During the recent Walking Dead season 8 finale, Jeffery Dean Morgan’s uber villain Negan was at last defeated by Rick and his assembled allies from the different communities. Though his reign of terror is over, Negan still lives on, as Rick decided to prove that he was the better man by showing him mercy. As such, fans can definitely expect more from the bad guy in future.
Seeing as there’s still stuff to explore with the character, then, could Negan potentially get his own spinoff series at some point? If it was up to Morgan, it’d certainly happen, as while talking to Fandom, the actor – who’s been a part of the zombie drama since season 6 – revealed that he’d like a prequel series for his character. Among other things, it could explore his life before the apocalypse, revealing how he became the sadistic tyrant that made the Alexandrians’ lives a living hell.
“I would like to see Negan before the zombie apocalypse. Robert Kirkman has done a little bit of thought on the Negan pre-zombie apocalypse, and I would be more than happy to see that. I would like to take part in some filming of that. I think that would help explain this character a great deal. Because, unfortunately, the way things go with so many characters and storylines, we don’t see enough — and I think that that is needed, especially when you have a character like Negan.”
What Morgan’s referring to is Here‘s Negan, a 16 issue comic book series written by TWD creator Robert Kirkman that explored Negan’s past as an average high school gym teacher (one with anger management issues). The comic also reveals the details of his wife and how she still affects him to this day.
As Morgan says, we hardly know anything about the character’s personal history in the TV show, so fans would no doubt love to see him fleshed out in future appearances. Even if a prequel or a spinoff isn’t on the cards, though, exploring Negan is still of the utmost importance to both the character and the show itself, according to Morgan.
“[We’ve had] a little bit more this season, which is nice, but I’d like to see more. I think it’s important not only for the development of the character but I think the show. So we’ll see.”
Now that Negan isn’t an active threat, could we see more of his past come to light in season 9? Time will tell, but we’ll remain hopeful and will keep you posted should we hear anything further on the matter ahead of The Walking Dead‘s return to AMC this fall.
