The origin of the zombie virus on The Walking Dead has long been the show’s biggest mystery, but it’s also a mystery that the creator of the series, Robert Kirkman, has never been interested in answering. “[Learning the origin] is not the priority in The Walking Dead,” Kirkman has said in the past. “That’s not the priority in Fear The Walking Dead. Every other story deals with that stuff and we’re concerned about the heart.”
Kirkman had been adamant about never revealing the origin of the zombie outbreak through the run of both the comic and the television series. And then, a few days ago, Kirkman just … tweeted it out.
https://twitter.com/RobertKirkman/status/1220084607573352448
Is Kirkman being serious? Or is he trolling his followers? Why not both?
I admit that my first thought was, “Kirkman is trolling us again.” In fact, it’s in line with one of the biggest troll jobs Kirkman has ever pulled, back when he created a gag ending to issue #75 of The Walking Dead — like space spores — involved an alien invasion.
So, clearly, it’s a joke, right?
Maybe! But maybe not. While Kirkman has most often insisted that he’d never explain the origin of the outbreak, he has admitted that it’s a “crazy sci-fi thing that would make the story even weirder,” and space spore absolutely falls into that category. But the clincher for me is what Robert Kirkman said after he said it was a “crazy sci-fi” thing. He added, “Maybe years after it’s all over I’ll just casually mention it in an interview. That seems like a very J.K. Rowling thing to do. ”
It’s not been “years,” and that wasn’t an interview, but randomly dropping the origin in an reply to a tweet is about as casual as you can get.
I am therefore inclined to believe that “space spore” is indeed what Robert Kirkman has always had in mind as the origin of the zombie virus, but also that he’s completely trolling his Twitter followers by revealing it.
