Creator of The Walking Dead comic book, Robert Kirkman, believes AMC’s TV show could continue its story past where the comics ended. The Walking Dead is now in its tenth season, and though it’s certainly had its highs and lows, the zombie series remains a reliable hit for AMC. Its more recent seasons have even been some of the show’s best received, with The Walking Dead essentially reinventing itself in season 9 following a six-year time jump. Additionally, AMC is expanding their Walking Dead universe, adding another spinoff series as well as movies.
While AMC’s The Walking Dead universe continues to grow, Kirkman’s long-running comic book series came to an end last year with issue #193. The Walking Dead comics’ final issue is set 25 years after the death of Rick Grimes and explores the world Rick gave his life to create. Most significantly, the issue sees Carl married to Sophia and raising their daughter, but it also also checks in with various other characters. Maggie, for example, goes on to become The Commonwealth’s new president, while Michonne returns to law and become a judge. The ending of The Walking Dead comics implies quite a bit about what’s happened during the preceding 25 years, not to mention setting up what could come next, and it’s this material that Kirkman believes The Walking Dead TV show could potentially explore.
While participating in a live Q&A with Hey Fandom! (via ComicBook), Kirkman expressed his interest at seeing The Walking Dead TV show continue beyond where he finished the comic book’s story, saying:
“I will say that there’s a lot of implied story in the final issue, with the railroad meeting, and the colony to the West uniting with the colony to the East. There’s some general thoughts and notions that I have for that. If the television show ever gets to that point in the comic book series, and we decide to continue past that point, I’m kind of excited about the idea of telling a little bit more with older Eugene and Judge Michonne and the different things that were in the comic series that could have gone on, and we could have done more with. So that could be kind of neat.”
Seeing as AMC’s The Walking Dead has never been a strict adaptation of the comics, the show won’t be able to follow Kirkman’s ending exactly, but it could certainly serve as inspiration. For starters, Carl doesn’t survive on the TV show as he does in the comics, meaning that to reach this point, The Walking Dead TV show would need to shift focus onto another character. Luckily, the TV show has already managed this by giving Rick’s other child, Judith, a bigger role. There’s also the son Michonne has with Rick, R.J., who while still a young child in The Walking Dead season 10, could conceivably be aged up would the TV show attempt another and even more significant time jump.
Along with following the next generation of Grimes, The Walking Dead comics’ final issue hints at the state of the world. Civilization was already making a comeback while Rick lived, but following his death, it’s suggested The Walking Dead‘s world really begins developing into a more recognizably modern society. And since the comic book’s time jump is so much greater, it allows there to be noticeable change for not just the characters but the societal systems in place. AMC’s The Walking Dead has begun down this path by introducing various other communities and slowly having them unite, but as the alliances grow to include more groups, it’ll require more structure to keep them together. This where ideas like Eugene working to rebuild the railroads could come into play since traveling between the different settlements becomes more difficult the more and farther apart they are. However The Walking Dead continues to progress in future seasons, Kirkman has definitely provided plenty of ideas of the TV show to keep exploring.
