The Walking Dead #80

If you haven't heard of the Walking Dead then maybe, just maybe you've just surfaced from the fallout shelter.  Welcome to 2011. Get adjusted to the idea of auto-tune and all your personal devices have an 'i' prefix.  On the plus side, there's a nifty comic book called the Walking Dead. Yes it's about Zombies but honestly, Zombies are the back drop.  The main story here is how people cope with under extreme pressure and stress. Forming attachments, breaking rules, gaining support or losing innocence; it's all here.

' No Way Out' begins here and that in itself is a novelty.  Something I like about this comic is there aren't 'arcs' per say.  This is probably due to a sole writer, making it easy for the series to progress naturally instead of that sometimes clunky handover of a title between writers.  The closest you get to talking about story arcs usually manifests itself in the form of questions to your friends 'Have you read up to the bit when they're in the prison?'.  It's refreshing to see something so simple create so much hype around a comic but it brings up other thoughts which I'll touch upon below.
 

What's Good?

 

As expected, it is the usual high standard of the series with nice art and great characters. I'd especially like to mention a nice part featuring fan-favourite Carl (who is gradually starting to channel the spirit of Damien from The Omen) and about two thirds of the way in a great double page showing people preparing themselves for what's to come each in their own way.  The dialogue in this comic is fantastic as well because it doesn't do that irritating thing you see more frequently in the big two and get one character to spell everything out every issue, like a derranged teenager filling in their friend on all the gossip.  There are gaps, assumptions to be made and implications here and there and it's a beautiful thing.
 

What's Bad?

 It's hard to fault this book but if you were to walk out now and buy this without previous issues, you'd be wasting your money.  (It also makes me wonder what kept you reading this far.) I can't be explicit enough: Buy the trades and catch up before: you're not doing the comic, characters or your wallet justice otherwise.   Another little thing nagging me is ' No Way Out' - Why's that even there? Why the sudden change to 'Part One' style story telling? This might sound like the ramblings of paranoia but we have had our survivors feeling trapped before with the aforementioned Prison saga and as I said, the lack of distinct arcs really worked for comic.  That said, these are small, small, niggles on a fantastic comic.
 

Verdict

I have to refrain from giving this a 5/5 for a couple of reasons; whilst the comic being a great epic yarn is a good thing, the single issues really aren't for people who are wondering what the fuss is about.  Also I assumed the pace of the issue would lead us up to a certain point but at the end, there wasn't a juicy cliffhanger but rather something that made me go "Well, we all knew that would happen"  If you've been getting the singles and have been enjoying them like I have, I really doubt there's anything I could say to make you not buy this comic.  The abundance of greatness in the previous issues have built up enough trust for this issue and many more to come, I'm sure we're gonna be brought somewhere cool with this like we have before.