The Walking Dead introduced an all-new weapon in the comics that can utterly obliterate entire hordes of zombies – too bad it could never work on TV.
The Walking Dead has no shortage of incredibly gruesome (and admittedly creative) ways to kill a zombie, though none of them can top the ultimate anti-zombie weapon that was just introduced. The only caveat to this particular killing method, however, is that it really can’t exist anywhere except within the comic book medium – and definitely wouldn’t work on TV: onomatopoeia (yes, really).
In The Walking Dead Deluxe #84 by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard, Rick, Michonne, Abraham and the rest are slaughtering an army of Walkers that have breached the gates of their community. This issue details these survivors taking a stand against the walking dead like they never have before, as they bash and slice through wave after wave of flesh-eating undead. Included in the Deluxe edition is a mini-comic parodying the events of this issue called Small Bites by Derek Hunter, which shows the survivors slaughtering zombies in another – decidedly unique – fashion.
The Walking Dead Deluxe’s Small Bites comic is more or less what readers got from the main issue itself, as both depict the survivors killing hordes of zombies. However, the Small Bites version of events has the iconic characters using onomatopoeia to kill the zombies. Every visual depiction of a sound made by the weapons are used as weapons themselves. Every “slice” and “wam” reverberates through the zombie horde, with Abraham even taking out twenty Walkers with one blow.
The Walking Dead Survivors Kill Zombies with Onomatopoeia (Making Live-Action Adaptation Impossible)
The Walking Dead has expanded its live-action universe with spin-off/continuation series including Fear the Walking Dead, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, and The Walking Dead: Dead City. This means there are many avenues the creatives behind the series can take to experiment with styles, storylines, and – most notably – in-world zombie-killing methods. However, it’s safe to say that ‘onomatopoeia’ won’t be one of them.
Onomatopoeia is almost exclusively used in comic books, while practically never utilized in live-action (with Adam West’s Batman being one of the more famous exceptions). It’s a fun visualization of loud noises indicating action, meaning there’s no reason to use it in a film or series, given that sound is usually a key component in that style of storytelling. Therefore, the use of onomatopoeia in any corner of the live-action Walking Dead universe seems unlikely, let alone the idea that it’d be used in-world to actually kill zombies.
There Is One Way The Walking Dead’s Ultimate Anti-Zombie Weapon Could Be Used in an Adaptation
The Walking Dead needs an animated series to use onomatopoeia as a weapon!
As previously mentioned, The Walking Dead is currently growing its established universe within the realm of live-action – but, why stop at live-action? Other comic book properties have utilized animation in primarily live-action continuities (including the MCU’s What If? and the DCU’s upcoming Creature Commandos), so The Walking Dead certainly wouldn’t be alone. If the wider Walking Dead canon did decide to expand to the realm of animation, and perhaps even allowed it to be more ‘cartoonish’ like Small Bites, then the series’ ultimate weapon could actually be used on television.
As of now, there are no official plans to create an animated version of The Walking Dead, so the only type of TWD content fans can watch on TV are the live-action series. Therefore, The Walking Dead‘s new, ultimate anti-zombie weapon – given that it runs on the most meta (and violent) version of onomatopoeia possible – is one that truly could never work on TV.
