History ComicBook / TheWalkingDead

* EverybodysDeadDave

* EvilCounterpart: The Governor is arguably one of these for Rick. The Cannibals are this for the group in general.

* UndeadChild: At least three parents, Hershel, The Governor and [[spoiler:Morgan]], keep their children around after they turn. See WhatHappenedToMommy below.

* DisasterDemocracy

* DropTheHammer: Tyreese.

* TheDulcineaEffect: Carl falls for this extremely hard of Lydia, bonding with her when they're both locked up, defending her over the lives of two residents of Hilltop, and throwing away everything to be with her after knowing her for less than two days.

* DaylightHorror: Discussed in issue seven. Rick complains when it begins to get dark and cloudy. Glenn welcomes the clouds because he considered the previous bright, sunny weather to be "a contradiction" to the terror around them.

** Also happens in the very first issue when Rick wakes up in the hospital and discovers that the cafeteria is full of Walkers.

* AccidentalAdultery: Rick's wife Lori [[GladToBeAliveSex sleeps with]] best friend Shane when Rick is presumed dead. It plays more like standard adultery than most examples of this trope, since it had only been a few days or weeks and they have no evidence for Rick's death beyond, "yo, zombies." When Rick returns, Lori considers it a mistake and wants [[LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain to forget it ever happened]], but Shane [[MurderTheHypotenuse has other ideas]].

* AbandonedHospitalAwakening: The first issue starts with Rick getting shot, then awakening weeks later to find the hospital completely deserted. While looking for help, Rick finds a rotting corpse in an elevator and things quickly go FromBadToWorse.

* SlowlySlippingIntoEvil: Rick gets distressingly more amoral with each passing issue as he suffers more and more.
* SmallSecludedWorld: Relatively speaking, the plot is limited to part of the U.S East Coast and Midwest. With no long-range communication and travel being severly hampered by the walker hordes, even after the time skip, there's no hint to the fate of the rest of the U.S, much less the rest of the world.

* TheSneakyGuy: Glenn.

* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Negan has no qualms about [[spoiler:beating people's heads in with a baseball bat]] but refuses to let one of his men rape his prisoner.

* RoomFullOfZombies: Happens when Rick and the crew find a seemingly safe gated community.

* AbandonedHospitalAwakening: The first issue starts with Rick getting shot, then awakening weeks later to find that things have changed.

* OffModel: Several times, [[spoiler:Rick's non-hand is shown as a real hand post-amputation]].

* MilitaryAreUseless: The U.S armed forces (and presumably those in other countries) were completely useless at pushing back the ZombieApocalypse, to the point that by the time Rick wakes up in the hospital, they appear to have been wiped out completely. According to different survivors, the main strategy appears to have been to concentrate uninfected civilians in the cities so the army could easier defend them, which just led to the zombies multiplying out of control and made the urban centers near-total death zones. Military survivors are also very rare, as few of them seem to have managed to make it through the apocalypse.

There is also a {{live action|adaptation}} television series that is based on, but also [[AlternateContinuity deviates a bit]] from the comic; [[Series/TheWalkingDead it has its own page]]. There is also an episodic {{adventure game}} series by Creator/TelltaleGames set in the same universe as the comic. [[VideoGame/TheWalkingDead It also has its own page.]] Kirkman has also co-written a planned trilogy of prequel novels to the series, the first one being ''[[Literature/TheWalkingDeadRiseOfTheGovernor Rise of the Governor]]''. The second, ''[[Literature/TheWalkingDeadTheRoadToWoodbury The Road to Woodbury]]'', was released in October 2012 and the final novel of the Governor trilogy, ''[[Literature/TheWalkingDeadFallOfTheGovernor The Fall of the Governor]]'' in 2013. Subsequent releases have been ''[[Literature/TheWalkingDeadDescent Descent]]'' and ''[[Literature/TheWalkingDeadInvasion Invasion]]'', with others likely on the way.

** Hershel's unseen son Shawn, who was mentioned as having died not long before the events of the comics, is present in the first episode of [[VideoGame/TheWalkingDead Telltale's adaption]], and as a major character at that.

* KillEmAll: By the time the eighth arc was over, a large chunk of the cast had been killed off. Of the original group, the only ones left by the final issue are [[spoiler:Carl and Sophia]].

* LeaveNoSurvivors: Both [[spoiler:the Governor and Beta]] give this order when fighting against Rick's group, settling for nothing short of KillEmAll. [[spoiler:Both come dangerously close to accomplishing it as well.]]

** After months of quiet [[spoiler:the inhabitants of the prison look up to see the Governor advancing towards them on a Bradley IFV screaming for his soldiers to KillEmAll]].

* BatterUp: [[WeaponOfChoice Negan's weapon of choice.]] [[ICallItVera It's a love affair, really.]]

* WeaponOfChoice: Rick's hatchet, Tyreese's hammer, Andrea's hunting rifle, Michonne's katana, Dwight's crossbow, and of course, Negan's barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat, Lucille.

[[caption-width-right:350:''[[HeWhoFightsMonsters "You think we hide behind walls to protect us from the walking dead!]] [[DoubleMeaningTitle Don't you get it?]] '''[[TitleDrop We ARE the walking dead!]]'''"'']]

* DeathOfAChild: All the child characters besides [[spoiler:Carl and Sophia]] have died so far. However, only one child death is seen [[spoiler:in Issue 83]].

* GroinAttack: Reasonably common, and usually unreasonably horrible. An example would be when Eugene bites Dwight's crotch so hard it draws blood, and refuses to let go of it in issue 98.

** As it turns out, dragging a violent and mentally unstable person around with you and allowing him to walk about freely is '''not''' a good idea. [[spoiler:Patricia learns this the hard way when she takes a little ''too much'' pity on the extremely dangerous Thomas.]]
** The Governor had his men learn how to drive a tank, which took months, but they never quite figured how to shoot with it since no one has military experience.
** Speaking of the Governor, during the prison assault Rick's crew has a major advantage mostly because the Woodbury soldiers are not well-trained people, and a lot of them die before they can even get to the fences. But [[spoiler:the Governor manages to turn the battle into his favor by ramming a tank into the prison walls, bringing them down and compromising the place before going on a hero-killing spree, with only Rick and Carl managing to escape alive]].
** Just because you are commanding an entire army of citizens (most of whom never had any combat training before) does not mean that they will mindlessly follow your orders. [[spoiler:After Lilly reluctantly kills Lori and, by accident, her infant daughter, she ''breaks down in tears'', turns against the Governor and shoots him in the head]].

** Even if you are a hailed hero with many good deeds to be remembered, you can still meet an untimely and outright ''disgraceful'' death. Just ask [[spoiler:Rick Grimes himself, who, having survived the prison onslaught, the All Out War and the Whisperer War and also done many useful things to many communities, ends up gunned down by Pamela's angsty son Sebastian in his own bed]].
** Zombies rot over time rather than just walking around forever. It would seem that shambling corpses that are barely sentient and just mindlessly wonder through the wilderness trying to eat people don't stay in good condition for long. [[spoiler:By the time Issue 193 rolls around, ''two decades'' have passed after the start of the apocalypse and humans are now greatly outnumbering zombies, with the only walkers who ''are'' left kept caged like circus freaks to show people how the world used to be.]]
** [[spoiler:And even then, one of these walkers manages to break away and shamble on adult Carl's territory, showing that while not as feared as before, zombies are still dangerous if left unchecked.]]

** Issue 193. [[spoiler:Rather than show the immediate fallout of Rick's death, as was expected, it instead starts with a TimeSkip to ''over two decades'' later, introducing an adult Carl and Sophia, who are parents to a six-year-old girl. Then...[[TheEnd "THE END"]]]].
* WhamLine: Issue #193 ends on an extremely simple, yet massive one. "TheEnd"

* KnifeNut: The Whisperers are nearly wholly seen using kitchen knives in fights. This fits with their tactic of sneaking underneath the notice of the living and walkers, as guns would draw too much attention and create too much noise.
** This actually applies to most of the antagonistic characters who have shown up in the comic with [[spoiler:Thomas Richards, Ben, Pete Anderson]] and Negan all shown using knives prominently alongside several minor characters. Hell, even Rick [[spoiler:carves up a would-be rapist like a thanksgiving turkey for trying to harm Carl.]]

* MistakenForUndead: The survivor protagonists had to disguise as [[NotUsingTheZedWord walkers]] (getting clothes and even covered with blood and skins from them) to get unnoticed by them. This later goes UpToEleven with the "Whisperers", a nomad group of survivors disguised all the time as walkers that even served as antagonists for the protagonists.

* NiceHat: Rick's sheriff's hat, which he gives to Carl; Dale's fishing hat.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Its more of a revolving door of characters, usually a couple of characters dies or leaves, later the main group may discover some new survivors.

* MoralDissonance: It's never explained why exactly Rick felt the need to do the most disgusting things he could think of to the cannibals before killing them [[ThisIsUnforgivable aside the]] [[AssholeVictim eating]] of [[spoiler:Dale's leg and admitting they ate their own children]].
** Rick and everyone else in the entire world has mental issues by this point and there are no official authorities. Sometimes they get impulses to do bad things so they do them. Same explanation for the rapists and the Governor's idea of entertainment.
** A deliberately invoked example happened when the group first arrived at Alexandria and Rick [[spoiler:asked Glenn to help him steal their weapons back, essentially refusing to disarm themselves while inside the walls...]] which was a rule Rick himself had when the group was still set up at the prison.