Getting Used to it All

When death lurks around every corner and the only stability in life is instability, you have very essence of the fourth volume of the Walking Dead trade paperback series, “The Heart’s Desire.” If you haven’t seen some of your favorite characters feel the pressure of what’s happened to them throughout the series thus far, you’ll feel it after reading this.

Make no mistake, after witnessing the continued story here, your opinion of Rick and his group will change permanently. Characters you thought were solid as rocks now have the emotional viscosity of motor oil and ones you thought were crazy are the only ones making sense. Crisis changes everyone in different ways and this book shows us exactly how these people are affected.

Seeing prison inmates fighting to keep their homes safe from Rick and his group, who are taking over the prison for themselves is ironic to say the least. However, it fits right in with Robert Kirkman’s idea of what the world has come to in the face of a zombie apocalypse. Seeing Rick go from the voice of reason to someone who won’t hesitate to kill anything or anyone to keep his people safe is alarming at first, but cements the notion that no one is safe from the trauma caused by the shape the new world is taking.

The same thing goes for Tyreese and Carol, who seemed to be getting along so well in the previous books. As a matter of fact, you might say they had the healthiest relationship of all the couple in the group.

That is until Michonne came along.

Easily the best new character in the series up until this point, Michonne is sly, sexy and seriously crazy. An amazing fighter as well, she gets what she wants through any means possible [sound familiar]. Lets just say she’s taken a liking to Tyreese and Carol’s emotional capacity will never be the same because of it. As a result, the happy-go-lucky portion of this saga comes to screeching halt and Kirkman’s epic of mass destruction and human psychology begins to truly take shape.

Through the introduction of Michonne and the continued struggles of Rick, Carol, Tyreese and the rest of the group, everything once thought dependable is washed away. Backed up by the continued artistic excellence of Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn, this book is able to induce the type of emotional response in a reader that most comic could only dream of.

If you haven’t gotten by now that this series has more to do with humanity and it’s adaptability in the face of great horror, than the horror itself, than you never will.

Deep psychologically and emotionally satisfying from the turn of the first page, this series continues to do the comic book impossible- get better with age.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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