Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Walking Dead #120
Image Comics
Kirkman, Adlard, Gaudiano & Rathburn
"All Out War" rolls on as this issue is basically one big battle. After Negan sends in a zombie disguised as a friendly, Negan unleashes his assault. The comic book is entirely an action issue. The comic moves quickly and gives some pretty decent images that captures the chaos of the battle. The issue definitely isn't something to read on its own because there isn't much context for some of the characters and situations. Overall this is a fun issue to read.
Negan's plan of attack is to toss some grenades over the fence and see what happens. While the element of surprise is certainly with him it does seem to fall short of an actual invasion. Of course, Rick and friends are scrambling behind the fence and while some of the community manages to fight back, for the most part, people are just running every which way. Rick gets a bit of a rescue to fend off Negan.
The comic book makes great use of the chaos of a battle but it sacrifices details in the process. Negan could have easily jumped the fence and slaughtered everyone but didn't. Why not? Negan could have used the grenades to take the gate (if not destroy it) and ram it with the trucks but didn't. Why not? Was his goal just to burn down a portion of the community? What would be the hopeful outcome from this? By leaving Rick and friends alive he must know the fight isn't actually over (despite believing it is).
The book dances around the deaths of some characters in this issue. The grenade tossing leaves plenty of blasted bodies but not all are injured or dead as a result. I felt the focus on this tactic of a grenade exploding but not knowing the outcome worked well because it stayed focused on main characters. For example, when this happened to one of Negan's men it simply made no difference what the scene looked like when the smoke cleared, but when it was Carl then you have some drama.
The artwork is good. While the style for this series has been more of the far away shots to avoid having to provide facial details, this issue delivers plenty of battle details. The book definitely provides the visuals required to capture the explosions, death and general dismay. This is a good artistic effort.
"All Out War" continues to be epic in nature. There is no shortage of death and fighting in this comic book. While questions linger as a result of this issue they may play out in the remaining six issues of the story. This is a fast-paced and very good read. If you want war then you get war in this comic.
4 out of 5 Geek Goggles
