No one is safe in this war.
The Walking Dead's "The Whisperer War" storyline passes the halfway mark with this issue, as the battle between Alexandria and the Whisperers begins to have unforeseen and very destructive consequences. It's great to see that Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard are willing to push this conflict in unpredictable directions, but this arc's unusual structure and presentation remains the book's worst enemy at the moment.
Interestingly, this issue mostly ignores prominent characters like Rick, Michonne and Negan in favor of spotlighting the likes of Maggie and Dwight. Both have crucial roles to play here. On one hand, Dwight is reluctantly forced to adopt the methods of the Whisperers in order to survive a zombie onslaught. He features in an especially strong scene that explores the need to maintain rules and morals even in the thick of battle. On the other, Maggie finds suddenly herself in the middle oft he war between the Whisperers and Alexandria. Maggie has appeared far less often than she deserves in recent years, so it's nice to see this issue making up for lost time. And in general, this issue does a great job of re-escalating the conflict and pushing "The Whisperer War" in new and exciting directions in its latter half.
I'm still torn on whether the overhauled presentation for this arc was truly the best move. When it comes to this issue in particular, it seems as if Charlie Adlard's shift to a 16-panel grid structure causes more problems than it solves. It certainly allows Adlard and writer Robert Kirkman to cram more story beats and information onto each page, resulting in a fast-paced story that's able to cover a great deal of ground in a mere six issues. But the transitions between scenes are often abrupt and jarring. Where normally Kirkman and Adlard would be able to ease the transition by leaving a scene at the end of one page and moving to a new one on the following page, here the transitions occur mid-page.
There's also the problem that the smaller panels often struggle to convey the scope of the conflict. It's hard to fully appreciate the imagery of a fierce battle being waged at night with flaming arrows shooting across the sky when that imagery is crammed into narrows strips of art. This arc may be fast-paced and dense, but that comes at the expense of letting the art scenes breathe. It's not necessarily a worthy trade-off.
The Verdict
"The Whisperer War" continues to be an exciting, unpredictable new chapter in the ongoing saga of The Walking Dead. This issue foregoes the usual faces in favor of other characters with key roles to play in the conflict. The results are satisfying to read, but the dense, cramped art often works against the scope of this conflict.
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