When it comes to the swarming hordes of the undead, Image Comics’ The Walking Dead is considered to be one of the best zombie stories of all time. Populated by unforgettable characters and gory action to boot, the idea of zombies as an extended entertainment property was barely a blip on the pop-culture radar before Rick Grimes and company came to the scene, ushering in a fad that is more or less still going strong today.
And although The Walking Dead might be over and done with as a comic series after its surprise final issue premiered in 2019, the question remains as to whether or not fan favorite characters can continue living hopeful lives in the face of a zombie outbreak that has decimated the world’s population and sent humanity back to what is essentially the beginnings of civilization. So after all of this time and all the hurdles jumped in order to simply survive another day, does the zombie apocalypse ever truly end in the comics? Or are the heroes faced with a never-ending crusade against the undead that they have no hope of ever ending?
Over the course of creator Robert Kirkman's 193 issue run, protagonist Rick Grimes and his ragtag group of survivors fought tooth and nail to do everything in their power to make living in a zombie apocalypse better than it actually was. Losing more friends and loved ones than he can count, Rick spent the entirety of the original comic run fighting for a life that by all intents and purposes should not be possible in a world where the dead have come back to munch on the living.
After so much time fighting zombies and crazed survivors alike, the constant threat of being bitten and infected by a member of the walking dead was as normal as catching a cold on a chilly day, a fact that became commonplace amongst the survivors as they pushed to make a better, safer world than before. Unfortunately, that didn't come to fruition, as shown in the final issue of the series. A a 25-year jump in time shows Carl Grimes, son of Rick, as a father and member of a spreading number of large human settlements across the land, the zombie apocalypse is still a thing to be dealt with, albeit a manageable one.
In the decades after Rick Grimes' death that spurred the time jump in the final issue, the zombie problem has gone from survivors worrying about what undead evil lurks around the next corner to being more of a nuisance than anything else. As shown by Maggie and Glenn’s slightly off-kilter son Hershel, the zombies have become so much of an afterthought that he’s created a less than tasteful undead sideshow attraction, proving that while the zombie apocalypse is definitely still a problem, it’s one that the remaining members of humanity have learned to cope with and handle.
So while the zombie apocalypse may never be over in the world of The Walking Dead, it can at least be managed to a point that it isn’t the terrifying threat to humanity’s existence that it once was. But who knows? All it takes is one bite for it all to come crashing down again, so for now the comics' heroes can breathe a sigh of relief and take solace in the fact that their hard work and dedication to a new world is actually paying off for once. At least for now.