For all the Walking Dead fans who used to wonder about who Negan was before becoming the leader of the ‘Saviors,’ 16 issues of ‘Here’s Negan’ are now coming up to reveal his past.
Teasers from the upcoming series below
Towards the final pages of this series, Negan finds a bunch of his survivors and dominated them to follow him and obey him as their leader.
After meeting Dwight, the kind and sweet natured survivor, Negan didn’t take long to take over the group by offering them strong choices which pretty much meant only one thing, ‘Follow me or perish.’ His domineering personality and unmatched instinct proved to be a powerful binding force for all the survivors around him. Negan had already lost his beloved wife Lucille to cancer, and now survival was the only thing that mattered to him.
Ruthless, savage and unreasonably destructive, as Negan might appear at times, he was not unprincipled. There were certain rules that he followed and enforced upon everyone whether by obedience or by force. Negan Despised rape and once he and his new group came across a gang which indulged in rape and other such unacceptable activities. He had with him a baseball bat which he used promptly used to bust open the skull of this group’s chief. While Dwight kept the frightened bunch at bay, Negan picked up some barbed wire from a nearby park fence and wrapped it around this weapon of his which was christened ‘Lucille.’
Negan later explained to his group why he didn’t hesitate to take on that group and kill its leader.
“I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t angry. It took me a long time to realize why…It was Lucille.”
Having done away with its leader, Negan went back to the new group and told them to join hands and follow him as their new leader. He told them that as long as they follow him, he will protect them from ‘Lucille’ and save them from the fate that their former leader had met.
It is not as if the obedience came quickly without needing any further coercion or let’s say threats.
In his characteristic profane and fearsome style, Negan spoke to one guy who questioned him.
“And I’ll say — Big Balls, I know you think you’re the King S— of F— Mountain and you’re not accustomed to taking s— from anyone but things are different now because — HERE’S NEGAN!”
That’s how Negan took over the group and became the much-feared leader of the Saviors from issue 100 onwards.
As for Negan’s past, there has been a story going around that he used to be a car salesman prior to the apocalypse. This false narrative gained weight when Robert Kirkman stated it to be a possibility in a ‘Letter Hacks’ segment of a previous Walking Dead issue. However, the real story of Negan’s past is brought forth in ‘Here’s Negan.’
Before the Zombie Virus took over and people started dying left, right and center, Negan used to be a High School Gym Teacher and a cool one at that if we take his word for it. His unorthodox methods included cursing, bullying and giving a hard time to his students whenever he saw them fail. It mattered little to him even if the bullied student would start crying or something.
He had a wife who loved him a lot, but, also knew of how he was having an affair despite being married to her. She silently bore all the hurt caused by the affair and let him have his way because she knew it made him happy and that mattered to her.
A quirk of fate had her diagnosed with terminal cancer. That’s when Negan realized that he loved her too and he immediately ended his affair. He devoted his time taking care of her, taking her around the park in her wheelchair and trying to be the husband who loved her. She resented the fact that it took terminal cancer to make him severe the affair which hurt her so much.
That wife of his was named ‘Lucille.’
As per Scott Gimple, show runner of the TV Series ‘The Walking Dead,’ the TV series will also depict Negan’s story at some point of time.
“I do believe yes, it’s in the future,,” was how Yahoo TV quoted him saying.
However, it is yet unclear whether the role of Negan will continue to be portrayed by Jeffrey Dean Morgan during that phase of the series.
Gimple was not very forthcoming on this and all he stated was that it is all quite a bit down the line and depending upon the requirement of the storyline and situation, the part might be played by Morgan or by Damon Lindelof.
However, what can be assumed is that if the TV series reveals the past story of Negan and how he became a deadly leading villain, simultaneously with the comic series, then it has got to be Season 10 or Season 11.
This story would come out only after completion of the ‘All Out War’ narrative of the main ‘Walking Dead’ comic series.
As per the schedule, the Walking Dead Siblings Series is coming up on September 10th and the 8th season of the TV series will premiere on October 22nd, 2017. This season will also see the completion of 100 episodes of this legendary AMC series. For more news and updates throughout the season, all you need to do is to follow @BrandonDavisBD on Twitter.
