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  • Creator Robert Kirkman is finally ready to talk about what caused the fictional zombie

  • pandemic in The Walking Dead.

  • For fans who have been following the story of The Walking Dead since Rick Grimes first

  • awoke from his coma back in 2003, this revelation is a long time coming.

  • It's actually impressive that Kirkman has kept his cards so close to his vest for so

  • long considering the franchise has expanded to infect every quadrant of our media world:

  • video games, books, TV you name it.

  • Now, having reached the epic conclusion of his long-running tale, at least in comic form,

  • Kirkman must have decided it was finally time to dole out a little fan service.

  • Early on in the comic series, it's revealed that every human in the world is already infected

  • with the zombie pathogen; while zombie bites accelerate the transformation, any death eventually

  • results in zombification.

  • We've seen survivors navigate every facet of this deadly scenario without any understanding

  • of the zombie horde's origins.

  • Well, wonder no more.

  • On Twitter, Kirkman finally confirmed that the cause of this pandemic is extraterrestrial

  • in nature.

  • "Aliens."

  • Specifically, the zombie virus came from a "space spore," in Kirkman's own words.

  • Kirkman has long credited the work of the late horror movie director George A. Romero

  • as a key inspiration for The Walking Dead.

  • He's said on numerous occasions that his entire magnum opus resulted from the question, "What

  • if a zombie movie just kept going?"

  • In light of this, the space spore explanation may be yet another homage to Romero particularly

  • his iconic zombie flick Night of the Living Dead, wherein the zombie apocalypse has potentially

  • been instigated by radiation released from a space probe to Venus.

  • "That's the space vehicle which orbited Venus and then was purposefully destroyed by NASA

  • when scientists discovered it was carrying a mysterious high-level radiation."

  • Fans weren't sure they'd ever get a straight answer from Kirkman as to what started the

  • zombie virus in The Walking Dead.

  • In a 2018 Q&A on Tumblr, he dismissed the notion of revealing the source of the zombie

  • contagion as irrelevant to the story, saying:

  • "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."

  • Shots fired!

  • Fortunately for curious fans, it seems like Kirkman found his inner Rowling.

  • On the surface, it may not seem like Kirkman's earthbound tale of humans surviving against

  • impossible odds has much to do with extraterrestrials, but the alien explanation has always been

  • bubbling around the edges of The Walking Dead.

  • When Kirkman and his creative team originally pitched the idea to Image Comics, Kirkman

  • had to concoct an outlandish backstory for the series just to catch executives' attention.

  • At that time, he told a substantial white lie that the zombie pandemic in The Walking

  • Dead was designed by aliens who intended to use the zombie apocalypse to make Earth a

  • softer target for invasion.

  • Although Kirkman was pretty clear that this was never really his team's intention, it

  • wasn't the last mention of E.T.'s in The Walking Dead history.

  • While not necessarily canon, a bonus ending for issue #75 was inspired by this misleading

  • pitch.

  • In this sci-fi re-skin, a lightsaber-wielding Michonne explains that hostile aliens unleashed

  • the zombie horde to turn humanity into a race of slaves bound into service by harvesting

  • water, which their alien overlords use as currency.

  • How's that for an alternate ending?

  • Aside from the explanation of the virus being "totally irrelevant" to the comic series,

  • Kirkman also believes that the TV iterations of his work are unlikely to explore either

  • the source of or cure for the virus.

  • While certain fans may prefer a pat resolution to the apocalypse plaguing the world of The

  • Walking Dead, Kirkman's instincts are probably spot-on.

  • The third TV series for the franchise, The Walking Dead: World Beyond, takes place a

  • decade after the beginning of the zombie pandemic, with a set of young protagonists still grappling

  • with the world of the undead.

  • "The end of the world was our beginning."

  • The lack of a cure is definitely organic to Kirkman's original vision.

  • The Walking Dead has never been a series about finding a miraculous cure it's a story about

  • survivors re-establishing a new normal in a world that will never be the same.

  • Discovering a cure would undermine the entire premise.

  • But hey, at least we officially know what started the collapse in the first place.

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Creator Robert Kirkman is finally ready to talk about what caused the fictional zombie

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