Review: The Walking Dead Compendium Four

 The Walking Dead Compendium Four is the last volume in the series. In this volume, the story has Rick Grimes' collection of 4 communities link up with a much larger one called The Commonwealth. The contrast between a class-based hierarchy and the much more egalitarian society that Grimes had established also parallels the much wealthier and larger commonwealth.

This contrast doesn't make a lot of sense. For instance, the commonwealth is depicted as having body armor, and specialists (including having lawyers as professions that they're in dire need of), but yet seems lacking in innovation, as Eugene, one of Rick's friends from way back in volume one is able to make locomotives work with relative ease.

In addition, we never get much of a backstory of the Commonwealth's formation and rise, which again makes zero sense --- so a couple of high class aristocrats take control once they get involved and everybody else goes along?

OK, so the story behind the series never made much sense anyway. But the action and characters? They're mostly good. We get a colorful loner who somehow managed to survive on her own and yet happily encounters Rick Grimes' group to meet the commonwealth. And for whatever reason the much larger Commonwealth never has had to deal with a huge herd before? The setup felt fake and quite rushed.

Nevertheless, Kirkman redeems himself by giving Rick Grimes a fitting sendoff and a beautiful epilogue that's got surprises, interesting twists (though again, not very believable --- it's hard to imagine a single generation being able to restore safety to the point where few people have seen a Zombie, especially since early on in the series Kirkman makes a point out of noting that even dying of natural causes would turn you into a zombie, and in any reasonably sized city at least one person would die every day), and fine resolutions for many of the characters we've gotten to know.

In any case it was compelling reading and made me put other books on whole while I zipped through it. Recommended.