Is Michonne taking Carl’s comic story arc with Negan on The Walking Dead?

The Walking Dead is known for remixing characters and storylines from the comic and it looks like Michonne may take comic Carl’s story arc with Negan.

In The Walking Dead “The Obliged” Michonne has some very intense scenes with the imprisoned Negan. In the beginning she goes down to his prison cell in the basement because one of the Alexandrians tells her that Negan is refusing to eat.

Michonne isn’t about to let Negan starve himself to death or make himself a martyr so she takes a plate of food down to make him eat. Negan tells her that he isn’t on a hunger strike he just doesn’t feel like eating. But it’s been two days since he has eaten.  It seems like the showman is really looking for an audience.

Negan tries to charm Michonne into staying to talk to him by saying that he will eat if she stays to talk to him. Grudgingly she agrees. And that starts off what could be the show version of the intense and volatile relationship that Carl has with Negan in The Walking Dead comic.

One of the biggest disappointments that fans of the comic had when the show killed off Carl was that the fantastic story arc between Carl and Negan would never happen in the show. But it looks like now Michonne may get the intensely personal and volatile relationship with Negan that comic Carl had with him. And that’s exciting.

Negan And Michonne As Frenemies

While Michonne is very aware of how dangerous Negan is she also has one bond with him: their mutual love of Carl. Despite his crimes and his propensity for violence Negan had a genuine respect and love for Carl. And Michonne admits to Negan that she still sees Carl “everywhere”. She’s grieving for Carl, and Negan recognizes her grief and respects it.

Even though Michonne will always have Rick’s back and support him she also knows when he’s not seeing things clearly and she’s not afraid to tell him when he’s wrong and needs to change course. That’s one of the many reasons why she is the perfect partner for Rick.

So it will be very interesting to see Michonne turn to Negan to learn from him how to build a society that works, and how not to. In some ways Negan is an example, and in other ways he’s a warning. But no matter what he’s clever and he knows how a lot about building a code of conduct within a community.

When Rick is gone it looks like it will be Negan that Michonne will turn to for advice and insight about turning Alexandria and the other communities into the kind of society that Rick and Carl wanted them to be.

Michonne will never trust Negan, just as comic Carl never did, but she is astute enough to realize that she can learn from him if she is careful not to let herself be manipulated by him.