Spoilers below for the Walking Dead's "Here's Negan" comic mini-arc.
Over on AMC's The Walking Dead, Jeffrey Dean Morgan is wreaking all sorts of havoc, and it definitely isn't just Rick's group getting victimized. Negan is the kind of character who has made himself familiar with all sorts of weapons as the leader of the Saviors, but he is quite partial to one in particular: his accessorized baseball bat Lucille. Walking Dead fans never got to know a Lucille-free Negan until the "Here's Negan" backstory started up earlier this year. Now, thanks to the latest issue, we finally know just how the deadly tyrant first met his barb wire bride.
In the eighth installment of "Here's Negan," the future-villain has mentally compartmentalized his recent past, which included the death of his wife (whose name was Lucille) and the death of the teenage boy who served as his temporary buddy to offer unnecessary sex advice to. And with that baggage stored away, Negan started to lean far more into the crass and libido-driven persona he'd perfected when fans first met him, confidently and surprisingly "befriending" a group of men who'd aimed to rob him. And it was one of these men who happened to be holding a particular piece of sporting equipment that drew a particular compliment out of Negan's mouth.
Nice bat.
And while Negan had already shown off how raunchy his verbal skills could get, things got way overboard after he first laid eyes on the baseball bat. As seen on ComicFrontline, nearly every single thing he says following Lucille's reveal is extremely phallic in nature, which should be familiar conversation territory to any comic fans. (It was only a couple of weeks ago that we got to hear Negan tell Rick about sliding a dick down his throat.) At first, it was just a few mentions of hard-ons, but as the group sat around a fire - perhaps indicating the very first get-together of The Saviors - Negan described his first experience shooting a gun as making him feel like he's got "a ten-food dick made out of giant dicks that ejaculate dicks." No room for subtlety in the walker-filled world.
Just two issues previous, Negan was breaking down and chastising himself as a murderer for killing a couple of walkers, and now he's fully aroused from the firepower he wields. But something tells me guns are going to feel too impersonal to Negan, and he's going to develop the need to get more visceral in eliminating threats. And that, my friends, is when Lucille will almost definitely change both possession and appearance. She's looking a little naked.
As the shortened issue came to a close, Negan thought it was his perverted conversation that got his new buddies speechless, but it was the realization that walkers had surrounded the group. Something tells me next month is when readers will get to see Negan dropping his gun and replacing it with the smooth wooden handle of a baseball bat, further setting into motion all of the events that will eventually lead to Glenn getting murdered. I'm interested to see if Negan is the only survivor of this incident, or if he will in fact keep a few followers in the group. I'm also extremely interested to see how any of this will get used in the live-action show, or if there will be a standalone prequel similar to the comics. I can't get enough Negan, but I'm perfectly willing to let everyone try and over-saturate.
The Walking Dead airs Sunday nights on AMC, while Image+ releases its preview magazines monthly. Just four issues left to go before "Here's Negan" concludes and gets turned into a standalone graphic novel, too. If you're wondering what you can keep yourself busy with during and after that point, check out our fall premiere schedule and our midseason debut schedule.
