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Robert Kirkman Explains How Aliens Once Invaded ‘The Walking Dead’ Universe

Can you picture it?  Walkers versus aliens?  How about alien walkers versus humans?  Is there a place for aliens in The Walking Dead universe?  According to The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, aliens were almost introduced into the graphic novel series but, it’s not exactly the crazy storyline you might think it would be.

Kirkman recently spoke with the folks over at Entertainment Weekly where he revealed his “Greatest Untold Story” as part of EW: The Show.  Kirkman’s greatest untold story starts back at the very beginning of The Walking Dead and has to do with some criticism which he received from doubtful fans regarding his graphic novels early on.  Kirkman said:

“Very early on in the series I started getting letters where people would say, ‘You say you’re going to do this book for a really long time, but this idea doesn’t seem to have any legs.  I dont know how you’re going to get this to go past issue 30 or 40 or whatever.’ My response as a joke was, ‘Oh, we’re going to do this until issue 75, and then I’m going to run out of ideas, and then I’m going to do an alien invasion and just kind of completely ruin the book. That’s when we’ll jump the shark and it’ll be terrible and everybody will hate it.’”

The arrival of aliens into The Walking Dead universe became an ongoing inside joke within the fandom and, of course, eventually, Kirkman did reach (and surpass) issue number 75.  Fans were ready and anticipating some kind of alien invasion and a terrible storyline twist and Kirkman knew it.  He said:

“When we got to issue 75, I knew that I’d publicly joked about that and it was kind of a thing that the fanbase knew about, like, ‘Oh, 75, that’s when the aliens come in, right?’” 

Kirkman knew he had to do something and he did.  He kept to his word and in issue 75, Kirkman trolled the entire graphic novel reading fan base with a 10-page prank.  The issue included one normal page (which actually ended up being page 1 from issue 76) followed by nine pages of alien invasions, Rick Grimes getting a superhero suit, the Governor coming back to life with a claw hand and other zany and crazy ideas.

The catch?  Kirkman never actually told fans this was all a joke.  He recalls fans actually writing him letters and sending him messages saying, “you’ve ruined the comic!”  Of course, The Walking Dead universe returned to normal in the very next issue but, Kirkman got the biggest kick out of the whole gag.

Check out Kirkman explaining his masterful prank on The Walking Dead fandom below:

 

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