Despite being one of the most iconic pop culture villains of the last couple of decades,The Walking Dead’s Negan was almost completely different. Not only did the post-apocalyptic killer originally have a different name, but his story was meant to conclude with a brutal death. However, multiple changes shaped him into the character fans know today, and one of them was all thanks toStar Trek.
Image Comics is currently publishingThe Walking Dead Deluxe, adding Dave McCaig’s colors to Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard and Tony Moore’soriginal black and white comic, as well as including creator commentary from Kirkman. InWalking Dead Deluxe #95, Kirkman notes that the issue includes the first mention of Negan (though not his first appearance.) In the ‘Cutting Room Floor’ creator commentary, Kirkman notes thatNegan was originally going to be called"Naygus"until he realized that the name already belonged to the leader of the Ferengi inStar Trek: Deep Space Nine.
While Wallace Shawn’s character is actually called ‘the Nagus,’ and is worlds away from Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s portrayal ofWalking Dead’s most iconic villain, Kirkman changed the name once he realized it wasn’t an original creation, writing:
His name was changed before it saw print, thankfully, when I realized I wasn’t coming up with a cool sounding word from scratch as I thought, and was actually just recalling something that lived deep within the recesses of my superhero, horror, and sci-fi addled brain.
Kirkman’s description of being unknowingly inspired byStar Trekmakes this a perfect example of cryptomnesia - a process where half-forgotten inspiration is misremembered as an original thought. Writer and advocate Helen Keller claimed that after encountering cryptomnesia in her short story ‘The Frost King,’ she was haunted by the fear of encountering it again for the rest of her career. InThe Story of My Life, Keller admits that even when writing a letter to her mother, she was terrified she was accidentally plagiarizing something she’d read elsewhere.
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Negan enteredWalking Deadcanon as the leader of the Saviors - a vicious group of survivors who demand tithes from other groups, torturing and killing to maintain their fearsome reputation.Negan’s murder of Glenn(and in the TV adaptation, Abraham) is one ofWalking Dead’s most horrifying moments, though the villain is eventually imprisoned by Rick’s survivors and comes to believe in their vision of humanity, ending the series in penitent self-imposed exile from the Commonwealth and larger human society.
Negan is known for beingWalking Dead’s most unpredictable character, as well as his habit of saying whatever’s on his mind (no matter how foul-mouthed) andwielding Lucille the Vampire Bat- a barbed wire-wrapped baseball bat named after his wife. Thanks to the character’s unique behavior and his extensive arc towards redemption, ‘Negan’ is one of the most recognizable names in modern pop culture. However, it could easily have been ‘Naygus’ who graced the pages ofWalking Dead- which may have posed problems for the character’s iconic status once fans realized the name was already in use.
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InStar Treklore, the title ‘Nagus’ is given tothe leader of the Ferengi Alliance, with the first version fans meet being Nagus Zek. The character appears inStar Trek: Deep Spaceas a canny leader who expands the role of women in Ferengi culture, which is highly patriarchal and focused on commerce. The fact that the character was portrayed byThe Princess BrideandMy Dinner with Andreactor Wallace Shawn gave him extra staying-power, and this might have interfered with how fresh and unique Negan felt as a villain. However,a name change isn’t the only alteration Kirkman made on the road to the Negan fans know.
Negan’s death was reversed because artist Charlie Adlard considered it cliché, arguing for a genuine redemption arc.
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One of the reasonsThe Walking Dead Deluxeis so popular with fans of the franchise is that Kirkman is constantly revealing the changes he made to the story along the way, and there are alotof them. For a story that has such clear character arcs, stakes, and eras, it’s shocking how many times Kirkman made major changes - for example, planning tokill Rick rather than Shaneduring their early confrontation.
In Negan’s case, both his origin and ending were nearly very different. InWalking Dead Deluxe #76, Kirkman explains thatNegan was at one time intended to be the character known as ‘Davidson.‘Davidson is never seenin the series, but was the former leader of the Alexandria Safe Zone, exiled after he began terrorizing his ‘subjects,’ and replaced by Douglas Monroe. Monroe’s lingering paranoia over Davidson leads him to be suspicious of Rick, and Kirkman originally intended Davidson to eventually return as an antagonist. Kirkman considered having Negan be a ‘reborn’ Davidson with a new name and group, but ultimately decided against it, writing:
Would it have been better if Negan had been Davidson? Would it have made more sense to tie it all together? Bah! I say no.
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Kirkman also changed his mind about how Negan’s story would end. Talking toInsider, Kirkman revealed that Negan was planned to die inWalking Dead #174,executed by Glenn’s former partner Maggie. Kirkman even confirms thathe changed the moment because of a request from artist Charlie Adlard, who said he was"a bit unconvinced"by the scene and was more interested in Negan continuing to seek redemption, calling the development too cliché. Adlard wrote:
This is absolutely no criticism of you at all, but more a criticism of western [at least] literature/entertainment, where, because the majority of us find the death penalty - therefore an eye for an eye adage - abhorrent, we carry it out in fantasy. Hardly any western villain gets away with not dying at the end. We, as an audience, always demand the ultimate punishment for our fantasy bad guys. It’s a shame we didn’t break the mould with Negan… the baddest of bad guys, but very far down the road to redemption and forgiveness, who pays the usual ultimate price - death. Imagine, if he lived, what we could say about our society?
In the issue as published, Maggie refuses to shoot Negan and give him closure, instead telling him he must live with Glenn’s murder. This concept went even further in the TV adaptation, where the characters ended up getting their own spin-off withThe Walking Dead: Dead City.
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It’s perhaps because of these changes and the way they came together thatKirkman has called Negan his favorite character.Kirkman has named Negan as his favorite character on many occasions, includingWalking Dead Deluxe #95, where he writes:“I hate to admit that he eventually became my favorite character in the book. Terrible person, no doubt… but so incredibly fun to write.“Earlier in the series, Kirkman shares his notes, including comments that he judged too harsh for other characters to say, with Negan eventually giving him a chance to include this type of line in the story. InWalking Dead Deluxe #42(over 50 issues before Negan’s debut), Kirkman reflects:
If only there was a character in this book that could say any harsh, crass, offensive thing I could think of, and it would be in character…
Ultimately, Negan came together through the creative team’s skill and the exact right creative alchemy, making it all the more impressive that so many details were once intended to be different.Walking Deadfans almost got a totally different villain named Naygus - one whose origin and arc were far less unique, and who possessed an accidental connection toStar Trek.
