The Walking Dead Creator Revisits the “Saddest and Most Brutal Deaths” in the Comics

[Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Walking Dead Deluxe #83.] “The thing to keep in mind about other people’s children… they’re not our children.” With those words, Rick Grimes seemingly suggested abandoning Alexandria on the final page of The Walking Dead #82. Alexandria was overrun after its walls collapsed from the pressure of a massive walker herd, leaving the survivors holed up in a house — Rick and Carl Grimes, Michonne, Maggie, Sophia, Denise, and Jessie and Ron Anderson — with no way out.  

“I don’t mean to sound so insensitive… but if I have to choose between my child or someone else’s child, I’m going to choose mine every single time,” Rick elaborated in the first panel of issue #83, explaining they would evacuate and find a way to help the others still trapped by the horde. Rick then chopped up a roamer and turned sheets into guts-covered ponchos to disguise the living from the dead, a tactic that would allow the group to push through the zombie masses.

Maggie and Sophia stayed behind, leaving Rick, Carl, Michonne, Denise, and the Andersons to shamble through the horde. But when Ron (younger than his teenage TV counterpart) froze in fear, he drew attention… and was devoured by walkers. Jessie didn’t let go of her son and nearly dragged Carl to death as she was eaten alive, forcing Rick to hack off her hand with his hatchet. 

After escaping their clutches, Carl and Rick made a run for it… only for a swarmed Douglas Monroe to fire a stray bullet that shot out Carl’s eye.

It was a bloody, brutal issue — one made more horrific when printed in color for the first time in this week’s The Walking Dead Deluxe #83. Series creator and script writer Robert Kirkman reflected on Jessie and Ron’s deaths in the latest installment of “The Cutting Room Floor”:

“This is the ‘Carl-gets-his-eye-shot-out’ issue. When I have a HUGE event like that in an issue, it’s all just a matter of building to that moment,” Kirkman wrote. “Also, I’ve got the Jessie and Ron deaths… which are ROUGH, possibly the saddest and most brutal deaths in the series. I mean, she sees a guy she trusts hack her hand off to kill her to save his son. Sheesh! Top 10 at least, right?”

The horror wouldn’t end there. Carl’s gunshot wound — a full panel spread of Rick’s son with a chunk of his head missing — was inspired by Todd McFarlane’s ’90s Spider-Man run that depicted the aftermath of Kraven the Hunter’s suicide by shotgun.

“I wanted to show a CHUNK missing out of Carl’s head. A horrifyingly visible GAP, that was the idea,” Kirkman wrote. “My inspiration for this moment? The ‘Torment’ storyline that ran through Spider-Man #1-5. In that story, Kraven has a giant circular void in his head where his eye once was. It, to my thirteen-year-old mind, was the craziest thing ever. So I wanted THAT visual, but I wanted it to be somewhat realistic.”

Kirkman envisioned “Carl with his head turned with the wound away from us a little so we could see the gap but still assume there was enough head back there to keep the brain intact.” But artist Charlie Adlard drew the straight-on shot that made it into the final issue (and the television series).

“Which honestly, we both know looks like a wound that is impossible to survive,” Kirkman continued, “but it was so striking, powerful, and haunting… I just had to keep it unchanged … I just love the shock and awareness of Carl’s face. He KNOWS what happened, and he’s terrified.”

The Walking Dead Deluxe #83 is on sale now from Image Comics.