I read The Walking Dead: Rise of the
Governor over the weekend and it was awesome.
I should start by saying I love both
The Walking Dead comic book and the television series, so when I sat
down with Rise of the Governor I immediately found myself in a
familiar world. If you read the comics, Rise of the Governor is like
time traveling back to the beginning of the series. You will learn
how one of the nastiest comic book villains rises to power, and
your reading of the comics will be a whole new experience.
If you've only ever watched the
television series, read this book before season three starts. That's all.
Just do it. And seriously... read the damn comics. They're amazing.
The Walking Dead comic book is coming
up on its 100th issue. That's a lot of comics. That's a
lot of character development. That's a lot of shit these characters
have been dragged through. If you've been reading along from the
beginning, you have grown with these characters, and you've probably
forgotten a lot about what those early days of the horrific zombie
apocalypse were like for Rick and his crew. What Rise of the Governor
does, and does well, is transport you back to the earliest days of
the outbreak, it's like going back in time and seeing everything you
already know, but from a different perspective. The twist is this is
the perspective of a character for which you already know the ending.
Or at least you think you do.
If you read this book, and if you're a
fan of either the show or the comic I highly recommend it, you will
relive a lot of familiar themes and events. You follow Blake and his
companions through small abandoned towns, crowded highways, back
alleys, and the rooftops of Atlanta. Tough decisions will have to be
made. People will die. You've been there before with Rick, and you
might find yourself thinking that it's just the same story with
different characters. In some ways you would be correct, but that's
kind of the point. Rise of the Governor is about so much more than
the Governor. It's like a parallel universe where new questions are
raised about Rick and what the world has become. In both of the other
incarnations of The Walking Dead we watch Rick turn into a different
person. In Rise of the Governor, you watch Blake become someone
different too, and you can't help but compare the two men and wonder
what would have happened if they're positions were flipped from the
start.
Read this book and you will want to go
back re-read the Governor issues of the comic. You'll look at that
character with fresh eyes, with some level of understanding or maybe
sympathy. And, if you stop and think about it for a moment, you'll
realize you are experiencing something else too. You will realize how
this Walking Dead world changes perspectives. You saw The Governor
through Rick's eyes. You saw an evil man who thrived in an evil
world. After Rise of the Governor, you will see a good man who
succumbed to a broken world.
And then you will immediately wonder
what the people of the Hilltop see when they look at Rick.
The Walking Dead - Rise of the Governor
Written by Robert Kirkman & Jay Bonansinga
