Clare L. Deming

The second volume of The Walking Dead has our characters traveling more than in the first one. Resources are scarce and they believe that they can find somewhere better and safer to live, hoping that the zombies are thinning out.

Rick leads his band as they search for supplies and safety. Of course, the illusion of safety never lasts long, and we see more people fall to the zombies. Mild spoilers to follow.

I think that the best part of Volume 2 is that it looks at how the zombies are viewed by people other than Rick’s gang. They encounter Herschel, a retired veterinarian, who has been keeping his former-son-now-zombie confined in a barn in the hopes that someone can find a cure for the zombie plague, rather than just assuming that the people who succumbed to it are truly dead.

Of course, Herschel’s plan doesn’t go well, and in the end they all find themselves fighting for their lives again Herschel’s son and his other captive zombies, a bit of an I-told-you-so moment from Rick. However, as a veterinarian myself, I can empathize with Herschel’s take on things. Are the zombies people to be remembered and healed, or are they monsters that must be killed? We want to heal or fix injuries and illness, and if it just takes time and a better understanding to get to that point, then why not study the disease and try to find a cure? On the other side of the debate, part of the job as a veterinarian is to euthanize an animal when it is suffering. I see many pet owners who delay that decision when the end is inevitable. So if I can draw a parallel between that and Herschel’s zombies, I wonder if he would have considered his son’s suffering at some point?

The ending of this volume did not have the same shocking impact as Volume 1, but I’m interested enough in the series to keep reading. I just picked up Volume 3, 4, and 5 at New York Comic-Con 2 weeks ago.