Blogging Dead; The Walking Dead: Fall of the Governor: Part Two – Review

I liked the book.

This novel moved at a brisk pace and held my attention a lot easier than the previous two titles (The Road to Woodbury and Fall of the Governor: Part One). Of course, it had the advantage of starting in the midst of the most interesting part of the story– the feud between Rick’s prison group and the Governor. It picks up after the mutilation of the Governor by Michonne, so things have already escalated and continue to do so quickly.

It was very, very interesting to see everything from Woodbury’s point of view during the iconic battle from the comics. I thought Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga did a good job of humanizing the formerly faceless and nameless drones who we only saw absorbing bullets in the other medium. If you didn’t previously know anything about Rick or Michonne, they really would seem like bad guys to the Woodburians. That’s all thanks to the Governor’s mastery at manipulation, of course, which was interesting to see develop.

There was a lot of material that wasn’t shown in the comic books that made this novel a very interesting read. We got to further explore bit characters like Bob, Lilly, Gabe and Bruce. We get a better picture of how the Governor recovered from his injuries at the hands of Michonne. We’re there for a first hand account of every event that occurs during the battle, step by step, just from the other side of the fences. And we also finally find out what happened with Lilly and the other survivors when they wound up trapped inside the prison.

As a hardcore TWD fan that can’t seem to get enough, I ate all of this up. I’m especially a fan of the Governor and prison/Woodbury storyline arc, so that had me even more intrigued. Despite other flaws the novels in this series might have had, the development of the Governor throughout all four books has been incredible, so I was enjoying the ride while I could as I knew this was where his story ends.

However, being the huge fan of the comics that I am, there was something about the book that really, really bothered me. The dialogue spoken by the characters often didn’t match what was printed in the comics. Certain lines had only slight differences, such as a word or two being changed, while others were completely different. Other times, characters would say a line that was spoken by a different character in the other medium.

I thought the novels and comics were supposed to be canon, so shouldn’t the dialogue all have been exact? If it’s different, then wouldn’t this just be a fan fiction, or a reimagining? I forgave the timeline discrepancies, such as the war taking place two years into the apocalypse when it happened much sooner in the comics, but I don’t think there’s any excuse to have different dialogue. Bonansinga would have had the graphic novels right there in front of him, so I don’t get why he couldn’t match it up. Maybe as a writer, he wanted to take some creative liberties and put his own little spin on the story? That’s fine, but in that case, call it a fan fiction, and don’t say that it’s canon to the comics.

I guess I was particularly peeved that Jay Bonansinga even managed to flub the Governor’s iconic line. Yes, the infamous line from one of the most iconic panels in the entire series, with the Governor pointing out from atop the approaching tank and screaming, “KILL THEM ALL!” In the novel, he instead shouts,

“Destroy them all, now!”

It’s such a small change, but for a big TWD nerd like me who had been waiting for that line in particular to be spoken, it was highly disappointing. There was also a discrepancy with the Governor’s demise, which I thought was extremely cheesy;

SPOILERS BELOW

After Lilly blows the Governor’s head apart and kicks him into the zombies, he screams, “Philip Blake lives!!” as they are munching down on him. The line obviously wasn’t spoken in the books, probably because we could see in vivid detail that his head was blown completely apart; there was no way he was going to be able to say ANYTHING, much less scream it loudly enough for everybody left around the prison to hear. I get that Jay Bonansinga probably added the line for dramatic effect, but I thought the suddenness of his death, followed by being completely devoured by walkers, was probably dramatic enough.

END SPOILERS

I understand that things like changed or added dialogue probably won’t be as big a deal to more casual fans of the comics, or to those who’ve never read them. The story itself basically remains unchanged, after all. But, it did bother me, and was probably what took this a peg down from being on par with the first book, Rise of the Governor.

I would still highly recommend this to big comic book fans who have always been curious about Woodbury and their point of view in the iconic war with the prison. It’s fast-paced with a lot of good character development and teaches us a lot of new things we didn’t know about the Governor, Woodbury and the other inhabitants there. For those who wouldn’t want to invest the time to read through all four novels, I’d say you could get by skipping the second and third ones. I still say Rise of the Governor is the best of the bunch, but Fall of the Governor: Part Two isn’t too far behind.