Why The Walking Dead Just Got Cancelled

1. It's Cemented A Legacy As The Industry's Most Shocking Comic

There have always been detractors who have argued The Walking Dead (especially the TV show), utilises the same formula of introducing new villains for the heroes to fight, alongside a new base to protect, with surprise deaths thrown in the middle. Rinse and repeat for nearly 200 issues.

In the same vein, the coveted element of surprise and intrigue is also something that The Walking Dead has struggled with in recent years. Deaths have still been surprising, but readers have seen the pattern repeated too many times before, with the majority of the most beloved entities killed off already, that it's become a case of diminishing returns.

There's only so many ways to keep the world feeling dangerous without death becoming a simple gimmick or the inevitable end for everyone in the story, and after playing your trump card and killing the main hero, the only way to go bigger and surprise audiences from there on out is to kill the comic itself.

So, that's exactly what The Walking Dead had to do. It delivered the ultimate surprise by having its biggest shock not be an in-narrative twist, but a meta rug-pull that fans will be left talking about for years to come. The franchise will shamble on in the countless TV shows and upcoming movie trilogy AMC has planned, but the comic that took over the world is over, in the process cementing its legacy of delivering the most shocking serialised story in modern comics.