The Walking Dead: First image from season 9 shows seasons of change

The first official image of The Walking Dead season 9 shows a season of change as Michonne and a few new faces settle into a new way of life.

Anyone who played Oregon Trail as a child will appreciate the first season 9 image of The Walking Dead. Let’s just hope that Michonne doesn’t get dysentery crossing Idaho….

The first trailer for The Walking Dead season 9 arrives July 20 at San Diego Comic-Con, but Entertainment Weekly has the first [official] image and it shows a very different scene. Michonne is the only familiar face in the crowd, though the girl in the picture looks a bit like Cyndie and the guy looks like Taylor Lautner. There’s another person standing directly behind Michonne’s horse, holding the mule’s reins, and there’s a fifth person farther back in the image wearing a cowboy hat. It’s possible that it’s Carol, but it’s hard to say for sure.

Take a look:

As you can see, Michonne is riding ahead of at least two wagons, and one of them is a covered wagon without its cover. She doesn’t look very different, so it’s hard to gauge whether we have experienced the time jump or not. The colorful trees suggest that it’s late summer or early fall, and the wagons could either be moving survivors from location to location or they could be hauling a plentiful harvest bounty. Or not. We have no idea what the context of this photo is, so at this point everything is speculation.

What we can gather, though, is that Michonne seems to be at ease. She’s not riding defensively and her companions seem comfortable, suggesting that there isn’t any danger up ahead. That they know of, at least.  

Next: Maggie provides hints about The Walking Dead season 9

The Walking Dead fans will have a much better picture of what’s happening in season 9 when the first trailer drops at SDCC, but even then there will still be many questions lingering, ones that won’t be fully answered until the show returns in October.