Review: The Walking Dead Compendium 2

 The Walking Dead Compendium Two continues with the story from the first book. The post apocalyptic story as always is pretty unrealistic. For instance, the group encounters a different community that then attacks them. That community has a freaking tank. One tank basically can make short work of any number of zombies just by running over them. You don't even have to fire your guns (though I will note that most tanks also have machine guns in addition to the main cannon). But what do these humans do? Instead of using the tank as a lawn mower to take out all the zombies, they use them to attack other humans? And since the US military has lots of tanks how did the zombies take over in the first place? None of that is explained, because it can't be.

OK. Let's take the story for what it is, which is a tale of survival. What will humans do to  ensure their survival? And after they've compromised themselves ethically, is what's left still human? One of my friends told me that after time as a refugee and watching what people have had to do to survive, they have a hard time readjusting to normal society. I can believe that's true. But on the other hand, when the nature of the threat is so obvious (we're not talking about invisible microbes here), I'm not sure that humans (especially in the small groups depicted in the comic book series --- none of the groups depicted go above Dunbar's number) wouldn't naturally form alliances for protection rather than try to fight each other instead over the scraps. After all, if 90% of the population has turned into zombies, what's left is enough to feed the remaining population for at least 10 years (and probably more given that the average lifespan took a dramatic drop!)

But instead what we get is hostility between human tribes over and over again, even in the face of an immediate zombie threat. And when the protagonist (Rick Grimes) finally decides that humanity can do a lot better if large groups of people cooperate and work together it's treated as an unbelievable epiphany. Of course, all through the pandemic I was convinced that this sort of cooperation is precisely what American society isn't capable of doing, which was why the USA was uniquely hard hit by COVID-19.

But when I think about it, even that's an aberration --- American society did cooperate in the 1940s to defeat its opponents. It could very well be that the current situation is what happens leading up to a crisis. Regardless, the book is still compelling reading because Kirkman is good at stacking one crisis on top of another and moving events along. That ability makes the book never boring, and characters change in permanent ways. Heck of a lot better than many prose novel series I've seen in recent years. Recommended.