The Walking Dead comic series nearly ended in Alexandria

The Walking Dead comic book series is going strong in 2016, but the popular zombie survival drama comic nearly ended its run in January of 2010.

“It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” This popular Neil Young lyric has been used on many occasions to describe something great that came to an abrupt stop rather than continuing and getting stale. Many popular things have come to an end far too soon, but thankfully, Robert Kirkman decided not to make The Walking Dead‘s comic book series one of those things.

Now going strong well through 150 issues, the popular comic book series is enjoying some of its most popular moments ever. Storylines involving The Saviors, The Kingdom, The Whisperers, The Hilltiop and more have made the characters and drama more interesting than ever. But these characters and locations almost didn’t exist.

According to Robert Kirkman at Comic Con in 2016, one theory for the end of the comic book series was to end when Rick and the gang reached Alexandria and joined up with the large community there.

"“The end has changed,” he said. “There was one version that would have had it ending as soon as everybody reached Alexandria.”"

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For many fans, this would be a pretty happy ending. They’d be joining an established community where they could live and thrive, surviving everything the world had thrown at them to this point.

Of course, this also means the comic book series would have come to an end at issue #69, which was released on January 27, 2010.

The Walking Dead‘s television show started in October of 2016, so it would have been interesting to see how the television show would have been impacted by a shorter run from the comic book series. Would the situations be drawn out longer from earlier issues so it didn’t burn through the source material so quickly? And would we still end up with fantastic characters like Jesus, Negan, Ezekiel, and others?

Next: Who did Negan kill? Check out the odds here!

Thankfully for fans, the comic book series for The Walking Dead is still going strong and will continue to provide fantastic material that the popular AMC television series can use for many years to come. But it’s hard to imagine a world of The Walking Dead where Negan doesn’t exist, especially considering the drama surrounding The Saviors leading into season 7.

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