Rebecca’s #CBR4 Review #29: Walking dead, vol. 5-6 by Robert Kirkman et al.
The first 4 volumes of The Walking Dead have mostly been about the zombies as threat. Not only have they explored how humans survive while dealing with the dead, but how they have changed and become hard while dealing with it.
Volumes 5-6 continue to deal with things back at the prison, as Lori, Carl and the other survivors deal with some frankly underwhelming and uninteresting personal stuff – does anybody care about Carol’s proposition of Lori, other than it kind of makes Lori look like a prude that she can’t even figure out how to incorporate Carol into their family in even a non-romantic way? By the way, I had to look up Carol’s name, that’s how memorable that plotline is – while Rick, Michonne, and Glenn explore a nearby helicopter crash.
They find Woodbury, a nearby fortressed city, that appears to be a safe haven. It becomes clear very quickly that it is not, as the Governor, Woodbury’s leader, keeps zombies on hand to fight for entertainment, and feeds strangers to them. Rick, Michonne, and Glenn are taken prisoner. The Governor takes Rick’s hand, tortures and rapes Michonne, and Glenn hears it in the cell next door.
The way in which the violence done to Michonne is treat is disconcerting; this is an amazing character, who is reduced to rape victim because she fights back hard. It’s realistic that the only woman would be the only one undergoing this treatment, but at the same time it sometimes seems that the authors are conflating Glenn’s suffering with hearing rape and torture with the suffering of actually undergoing it.
Overall, the introduction of the Governor works incredibly well, introducing a human villain and setting Rick’s group of survivors up for attack in the next volumes. The safe walls of the prison may be demolished as Woodbury tries to take it over.
Cannonball Read IV 