The Walking Dead casts Michael James Shaw as Mercer in season 11

The end is officially in sight for The Walking Dead, which will conclude after an extended 24-episode final season set to air later this year. After season 11, the AMC zombie franchise will rely solely on a number of spin-offs to carry the story forward. But before we reach the end of the road, season 11 promises to deliver on one of the biggest and most epic storylines from Robert Kirkman’s comic book: the Commonwealth, the biggest civilization our heroes have yet encountered.

Deadline recently announced that actor Michael James Shaw has been cast as Mercer, a fan-favorite character from the comics. The casting doesn’t come as a huge surprise, as last week a bunch of eagle-eyed fans noticed that showrunner Angela Kang followed Shaw on Instagram. It’s wasn’t hard to put two and two together. Still, it’s nice to have official confirmation of his involvement.

Michael James Shaw is a pretty big name. He played villain Corvus Glaive in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, and Midnite in Constantine. He’s probably best known for his recurring role as Agent Mike in Limitless.

As always, the casting team has chosen the ideal actor to play Mercer. All he needs to do now is grow out his beard and match the haircut and it’ll be perfect:

Who is Mercer from The Walking Dead?

First introduced in issue #177, Mercer is the de-facto leader of the Commonwealth military. He was also in the U.S. military before the zombie apocalypse. In the comics, Princess becomes his love interest. He wears distinctive Stormtrooper-esque armor and sports a mohawk.

The Commonwealth was teased in the closing moments of the season 10 episode “A Certain Doom” when Eugene, Princess, Yukimo and Ezekiel are ambushed by the military after they organize a meeting with Stephanie. One of the six additional season 10 episodes will explore what happens next to our group, although it’s unlikely that we’ll see Mercer appear before season 11.

Hopefully, we’ll soon see more important characters from the Commonwealth get cast. There are still a few more to come. For example, we still don’t have an actress playing leader Pamela Milton, nor her dangerous son Sebastian. With Mercer now being played by Michael James Shaw, I’d expect more casting announcements to be just around the corner.

Speaking of season 11, AMC has released a very cryptic first look teaser at the final season. There’s not much to see here besides what appears to be some sort of interrogation room, but it does confirm that the final episodes begin Summer 2021, so we don’t have long to wait before we find out more:

The first of six addition episode of The Walking Dead season 10, “Home Sweet Home,” is now available for streaming on AMC+. The five remaining episodes in the season air Sundays on AMC.

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