Yeah no one really stands out to me so far as the new general. The only other recent good guy I could see in that role is Abe. Numbers are no longer the issue. Like you said rick can strategize but who leads them in the trenches? Even isn't another war. This group doesn't seem that big but still. Neither did the saviors at first

 

I wonder if these guys are some kind of a group of murderers.

 

Is it just me, or do these quislings seem to be unafraid of death? First it seemed as if they were testing Dante et al., so I assumed they'd back off once they'd judged the group's fighting skills. But then they kept going, killed Doug and the other guy, and then continued to taunt Dante even as he was cutting them down! They must be deranged from spending time among the walkers... I can't even imagine what their plan might be.

 

Oooooh that's so cool/gruesome. Definitely wasn't expecting some maskies.

I have to admit, back when we were speculating the nature of these guys, none of our ideas seemed to intrigue me that much. Talking zombies? Meh. People who used zombies like Michonne? Been there, done that. But this twist is pretty shocking. They wear the faces of dead people as a mask. That's so disturbing. I love it.

Oh man. The next issue can't get here fast enough.

 

When Dante found the stitches at the back of the quisling's head that held the walker mask on, this immediately came to mind. Maybe Kirkman is a Slayer fan.

http://youtu.be/5DMZ7BzrFZ0

 

It was a pretty thin and sparse issue. They pulled a Fall of the Governor Part 1/2 on us here, no doubt about it.

 

I think it is because October has five weeks this year maybe...

 

Oh man I hope it does I really do there is so much potential with the tv show using this as a "road map" so to say

 

It could be bc there were like 2 or 3 full page spreads that had little dialog on them that made it seem shorter.

Regardless I love this issue. So excited to see where the next volume goes

 

on the whole using percussion firearms thing -
I'm half inclined to think the gun is a huge bluff. It's 2 years about + 2 years of time jump; this is 4 years into the ZA. Either he's out of ammo or somehow has a couple random ammo-usable options.

I just think they wouldn't be making the ammo on the road, in the "nomadic" case. Wood camp fires would draw attention to themselves among their undead kin, and even then campfires generally reach temperatures around 800-1000F. This isn't hot enough to melt copper, aluminum, nickel, silver, or gold. It is hot enough to melt Lead, at least, though scavenging large quantities of lead would get rather unwieldy due to it's weight.

If they are making their own ammo in this way, they'd need some kind of furnace like at Hilltop, or otherwise some functional industrial furnace similar to what we see at Sanctuary. It's just not something they'd easily be able to do wandering around with a herd.

What's more likely, IMO, is scavenging ball bearing parts. They're common enough, are "ready made", and not a high priority target to scavenge in the ZA (unlike food, water, or medication).



on Rick being a 5-star General -
I don't think it's the end of Rick. He's a bit rusty on the field as evidenced earlier in this volume, but he pretty much spearheaded taking down Negan. I think Jesus would be the one "on the field" doing the dramatic one-liners and so on. If only because he was the one that appeared to be 'in charge' of taking control of the herd that almost got Magna. I'd expect to see more Heath and such too.

Just remember to ask yourself though; in current society, you *rarely if ever* see the leaders actually participating in combat. The President doesn't go over to Syria to lay waste to ISIS, for instance. Even with smaller scale scuffles, it's not the Godfather to get his hands dirty with mob affairs. I think Rick is closing in on reaching that point; where even in conflicts he's not really the one to lead the battle directly, but is the superior officer giving the orders.

 

and we tell those noobs to read the comics to avoid further ass-hattery

 

They cut some corners here. The quisling thing was pretty drawn out, and we got a few frames of Hilltop. Much less meat than most issues. If they had developed the Andrea predicament out a bit more fully, I would have called it on par with most full issues.

 

F*ccccccccccccccccccccccccccck! An issue came out today?! Full time jobs are stupid.

 

If they make it here, I think we'd be looking at least season 9, so we can keep our fingers crossed. This is one of those things that could go either way. It could either be a great tv visual, or a completely cheesy farce. With Nicotero on board, I think it helps it move towards the former though.