The Walking Dead: Negan’s origin “not exactly the same” as in the comics

The Walking Dead is giving us a full-on Negan origin story episode very soon. But it’ll be a little different from Robert Kirkman’s “Here’s Negan” comic.

The Walking Dead is back for six additional episodes of season 10, starting with this past Sunday’s “Home Sweet Home. We’ll also soon find out more about Princess and the Commonwealth, and even get an origin story for Daryl’s dog.  Of all the extra episodes, however, none have fans more hyped than “Here’s Negan.”

Fans have been dreaming of a Negan origin story since the villain was first introduced in the season 6 finale. And now, we’ll finally get our wish. Drawing from the one-off comic of the same name from Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard and Cliff Rathburn, “Here’s Negan” will fill in the backstory for this iconic character. “It’s something we’ve always been looking forward to adapting at various times,” showrunner Angela Kang teased in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “And it felt like this was the right time to do it here because we were able to tie it to something he’s going through in the current timeline.”

“Here’s Negan” stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s wife Hilarie Burton, who plays Negan’s wife Lucille. Yes, she is in fact the person Negan later names his infamous baseball bat after. “We got really excited about casting Hilarie Burton, who is Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s real-life wife,” Kang said. “We’ve always kind of thought that that could be cool. And the two of them are just awesome together, so I’m excited for people to see this version.”

The comic story chronicles Negan’s life in the beginnings of the zombie outbreak. It does a great job of showing how much he loves his wife. When she dies of cancer, we see how that moment changes him. It could make for some really emotional viewing.

“Here’s Negan” was such a popular story that Kirkman wrote another one-shot about Negan after concluding the main series. Once again, “Negan Lives” focused on the title character and his deep love for Lucille.

That said, the TV adaptation won’t be exactly like the comic. “I’ll say that it’s not exactly the same as what people have read in the page, because to tell you the truth, we’ve told some of those bits and pieces of story,” Kang said. “We didn’t show it, but he’s talked about his relationship with Lucille to various people. We kind of took little bits and pieces over time. So when we looked at it, we were like, ‘To do this, we sort of need a very strong way into it. What does it mean for him? And really, like emotionally, what’s the story that we can tell?'”

The show has deviated from the source material plenty of times during its run, to great effect, on a few occasions. Things changing is expected.

But which things will change exactly? On that front, Kang is silent. “I think that in some ways it’s very true to the comic, in that it is true to the spirit of the love that he has for Lucille.”

"But there’s a lot in our adaptation that is original to the show, but in a way that I think supports the same sort of emotional journey that I think he takes on the page. So there’s some lines that are almost straight out of the book, which people who are comic fans will recognize. And then there’s other things where we’ve made some different choices, but that hopefully will still be really cool."

The next five episodes of The Walking Dead air Sundays on AMC. The much-awaited “Here’s Negan” episode will premiere on April 4, which technically makes it the season finale. Let’s hope it lives up to the hype!

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