Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor

This is an interesting book in that I can't imagine anyone who isn't a fan of the comic series picking it up.  The character doesn't exist in the television series (yet) so it's pretty isolated (albeit loyal) market. 
For those unfamiliar the Governor is probably the most sinister of antagonists in the Walking Dead series and the arc with him lasted several trades.  Some will say that the series hasn't been as good since that arc ended.  So with that in mind this book is similar to something like the Star Wars prequels (gag) in that we're exploring how someone was driven to such evil.  How did Philip Blake become the Governor is the main question and the thing that the book dissects.  And it's pretty interesting up to a certain point (which I'll get to below).  So for fans, you'll probably dig this - there is some wonderfully epic scenes that work well in the book and would probably just be too expensive to do on the series.  So for fans - its worth reading.  Not sure you need to own it.

And now... SPOILERS...

Like I mentioned above, this book is advertised on the premise of "How did Philip Blake become the Governor" and so the entire book you've been told to watch him.  And then the narrative takes a hard turn at the end where you realize that it's not Philip who becomes the Governor, but his brother doing it in Philips name.  I'm sorry, but fuck you Kirkman and Bonansinga.  That was an absolute cheat.  In fact, it's even worse is because the whole reason I'm reading it to pay close attention to Philip.  It's a cruel bait and switch and more-or-less unnecessary and I'm not sure that I entirely buy it.  Had it not been for the old switcheroo I would probably highly recommend this book, although given how it tries to be super clever in the end it really just ends up being a bit of a piss-off. 

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