Major spoilers about both The Walking Dead TV show and comic book are below, so be warned.
What. The. Hell. The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman was on last night’s episode of Comedy Central’s @Midnight, and he dropped one of the biggest spoilers in the comic series as an example of a “fake spoiler” for the TV show. And considering it’s an event that comic fans have been waiting for the AMC series to tackle, it’s a complete brain buster that Kirkman haphazardly threw it out there for the world to hear. So did he just ruin things for Walking Dead audiences, or did he give us something new to obsess about?
@Midnight host Chris Hardwick, who also hosts the chat series Talking Dead, had “Walking Dead Spoilers” as a category, and though fellow guests Lauren “Maggie” Cohen and Josh “Eugene” McDermitt gave predictably humorous answers, Kirkman came out with this.
Eventually a character named Negan is introduced, and he’s going to bash in Glenn’s brains with a baseball bat called Lucille.
At that point, the audience hits a mix between surprise and revulsion, with a wave of groans being topped off by people screaming loudly. McDermitt is amused by the whole thing, but Cohen looks as if someone just shit in her cereal. I’m guessing she was aware of how the comic story went, but still isn’t quite sure of where Kirkman and showrunner Scott Gimple are going to handle the live-action Negan storyline. I mean, no one knows where it’s going in future seasons, but now it’s even more unpredictable than before.
To give a little background here, the survivors of the TV show are presumably going to end up in the safe haven Alexandria, where things seem like they’re returning to normal. That is, until the appearance of the sadistic and heartless Negan, who demands payment for safety. That tumultuous storyline in the comics eventually sees Glenn getting brutally murdered by a barbed wire-covered bat that Negan named Lucille. You can see it in the image below.
Now, we know Negan is definitely coming, and I know I was expecting Glenn to eventually meet his maker via sports equipment. But now that Kirkman has blurted it out on national TV, we almost have to assume that things will play out very differently in the show. Does that mean that Glenn will get killed in a different, but equally gut-wrenching, way? Or does this mean that Negan will be using his weapon of choice to explode a different character’s headspace?
While you’re thinking about it, check out the @Midnight clip below.
Kirkman and Gimple like to play things very close to their vests when it comes to details about The Walking Dead's upcoming storylines, and this is probably the most interesting reveal that either one has ever shared with the world. And it wasn’t even real. Or was it? Dammit, Kirkman!
