Solid Blood 17 Reveals Death of Major Walking Dead Character From Alternate Timeline Robert Kirkman

The mystery of Image Comics‘ new title Solid Blood #17 deepens, as ComicBook.com has obtained a look at the interior of the new series which promises a lot of madness from Robert Kirkman, Ryan Ottley, Cliff Rathburn, and Rus Wooton, including fan-favorite The Walking Dead character Michonne. The weirdest thing about it is… the comic is from another universe. Yes, you read that right: Solid Blood is a series from a parallel universe where The Walking Dead never made it past year one, Kirkman took a lengthy hiatus from writing comic books, and Michonne never became the iconic pop-culture character she is today. This connects to comments made by Kirkman last week when he posted a video on YouTube, detailing the comic book’s discovery.

The letters page for Solid Blood #17 provides more context, revealing strange details about a parallel Earth where The Walking Dead was canceled in its first year and Michonne was then used in a different series. Check out the SPOILER page below to see more of this madness for yourself:

The back matter of the book gives more context, with Kirkman explaining why Michonne is in the comic, and where she came from. He also references the real-life history of his pitch to Image for a comic called Dead Planet in 2003, which was meant to be the original comic featuring Michonne. When that comic didn’t get picked up, Kirkman worked her into The Walking Dead, where she’s since become one of the most popular characters in comics and on television, with a crossover video game and upcoming movie appearance for good measure.

Robert Kirkman has a history of surprising comic fans and retailers alike with new projects like Die!Die!Die!, Oblivion Song, and even Firepower. It is still unknown whether or not we’ll get more issues of Solid Blood after this one, or if we’ll see the first 16. What we do know is that this is a book that will be in stores for readers to pick up, that features a credits page listing Image Comics founding partner Rob Liefeld at CCO, and writer Donny Cates as their PR lead. Kirkman has the ability in comics publishing and at Image itself to be able to pull off this kind of surprise. We just can’t help but wonder where it’s all leading…?

Solid Blood #17 hits stores this week and quantities may be limited, and maybe we will learn more about this mysterious series then.