Walking Dead: Rick’s First Zombie Kill Was Meant To Be Way Darker
So successful that it redefined the zombie apocalypse genre, the Walking Dead franchise is a master of grabbing viewers and readers from the first moment. However, Rick Grimes' infamous first Walker kill was originally intended to be even more shocking.
In the first issue of The Walking Dead, Sheriff Rick Grimes wakes up in a zombie-infested hospital after recovering from a coma. Rick makes the unfortunate discovery that the world is several days into a zombie outbreak, with his new primary objective being to survive and find his family. After escaping, Rick discovers an injured zombie that is unable to attack him, having crashed a bicycle which he takes in order to continue searching for his family. After stocking up on arms and ammunition at the local police station, he returns to the same zombie and shoots it, shedding a tear before moving on.
Related: Walking Dead: Carl Losing His Eye Foreshadows His Tragic Future
The Walking Dead Deluxe series is currently remastering the original Walking Dead series by Robert Kirkman, Dave McCaig, and Tony Moore. This includes additional creator commentary from Kirkman in his «Cutting Room Floor» segment which is invaluable for showing fans what could have been. In the annotations for issue 1, Kirkman states that Rick's first zombie kill was originally meant to be a child. Saying:
Bicycle girl was originally planned to be a kid. Between the plot and the script, I decided an adult woman cyclist would be sadder, or have more of an emotional connection to Rick? Don't know if I agree with that at this point, might have been better as a kid.… I probably changed Bicycle Kid to Bicycle Girl so that Rick could actually ride the bike. It'd be harder and kind of goofy for him to be riding a
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