Background info: I first read the Walking dead about 5-6 years ago. At the time, they were still in the prison, but were just about to be attacked by the fine folks of Woodbury. I borrowed the TPBs from a friend, but since I was up to date, I ran out of stuff to read and drifted away (never got around to asking for the new TPBs)
Fast forward to 4 months ago; I managed to get my hands on the entire collection up until that point and start reading them and kept up with it. I liked it. Loved the story with Rick and Carl and the telephone. Enjoyed the stuff with the new people joining like Abraham and how the scientist Eugene proved to be a fake.
I liked how they ended up in this new community, and how they found their spots there (though not without being mistrusted etc)
So now we have a bigger world, and Rick finally has good hopes for the future. And then they meet the new group of bad guys, lead by Negan. With his trusty Lucille.
Ok, so in issue 100 they are captured by Negan who wants revenge for killing some of his men. He randomly picks a person to kill and brutally goes to town on Glenn. He uses Lucille (his barbed wire bat. Hrrm...didn't Foley name his bat Lucy?) to smash his head in and beats it into a bloody pulp.
The way this was shown in the comic book was imo a bit too much. It was gruesome for the sake of being gruesome. His eye hanging out of the socket, etc.. It actually took away some of the shock for me. This was supposed to be a heart wrenching moment where the survivors (not to mention his wife and "adopted kid") have to watch one of their own being killed. Instead all I could think was "damn, that's a lot of gory details dude"
What I do take away from all this, is that while Negan acted like a monster, he seems to be a very smart and cunning man. Sure, killing Glenn was partially out of revenge. But also to install fear into the minds of the group. To show them they shouldn't fight him but do what he wants them (and all other communities in the area) to do. Work for him. I really dug this. He wants to rule them all. He wants them to pay him for his "protection"
I am really curious to see how this advances. I'm sure Rick and the gang will get back at him. But they will definitely need an army for that, and they simply don't have one right now. I'd be disappointed if the other people suddenly are willing to stand up and fight, seeing how they just rolled with it for so long (giving him a large percentage of what they had) I also hope they bring back the Jesus guy (don't recall his real name) as he seemed like someone that would make a good addition to their fighting team.