Did you see the four season finale of The Walking Dead? The internet is going crazy trying to make sense of what they just saw, and our very own Alex Wolfe has a great write-up of the events of the episode here. The big question on everyone's mind is now- what's going to happen next now that they're done with Terminus? Was the group full of cannibals? Are they done with Rick and crew?
While the tv series has veered far off from the original comic territory (there was no Terminus in the comic) you can still find shadows of what's going to happen in the original material. Issues 61-66 of the comics contained a story arc called Fear The Hunters- it was collected in The Walking Dead trade paperback Volume 11: Fear The Hunters.
At this point even the group of survivors is different. Andrea is still alive, as is Dale. Michonne and Abraham are main players in the group, and Rick's still recovering from the loss of his wife and child. Here they were taken from him during their dealings with the Governer, as well as Rick's right hand. Rick still talks on a phone to his wife from beyond the grave, as he does on the show, as his mind begins to further unravel.
The story arc begins as Dale gets kidnapped while wandering out in the forest by a group know as The Hunters, who have been tracking the group for a while. They're cannibals, as Dale finds out when he wakes up to find them eating his leg.
"I promise you...none of this is personal," says Chris, head of the Hunters, as they munch on Dale's leg. "But at the end of the day, no matter how much we may detest this ugly business... a man's gotta eat."
Dale starts laughing hysterically, which is not the reaction they expected. It turns out that the old man (and lover of Andrea) had just been bitten by a walker, and had left the group to die. The Hunters start forcing themselves to vomit to get rid of the tainted meat as Dale laughs.
The next day the survivors find Dale unconscious, but still alive. He lets them know what happened and so the group starts searching nearby houses until they find the Hunters. Rick actually comes across them by themselves, and they are incredulous that he came to them unarmed. In one of the most badass moments of the comic Rick mimics a pistol with his remaining hand and shoots a hunter, who actually gets shot as Andrea shoots from her position, concealed in a bush. She shoots an ear off one and Chris's finger off before they give up, but Rick and his friends don't let them go. Rather than risk them staying alive they spend the night torturing and murdering the group. It's one of the real turning points for the comic, where you see what kind of people they've turned into.
Does this mean that the next season will see the people of Terminus hunting down Rick and crew and if so, will they pay just as badly for their mistake? We shall see soon enough...
