WARNING: Major spoilers for the issue.
The Walking Dead goes to interesting places both figuratively and literally in the latest Issue 183, titled “And Michonne Without her Sword”.
The issue sees Michonne witness police brutality at the hands of the Commonwealth soldiers, which results in the death of a civilian.
The Walking Dead has been going for a political storyline since the Commonwealth was introduced but this is the first time it has brought up a current, real world, political issue.
I cannot claim to know much about the subject but from the news I have seen police brutality is a very controversial subject in America so to see this being implemented into The Walking Dead is certainly interesting.
It makes this most recent issue all the more relevant, although I do feel like some of the events went by too fast.
It went from witnessing the police brutality, to a peaceful protest, to a riot in just a few pages, which was very abrupt.
I wish this had been established in previous issues and this one just built off that but that does not mean what we got was not good.
I think Robert Kirkman handled the subject very well and it offered even more insight into the flawed political system of The Commonwealth.
Lance orders Michonne to defend the soldiers because he does not want their system to be undermined.
In a real world scenario, this would be a rather disgusting thing to order, considering a man died but since this is the apocalypse and the collapse of The Commonwealth’s political system could be disastrous it makes the situation more complex.
The other interesting event of the issue saw Michonne and Elodie go to the community of Greenville.
There they met its leader Cloris, who definitely looks to be on Pamela’s side when it comes to political ideas because she criticizes Michonne for giving expensive food to poorer people.
The discussion of political topics in this issue was very well done and it being current certainly made it more interesting than previous issues.
One criticism I do have is the scene where Michonne and Elodie are on their way to Greenville with the soldier Jerome, the one who would later beat the man, Anthony Keith, to death.
In this scene, Jerome is surrounded by zombies, forcing Michonne to save him.
My problem here lies in how Jerome got surrounded as it seemed very contrived and just another way to put in some pointless action.
Otherwise though, “And Michonne Without her Sword” was a really good issue that looks to have some interesting implications for the future because it ends with Rick arriving at the Commonwealth just as the riot begins.
I cannot wait to see what his reaction will be.
THE REVIEW MONSTER 