While there are legitimate concerns that flashbacks about Negan might take time away from the other characters, these two choices to tell more self-contained stories are interesting ones. The Walking Dead universe is big enough for plenty of fantastic spinoff stories to happen, whether they're entirely original or drawn from unused ideas from the comic. With the growing possibility that more spinoffs could soon be on the way, here are fifteen of our favorite ideas for such new series. Be warned: comic book and TV spoilers await below!
15. King Ezekiel origin story
There was a lot to like about an actual tiger chained up by his side. Ezekiel--also known as King Ezekiel--is the ruler of the community known as the Kingdom, and he's set to play an integral role in the storyline to come.
The comics don’t tell us much about his life before taking up the reigns of leadership, but they do tell us that he was a zookeeper before the outbreak, which explains his close relationship with his tiger, Shiva. A spinoff focusing on Ezekiel’s journey through the zombie apocalypse might be worth it just for the chaos of walkers pouring into a zoo, especially if more animals got loose in the chaos. What if Ezekiel originally rolled with more than just a tiger? What if another zookeeper decided to use his close relationship with an elephant for evil instead of good? These aren't exactly the deepest ethical questions, but they're definitely things you don't often encounter in a zombie apocalypse story, and The Walking Dead should take advantage of that.
14. A Jesus/Hilltop spinoff
There are many lessons one could glean from The Walking Dead, but perhaps one of the biggest (and most cruel) is that once society falls, it’s very, very, very difficult to rebuild it. Whether your prosperity attracts the envy and wrath of other groups, or internal strife brings your society down from within, there are so many things that can go wrong with placing down your roots that it’s no wonder so many groups never bother. The fact that the community of Hilltop has done as well as we’ve seen is a much bigger deal than it initially seems, and it would be really interesting to see where Hilltop succeeded where, say, the Prison and Woodbury failed.
What better way to explore the story of Hilltop than with a familiar face; as one of the town’s main recruiters, Jesus, would be in a good opportunity to interact with most of the people of the town and interject some action with some trips outside it. These journeys could be especially enlightening because they could provide a chance for Jesus to see other settlements--and with them, more ways people have either barely held on or utterly failed to unite.
13. A Michonne spinoff
Michonne’s total, unadulterated badassness isn’t exactly a secret, but we’ve gotten so used to how amazing she is now that it’s sometimes hard to just how incredible her introduction was. We’d been following a large, heavily-armed group of survivors barely making it through the world, when out of the blue comes someone doing pretty damn well by herself--with a katana and her mutilated zombie boyfriend on a chain.
The transition of Michonne from pre-collapse lawyer to actual video game character would be a fascinating one to witness. The Walking Dead: Michonne, but a version starring Danai Gurira from the TV show leading the way has the potential to be even better. The incredible practical effects The Walking Dead has for its walkers definitely help make the case. If nothing else, there'd probably be a heart-wrenching moment when Michonne decides to dismember her former lover for the sake of her own safety as she travels through Georgia, and that would be a sequence we'd be very interested in seeing.
12. Tyreese solo series
This one might seem puzzling to those who’ve only seen the TV series. The Walking Dead, but aside from exhibiting the increasingly rare trait of kindness, he didn’t have anything quite as dramatic going on as Michonne or Abraham that made him seem all that memorable. What his small screen adaptation was missing was the increased role Tyreese had in the comics--he was one of the first truly reliable of Rick’s group, appearing well before the events at the Prison that led to his introduction in the show.
Watching him serve as Rick’s moral com as he began to lose control in the penitentiary was incredible, as was watching him lose track of his own morality on the way. Unfortunately, exactly reusing ideas from the comic book would be tricky, given how tightly interwoven they are with Rick’s group, but seeing some version of his story play out in a prequel miniseries with new characters has potential of its own. At the very least, the show should take another crack at his incredible last stand against a mob of walkers with a hammer. If you TV fans can believe it, that moment is much, much more incredible in the comics.
11. The Rise of the Governor
If any comic book fans you knew seemed a little underwhelmed with the adaptation of the Governor’s storyline, it’s because they had reason to be. In addition to the overall pacing being much, much faster in the comics, the character of the Governor was arguably far more engaging. He was sharper, crueler, and far more menacing as he continued to pursue Rick’s group despite enduring a castration and losing his eye, arm, and nearly dying of associated blood loss (the badass that inflicted those injuries? Michonne).
Much like Tyreese, many of these specific moments just can’t make it into the show due to how certain events have already been depicted, but there’s still plenty of room for a miniseries detailing his undoubtedly ruthless rise as a leader. The prequel novel about him, The Rise of the Governor, might be a good place to start. There's plenty about the novel that might not be entirely necessary to carry over (the fact that The Governor changes his name, for example, isn't exactly pivotal to understanding his character) but seeing how he evolves from a normal man into an absolute monster would be interesting.
10. The aftermath of the Prison and survivors of Woodbury
Speaking of The Governor, both the comic book and the TV show provide surprisingly little fanfare when it comes to two of the first big attempts we see at trying to re-establish a society. While Woodbury is definitively burned to the ground, the fate of many of the town’s survivors remains unknown after the Governor's attack on the prison. Perhaps a bigger question is what became of the incredibly vast facility itself, as we don't see what happens after Rick is forced to abandon it. Was the prison completely overrun? Did a few holdouts keep to keep some of the cell blocks secure before succumbing to starvation? Did the herd eventually move on, leaving a mostly-intact fortress with massive food reserves and a fence in need of repair? We don’t know.
If the minds behind The Walking Dead really wanted to crush what remained of its viewers' optimism (which they seem intent on doing), it could have any Woodbury survivors in the prison recreate a society, vowing not to repeat previous mistakes...only for things to play out almost identically with another group nearby led by an unstable man.
9. Loose ends from the Telltale Walking Dead games
The runaway success of Telltale’s The Walking Dead shocked everyone, creating a widely beloved take on Robert Kirkman’s zombie universe that’s still going strong several installments later. If AMC wanted another Walking Dead series in the general Georgia area, there are plenty of characters and groups from the Walking Dead games whose appearances are all too brief.
Characters like Christa, Kenny, Carver, and Nick are all interesting and varied enough to deserve a reprisal in live-action, while deviating from the main storyline of the games enough to justify a spinoff. There are plenty of locations that could make a return, too, from the tyrannical group occupying a hardware store to the frigid settlement of Wilmington in the north. Just leave the game's main characters alone; Lee and Clementine already have voices, and it would be a jarring change to see someone else attempt to fill their roles. Unfortunately for fans hoping for the actual video game cast to reprise their roles, Dave Fenroy -- Lee's voice actor -- would make a much better Ezekiel in real life.
8. A 400 Days-inspired miniseries
One of the most interesting decisions Telltale made was to bridge the gap between the first two seasons of The Walking Dead with a middle chapter called 400 Days. Set over the first four hundred days of the zombie apocalypse, the game was something of an anthology series, jumping between different characters and experiences as the crisis wore on. It was a fascinating and subtle way to show how things were changing, especially as it was focused on the same geographic area.
Showing the gradual transformation of a location throughout the crisis could be a nice change of pace, especially if it’s someplace we’ve never seen before. If The Walking Dead really wanted to impress us, they could steal the central hook of Telltale's game and have whichever anthology characters made it all the way to the end of the first 400 days eventually reappear in the main series. The game handled this with a mix of background characters and one central ally character, but if the TV show introduced a new group of enemies led by one of the characters we grew to love in the spinoff? The payoff could be incredible.
7. A very, very black comedy
Love it or hate it, a lighter tone can exist that’s merely informed by the setting rather than utterly dominated by it.
The Walking Dead TV show’s universe is incredibly bleak, meaning we couldn’t reasonably expect something quite as light as a Shaun of the Dead, but there’s plenty of room for a dry, if bitter, comedic take. Unfortunately for fans of Zombieland, much of that film's zombie-based slapstick would be far less effective on The Walking Dead -- the walkers are too hideously disgusting and decayed to even look at, let alone comically whack with a carnival mallet. Although, speaking of the walkers...
6. Walkers: A Documentary
Nearly six years after The Walking Dead first aired, we actually know relatively little about the walkers or the virus that causes them. When will walkers start to rot so badly that they can’t move? Are there further physiological changes after the initial transformation from corpse into zombie? Are walkers capable of feeling pain, but incapable of expressing it, or are they completely numb? What happens when they can’t find people -- do they target animals? What kind of animals do they like to eat? How do walkers missing their eyes or ears find victims -- do they have a sense of smell, despite not needing to breathe?
Questions like these have very little potential to ruin major plot points of the series, but they'd be nice bits of trivia for fans. There’s no need to search too hard for a template for the documentary; the materials that inspired World War Z have basically set the standard for the (ittedly small) zombie mockumentary genre.