‘The Walking Dead’ Was Almost Invaded By Aliens– Robert Kirkman Explains How
The Walking Dead comic book series could have featured an alien invasion. Series creator Robert Kirkman made this startling admission to Entertainment Weekly and if you’re questioning his sanity, don’t bother. It would have only happened if Kirkman had run out of other ideas. Also, it’s part of a running joke between him and the fans.
Kirkman said that when he first started the series, people would write to him and say that he wouldn’t be working on the series for a long time because his creativity would run dry. They told him that The Walking Dead didn’t have legs and that it wouldn’t go beyond issue 30 or 40. So Kirkman would joke that the series would survive until issue 75 and then the universe would be invaded by aliens.
“Oh, we’re going to this until issue 75, and then I’m going to run out of ideas, and then I’m going to do an alien invasion and just kind of completely ruin the book,” he said of the longtime joke.
“That’s when we’ll jump the shark and it’ll be terrible and everybody will hate it.”
Negotiations: over. Season 8 premieres October 22. #TWD pic.twitter.com/XFXEMSF74L
— The Walking Dead (@WalkingDead_AMC) October 14, 2017
We’re lucky that never happened and that Rick Grimes and company weren’t ever visited by strange beings from space. But Kirkman hatched a plan to mess with the fans a little bit, anyway. He added a comic book page of the alien invasion in an issue of Invincible by Image Comics to make it look like that’s what was going to happen in issue 76 of The Walking Dead. To make things worse, one of the series’ best-known villains, The Governor, comes back. Needless to say, the fans were not impressed.
The averted alien invasion isn’t the only surprising revelation that Kirkman has made about his flagship series recently. (Warning: there are spoilers ahead for The Walking Dead comic books.)
NINE.MORE.DAYS. #TheWalkingDead pic.twitter.com/nd5pVvvmB7
— The Walking Dead (@TheWalkingDead) October 13, 2017
As Forbes reports, at New York Comic-Con, the veteran comics writer admitted that he was going to kill off a major character, the series’ current mega-villain, Negan.
At the end of “All Out War,” Negan and Rick get into a brawl. Rick cuts Negan’s throat but the wound isn’t fatal and instead of delivering a fatal blow, Rick gives one of his speeches and lets him live. Negan is jailed in Alexandria but he eventually escapes. If this sounds like too much of a merciful fate to you, then you’d be happy to know that it wasn’t Kirkman’s original plan for the character.
He’d originally wanted to have Rick decapitate him and present his head to Maggie because Negan killed her husband, Glenn. But Kirkman said he couldn’t go through with it because he had grown attached to the character.
While mercy for Negan seems unfair, it’s still better than an alien invasion.
Suddenly @RobertKirkman appears at the #earthM panel! His comic documentary series is doing a Milestone episode “the color of comics” #NYCC pic.twitter.com/EoL19y7Euo
— SYFY WIRE (@SYFYWIRE) October 5, 2017
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