The Walking Dead Reveals Mercer of the Commonwealth in Season 11 Teaser

The Walking Dead newcomer Michael James Shaw suits up as Mercer in an official first look at the fan-favorite comic book character ahead of his live-action debut in Season 11. An officer of the Commonwealth and the leader of the armored soldiers who apprehended Eugene (Josh McDermitt) and his expedition en route to a rendezvous with radio pen pal Stephanie (Margot Bingham) in Season 10, Shaw’s Mercer dons his iconic red armor in the newest final season teaser released Thursday as part of AMC’s 11 Weeks of Reveals until Season 11 of The Walking Dead.

Showrunner Angela Kang previously teased the soldiers who have so far appeared in Season 10 episodes “A Certain Doom” and “Splinter” are just the “tip of the iceberg” of a story that will unfold in the eight-episode first part of Season 11.

“There’s more characters within that group to meet, but we will start to get into them a bit, get a sense of their vibe, what they’re about, through our characters’ perspective. But there’s so much more cool story to come in Season 11,” Kang said during the Walking Dead Extended Season 10 Preview Special in February.

The full body armor and the weapons wielded by this new civilization’s military means “that this group is really formidable, they are organized, they have some access to the materials that you need to create in a uniform fashion, so that’s really unlike some of the groups that we’ve seen,” added Kang. “Because our groups have only been able to do things like that on a very limited basis, like [how] Eugene was only able to make a handful of perfect bullets. But these guys have a lot more going on.”

Eugene, King Ezekiel (Khary Payton), Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), and Princess (Paola Lazaro) return in the two-part premiere picking up from where we last saw them in “Splinter.” In “Acheron: Part I,” the foursome are “relocated to another undisclosed location,” according to the official synopsis, and in “Acheron: Part II,” Yumiko “challenges the process at the Commonwealth outpost, which threatens her future and that of Eugene, Ezekiel, and Princess.”

The Final Season of The Walking Dead premieres Sunday, August 22, on AMC. Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD.