Walking Dead #104

Second X review of the week is from Image and is Walking Dead.  This is always a solid read, we'll see what we get here.

Walking Dead #104

Summary: Everybody in town is still kind of pissed at Rick for caving to Negan as easily as it seems he has, but they naturally don't know about Rick's SECRET PLAN.  I love secret plans...  Unfortunately for Rick, his secret plan, that being Jesus, is spotted by the Saviors and beaten up.  Instead of killing Jesus, the Saviors  decide to take Jesus to their hidden camp(which was what Rick wanted from Jesus to begin with) so Negan can deal with him.  However, since the Saviors are idiots, Jesus slips away before they arrive back at their camp.  Back in town, Rick discovers Carl is missing...  Cue ominous music...  It turns out Carl, figuring his father had turned into a wimp, had stowed away on Negan's truck and hops out with an assault rifle(?!), telling Negan he was going to kill him in retribution for Glenn's death.  Negan tries to talk sense to Carl, but Carl is determined to kill Negan and opens fire on Negan and the Saviors.  Unfortunately for Carl, he's too small to control the gun, and the recoil causes him to drop it.  One of the Saviors goes to beat the hell out of Carl, but Negan calls him off, telling the Saviors that Carl was now their guest.

Thoughts: Oh Carl...  You done stepped in it THIS time!  I mean hell, an assault rifle!?  What was wrong with a pair of handguns?  At least he could have controlled them better!  This was a VERY interesting twist, as it probably messes with Rick's SECRET PLAN, since he can't really wait around now that Negan has his son.  On top of that, Negan can't simply let Carl go back to Rick, since Carl knows where the Saviors are located.  So the question is, what does Negan do to Carl?  It makes sense for him to tell Rick that Carl had tried to kill him, thus demanding a larger tribute from Rick.  But Rick should be smart enough to know that Negan would never release Carl to him...  I, for one, have no clue where Robert Kirkman is going to go with this one.  He's written himself into a brilliant corner, and I can't wait to see how the pieces all line up.  So while this issue wasn't the best in the series, it was a phenomenal set-up issue, one that has me eagerly anticipating next month.

Score: 8 out of 10.

I have to say, Negan may just be the front-runner for best comic book villain of 2012...