Fire and zombies make for a deadly combination.
As the penultimate chapter of "The Whisperer War," The Walking Dead #160 certainly has plenty of carnage to offer. Burning buildings, hungry hordes of the undead, the whole nine yards. But even with all the action on display in this issue, there's a worrying sense that this arc isn't moving towards the epic finale it deserves.
By and large, the most memorable scenes in issue #161 are those set in the burning ruins of the Hilltop. With Maggie and her allies fighting off waves of zombies while Carl risks his life to rescue those trapped in the fires, there's danger and drama to spare in these pages. It's been a while since Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard have killed off one of the survivors of the book's classic cast, and these pages frequently leave the reader to wonder when and if that might change.
Adlard is also at his best in these pages. His pencils, combined with Cliff Rathburn's gray tones and Stefano Gaudiano's inks, really bring the flaming hell that is the Hilltop to life. And despite the intricate, 16-panel grid layouts, the artists offer a very detailed rendition of zombies swarming in for a grand feast. This issue features some of the series' best zombie action in recent memory. The grid layouts have often been a hindrance in this arc, compressing scenes that would be better off with more room to breathe, but that's not so much a problem this month.
Outside of the Hilltop scene, this issue stands out the most during a sequence focused on Negan and Dwight. For the first time in the history of The Walking Dead, Negan is vulnerable and displaying genuine, human emotions as he mourns the death of someone close to him. The fact that those feelings are for a broken baseball bat does nothing to diminish their significance. If anything, the absurdity of the situation is appropriately Negan. Meanwhile, Dwight's disgust for his former leader is palpable, and there's a clear sense that a major confrontation is brewing between these two. And with Negan, confrontations usually result in only one side walking away.
But while all of that material is great, in general this issue struggles to keep the momentum of "The Whisperer War" going as the final chapter looms. The Whisperers themselves no longer feel like a clear and present danger, but more a ragged group of survivors unsure of their next move. Several scenes in this issue involve characters looking ahead to the future and grappling with more long-term problems. None of that helps the growing sense that the worst of this particular storm has now passed and the ending is a foregone conclusion. We can only hope issue #162 will prove how wrong that assumption is.
The Verdict
This chapter of "The Whisperer War" offers some of the storyline's most memorable scenes. The violent action of the Hilltop is contrasted with the once-mighty Negan mourning over the loss of his beloved Lucille. The art also impresses, with Charlie Adlard managing to give the conflict a real scope despite the very dense, intricate page layouts. However, there's also a palpable loss of momentum moving into the final chapter, with too much emphasis on what comes next rather than what's still happening right now.
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