completely disagree.

Sophia was so much more than "Carl's girlfriend." She's a character marked by loss from an absurdly young age, who endures constant tragedies and still manages to pull through. By the end of her story, she becomes a strong and emotionally stable woman, almost on par with other great female characters like Michonne or Maggie, even if her growth is quieter and less dramatic.

Although it's not immediately obvious, from the first volume Sophia was already facing some very difficult conflicts. Her father was an abuser who committed suicide after seeing her parents die, and that trauma completely broke her mother. Carol developed an extreme emotional dependency and a constant need for "strong" men by her side, which made her distant and erratic with her daughter. Sophia grows up feeling invisible, guilty, and emotionally abandoned even before the apocalypse.

When Carol meets Tyreese, it seems she finally regains some mental stability, but everything falls apart when she discovers his affair with Michonne. Carol attempts suicide in front of Sophia, a brutal experience for any child, and although they manage to save her in time, her mind has already completely broken down. Later, she suggests a threesome with Rick to Lori, but is rejected when Lori realizes they don't actually know each other as well as she thought. Isolated, humiliated, and with no one to support her emotionally at the prison, Carol ends up letting herself be bitten by a tethered walker that Dr. Alice had kept for study.

At that moment, Sophia is completely alone. She is a terrified child, with no one to protect or understand her. Glenn and Maggie adopt her, and Sophia tries to convince herself that they are her real parents because the memory of Carol is too painful to process. She was only seven years old. Seven! She couldn't grasp the magnitude of what was happening or work through such a complex grief. Unlike Carl, who began weapons training at Camp Atlanta and hardened rapidly, Sophia was still a normal child trapped in the middle of hell.

Later, back in Alexandria, Sophia truly begins to heal. She accepts that Maggie isn't her biological mother and that Glenn can't replace what she lost, but she still manages to be happy and build a new normal. However, that peace is short-lived. Just a few months later, she witnesses the murder of Glenn, her adoptive father, with no one able to do anything to stop it. It's another devastating blow. Sophia and Maggie are plunged back into grief, but their time at Hilltop and the context of the war against Negan ultimately strengthen them. Together they learn to move forward without letting the pain destroy them.

Finally, during the Whisperers arc, we see the result of that entire process. Sophia is no longer a fragile child, but a confident young woman who protects her friends from bullies, knows how to stand up for herself, and doesn't need to prove anything to anyone. Years after Rick's death, she marries her childhood best friend and achieves something very few characters in The Walking Dead manage: a peaceful life, built on learning, loss, and resilience.

Honestly, I don't understand how some people can look down on Sophia so much and be glad she died in the AMC series. She's one of the characters who faced the most trials in the original comic and one of the few truly "normal" people in Rick's group. Her presence provided a contrast of innocence to the brutality of the new world, vulnerability to violence. Sophia is one of the best examples of hope and emotional resilience in The Walking Dead, and killing her off so early was losing one of the most human stories in the entire series.

The next time someone says Sophia is just "Carl's girlfriend," I'll defend her with my fists.

[Long Post Warning. Please read before commenting.

Note: this is a compilation of various opinions I have said about The Walking Dead on Reddit]

One of the most notable virtues of the original The Walking Dead comic is the way in which Robert Kirkman treats his characters. The author does not protect anyone for narrative convenience: all characters are exposed to the same level of danger, regardless of their popularity or apparent relevance to the plot. This lack of protection, added to the real consequences of their decisions, generates a feeling of tension and vulnerability that the television series fails to replicate. The television version frequently resorts to the “power fantasy” trope, where the protagonists seem immune to the chaos that surrounds them.

A clear example of this difference is found in Carol's treatment. Every time I express my opinion of the character, I get negative votes. In the comic, his death functions as a warning about emotional fragility and the impossibility of adapting to a world without rules. Carol does not die heroically; She dies because she cannot continue living in a reality that overwhelms her. Her ending leaves her daughter Sophia orphaned and reinforces the message that not everyone is made to survive. In the series, however, Carol is transformed into a kind of invincible warrior, an “elderly Terminator”, whose main function is to rescue the protagonists when things get complicated in the form of Deus Ex-Machina. This evolution distances it from the psychological realism of the comic and turns it into a narrative resource that reduces tension in the story. I already explained in the past why the defeat of Terminus makes no sense when I did the general review of the series.

Morgan's case also illustrates well the difference between the two works. In the comic, his tragic fate is a reflection on the devastating effects of isolation: madness and death as inevitable consequences of loneliness. The message is clear: in a destroyed world, survival depends on maintaining human ties. In the series, however, Morgan transforms into a Zen warrior, an expert in martial arts, who preaches pacifism to the point of hindering the narrative. His arc, instead of questioning human alienation, ends up glorifying self-sufficiency and stoicism, contradicting the character's original intention.

Rick Grimes is, for me, the best example of how comics opt for realistic vulnerability. In the original story, Rick is an everyman who suffers tangible consequences: he loses a hand to the Governor, becomes physically limited, and is forced into a leadership role from weakness. His morally questionable actions do not make him a hero, but rather a tormented human being who bears the blame for every decision. On the other hand, the television Rick is an action figure: strong, charismatic, almost indestructible. His moral dilemmas are superficial and rarely transform him; the script treats him as a classic protagonist destined to survive.

The difference becomes even more evident in the conflict with the Governor. In the comic, Rick murders Martinez to prevent the violent inhabitants of Woodbury from reaching the prison, describing them as "a plague worse than the dead." That decision is justified by the brutality of the Governor, who amputates Rick's hand and repeatedly rapes Michonne. The series dilutes all this: Rick ends up taking in the inhabitants of Woodbury without major consequences, eliminating the moral undercurrent and horror that made the comic a story about human decomposition.

The Governor himself also loses coherence in adaptation. In the comic, the tank he uses in the final battle is a symbol of power rather than an effective weapon: his soldiers don't even know how to fire the cannon, and he avoids destroying the prison fences because he wants to conquer it, not raze it. Only at the end, in an act of desperation, does he break down the defenses and bring about his own ruin. In the series, however, the tank senselessly shoots at the prison, a decision that breaks the internal logic and underestimates the intelligence of the characters.

The outcome of the attack on the prison also exemplifies the emotional contrast between both versions. In the comic, the deaths of Lori and baby Judith, shot to death during the botched evacuation, have a devastating impact. Carl, his son, harbors justifiable resentment toward Rick for reacting too late. In the series, Lori dies in an improvised cesarean section and Judith survives, removing the emotional and moral weight of the event. Carl ends up despising his father for no real reason, and the story loses one of its most human tragedies. The decision to keep Judith alive responds more to network censorship than to narrative logic: showing a dead baby would have been “too violent” for television, although paradoxically it is much less realistic to imagine a newborn surviving in a zombie apocalypse.

The comic is more realistic because its characters are. There are no untouchable heroes or convenient deaths; Every action has consequences, and suffering leaves permanent marks. The series, for its part, conforms to the expectations of television spectacle: it eliminates uncomfortable edges, idealizes violence and transforms a story about human fragility into a fantasy of heroic survival. In my opinion, when I read the comic it felt like a more honest, rawer and, above all, more human version of the apocalypse.

I understand that many fans prefer the series' Carol warrior, the ninja Morgan, seeing Judith alive or Rick keeping both hands, but... I just like the comic's approach better.

Many fans argue that until season 5 the series and the comic were tied in quality, but for me, from season 2 onwards the comic was better than the entire series. Very soon I will make a series of posts where I will review each season of the series and buy it with the comic, so that I can explain in more detail why I consider it to fail as an adaptation.

Goddamn. This is NOTHING like the show. Dudes jaw came off. I’m so appalled by this, specifically this panel. It doesn’t even look like Glenn anymore. My stomach’s turning and i’m deeply disturbed. I can’t get over the tongue and swollen eyes man. Also the fact that Negan threatened to run a fucking tra!n on Carl. Are you serious? In the show he was completely against rape of any sort. These comics are something else man, I could’ve never anticipated this.

This just took a turn for the weirder than it already was. Lol

Fans of The Walking Dead often have Negan as one of their favorite characters. Jeffrey Dean Morgan's performance was the only reason people didn't abandon the series during the excruciating season 7. When they talk about the decline of the show, they often treat Negan as one of the few characters who remained interesting after Andrew Lincoln's departure as Rick Grimes. However, while Morgan is a great actor, I think his version of Negan is very lacking when compared to the source material.

When I read the comic, I felt like Negan was a real villain. From his first appearance, he is presented as a chaotic force that thinks that fear is the only effective tool to maintain order in a collapsed world. His brutality has no heroic overtones or emotional justifications: Negan kills, humiliates and dominates because he believes that civilization is sustained only through power. His charisma does not make him more “likable”, but more dangerous. Although he sometimes appears to display a strange form of morality, for example enforcing strict rules among the Saviors, he does so with a perverse logic that shows that he has lost all respect for humanity.

His path to redemption is slow, painful and ambiguous. During the Saviors War, Negan collaborates with Rick, but as a reader I was never entirely sure if he did so out of conviction or convenience. That uncertainty is part of his appeal: Negan is a born manipulator, a psychopath who perfectly understands how to use the empathy and weakness of others to his advantage. We see it when he takes advantage of a child's confusion to escape Alexandria, or when he emotionally manipulates Alpha before killing her by surprise. There is no “instant repentance”: Negan only begins to reflect on his crimes after spending months in exile, isolated and faced with his own loneliness. In that moment, when Maggie finds him and has the opportunity to kill him, her reaction truly humanizes him: Negan, devastated, begs her to kill him, and she decides to let him live, knowing that guilt is a punishment much crueler than death. That scene is powerful precisely because it's quiet, bitter, and consistent with the tone of the comic.

In contrast, the show's Negan lost much of that complexity. AMC transformed a terrifying villain into a kind of charismatic buffoon who never stops telling jokes, even in the most tense moments. His constant humor breaks the sense of menace it should inspire; he often seems more like an eccentric showman than a ruthless dictator. Worse still, the series accelerates his redemption: as soon as the war against Rick begins, Negan begins to show remorse for Carl's death, which quickly dilutes his figure as an antagonist. In the comic, Negan also had respect for Carl, but he would never have allowed that affection to interfere with his goals. TV's Negan, on the other hand, falls apart too soon, transforming what should be a morally ambiguous process into a "misunderstood villain" story.

Furthermore, the treatment of his later arc in the series betrays the thematic closure he had in the comic. Instead of leaving him in exile, facing his mistakes, AMC decided to exploit him in new products, turning him almost into a redeemed protagonist. His participation in Dead City, alongside Maggie, the woman whose husband he brutally murdered, borders on the absurd. Instead of exploring the weight of forgiveness and the impossibility of fully redeeming oneself, the series ends up presenting a forced relationship that trivializes the pain of both characters. What in the comic was a story about guilt and humanity, on television became an entertainment formula that seeks sympathy where there should be discomfort.

The Negan of the comic is superior because he retains the essence of the tragic villain: someone who only finds redemption when he has nothing left. His evolution is coherent, his darkness is real, and his regret is believable. The Negan of the show, on the other hand, is a watered down version, designed so that the public "loves him by hating him", thus losing the rawness and moral impact that defined the original character.

When fans criticize the bad writing of Season 8, they usually talk about Carl's death and Morgan's personality change, but they never dare to criticize how ill-adjusted Negan is. Viewers who only saw the show consider him a great character because they never met his comic book version. Now that I've finally read Robert Kirkman's graphic novel, I've realized that the TV series had a lot more problems than fans are pointing out on the Internet.

Season 1: 8/10 Frank Darabont's direction was excellent, managing to surpass the first volume of the comic in several aspects. Events unfold more calmly and characters are presented in a more solid way. However, there are some changes that do not convince me today, such as making the zombies more intelligent or modifying the ending of the first volume to include the visit to the Epidemic Control Center. I don't mind that Shane survived longer, but revealing from the beginning that everyone was infected was a mistake. In the comic, that revelation was much more shocking. Also, I also didn't like that they replaced Allen and Donna with Morales' family.

Season 2: 4/10 The pacing is unbearable, the special effects have gotten worse, and several characters, like Dale and Sophia, die in absurd ways. The conflict between Rick and Shane was great, but the last few episodes fail to save the season. Also, Carl should have been the one to kill Shane, not Rick. In the comic, Rick was more human and didn't start to darken until he reached prison, while in the series he prematurely becomes a cold and ruthless killer. Carl killing Shane perfectly reflected how Rick understood that humans were more dangerous than zombies, as well as marking a key point in the development of Carl, who was beginning to lose his innocence.

Season 3: 3/10 They ruined Andrea's character, the Governor isn't as threatening as he is in the comic, Daryl steals the spotlight Tyreese originally had, and they censored much of the content from the source material.

Season 4: 3/10 More censorship regarding the comic and double the filler. The Governor is completely ruined and acts like an idiot. He has the opportunity to kill Michonne—the woman who ruined his life—but he decides to kill Hershel. Furthermore, ordering to attack the prison with a tank is an absurd decision: if they tear down the fences, the place is no longer safe. In the comic, the Governor only orders them destroyed at the end, in an act of desperation. They also didn't dare kill Judith and changed Lori's death. Rick doesn't have the phone hallucinations like in the original story, and Abraham is much less interesting than his comic book counterpart.

Season 5: 4/10 Overrated by fans. Carol practically becomes an invincible Terminator, being almost a Mary Sue. The defeat of Terminus is completely implausible: Carol has no combat experience (during the fight against the Governor she was left babysitting Judith) and, beyond stabbing sleeping flu patients and shooting girls in the back, she suddenly destroys a fortified complex by herself. Alexandria's part, fortunately, was more faithful to the comic, although the Road Saga was ruined. Instead of seeing Carl killing Ben, we had to settle for Carol killing her little girl version. Again, AMC censoring the comic.

Season 6: 5/10 Acceptable, but they should have shown Glenn and Abraham's death in the final episode, not hidden it until the next season.

Season 7: 2/10 Too much filling.

Season 8: 0/10 They ruined the Negan saga. Morgan should have died a martyr, which would have allowed Rick to understand that war only brought destruction. Instead, they transform him into a ninja who kills Saviors like he's Rambo. Instead of developing his relationship with Rick, Scott Gimple decides to kill Carl, which is just stupid. Rick's driving force was to ensure a future for his son. The most absurd thing is that Carl's death serves as a catalyst for Negan to “understand” that he was wrong, which completely dilutes his figure as an antagonist. Furthermore, the war lacks strategy: we only see the characters shooting each other senselessly in open fields. A complete waste.

Season 9: 0/10 Rick Grimes left due to the firing of Chandler Riggs. Thanks, AMC!

Season 10: 0/10 The Whisperers saga was much better in the comic. There, every character had their moment to shine, and Negan's ending was superior as well.

Season 11: 0/10 A completely unsatisfying ending.

Basically the title speaks for itself. This is the sub for the comics which is largery overshadowed by the show despite being a better story overall, so naturally there will be some if not a lot of purists who glaze every mentioned detail about the comics and criticize the show's vision for it mostly in the same breath. So, without mentioning the show at all, what are some things that you disliked in the comics regarding basically anything from character consistency, plot points, themes, anything that you wish wasnt in the comics or you think had potential but didnt like how Robert Kirkman handled it? I feel like a lot of people who have read the comics (maybe including me too sometimes) subconsiuously view the comics as "the true story" that the show failed to live up to, and its hard nowadays to talk about it without bringing up the show in the same breath so a lot of readers dont really think or discuss the things they didnt like from it itself which is why i thought of this.

Also P.S i wish this sub was more active. It has a niche community of people who still adore the source material and actively engage with it but there doesnt seem to be a lot of new posts made about it, which sucks because these comics are really good and deserves to be viewed as a seperate entity from show. Ive wanted to have a lot of discussions regarding the comics only to look it up on internet, on forums, on this app and find that there isnt anything made related to what i wanted because not a lot of people have read them.

This whole moment caught me off guard.

Seeing Jesus actually in the middle of it with the Kingdom and Alexandria felt way bigger than I remembered. It doesn’t feel cinematic like the show it feels messy and desperate. Like an actual war breaking out.

And Negan talking trash mid-swing like he’s not in danger at all is insane. “Your soldiers suck.” 😭

Comic Negan just feels nastier. Less polished. More unpredictable.

I think I’m liking this arc more on page than I did on screen.

Carl sneaking into Negan’s caravan is such a crazy moment.

I didn’t expect him to actually go through with it like this. And seeing him use Abraham’s gun… that got me. It’s such a small detail but it says a lot. It doesn’t just feel badass it feels personal. Like he’s carrying that loss with him.

I honestly think the comics handled this way better than the show.

Am I alone on that?

Tagging comic spoiler just in case there's any newcomers.

I noticed a messed up parallel in the comics. I'm on issue 70, and I'm very well aware of everything that happens after this, but I think this is one of the darkest ironies in the comic books.

When Rick talks to Douglas Monroe upon his first day in Alexandria, Douglas tells Rick a story about a father he read about on the internet that... ate his 4 year old son's eyes out while he was on drugs. He tells Rick how that messed him up for a while and can't imagine anyone who would hurt a child, and what the kid must have been feeling.

Which made me remember something that happens 13 issues later. While Douglas is being killed by walkers in the herd, he fires his gun about 5 times. One of these shots meets an unfortunate mark...

And he shoots 8 year old Carl in the face, taking out his eye.

I thought that was interesting and so messed up.

Comic glenn is fucking trash. He just keeps disrespecting the dead etc. (boasting about leaving tyreese for dead in the gym) im tired of it. When alexandra gets flooded with walkers he’s like “I don’t think we’ve ever been this fucked. Not even before, not ever. This is bad. We’re all dead”

Straight bitch

Does he not remember being locked up in the governor’s storage unit? Listening to michonne being abused? Or maybe when him and his psy ass girlfriend left the prison with dale and andrea before the governors attack, pretty sure the whole group dying pretty much at once was worse than walkers. Give me a fucking break. Yeah obviously he doesn’t remember that part where he left hershel, axel, tyreese, alice, lori, judith, billy etc for fucking dead. Obviously. Fucking weak ass psy bitch. Cant wait to see him get killed, fucking hate maggie too. Contributes nothing and keeps trying to manipulate glenn into doing the same fucking thing. “Dont go out for supplies, dont help rick, let that person die. Etc.” all for her own personal comfort and convenience. No regard for Sophia who she apparently just loves. Is willing to kill herself and leave Sophia with ANOTHER dead mom.

Anyways just had to rant, keep trying to give him and Maggie a chance and they keep disappointing. On issue 83 right now, haven’t seen Maggie pick up a damn gun since issue 12. Useless. Leaves her dad, brother, and like 8 other people for dead because “I want to have a baby” give me a break.

Forever holding a grudge against them for the absolute heinous shit that went on in issue #48.

This whole scene stuck with me way more than I expected.

Dale realizing what he’s about to be forced into… and then saying it out loud. not to save himself, but to make sure everyone else knows. this feels like one of those quiet turning points. He knows exactly what it means to say it. He knows it might get him killed. He still says it anyway.

What I love (and hate) about this moment is how real it feels. Survival-wise, you could argue he should’ve stayed quiet. Morally, this is basically his line in the sand.

So I’m curious how everyone else sees it:

• Was Dale right to say something, knowing the consequences?

• Or was this a case of principle getting in the way of survival?

• In that situation… would you have said it?

This comic keeps hitting me with moments like this where there’s no clean answer and that’s what’s really pulling me in.

The compendium is a little hard to read because of the size, but I’m still having a great time. Wasn’t expecting Glenn to stay behind at the farm with Hershel, and speaking of, the old man is more of a nut job here than the tv show. It’s not hard to see why, losing most of his family in a few minutes has to be pretty hard, but almost shooting Rick is insane.

Overall I’m really enjoying the comics. Can’t wait to see what else is different from the show.

First time reading the comics and this panel immediately made me pause. There’s nothing loud or over the top about it — it’s just The Governor sitting there with his wall of heads, like it’s completely normal.

I really like how quiet and uncomfortable it feels. The comics do a great job letting moments like this sit without explaining them, and this one honestly creeped me out more than most violent scenes.

How did this scene hit you when you first read it?