‘The Last of Us’ showrunner reveals the influence of a seminal comic book classic

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us episode five, “Endure and Survive.”

Showrunner Neil Druckmann recently revealed how The Last of Us drew inspiration from an iconic comic book.

In an interview with The Last of Us Podcast, he opened up about the limited series from DC Comics that influenced the story. Druckmann was unpacking the catchphrase “endure and survive,” and he shared that he the idea of having a comic book within the series came from 1986’s Watchmen.

“The whole idea for this comic book was very much inspired by Watchmen. There’s a comic book inside the story that reflects back on what’s happening in the world. So we wanted to do something similar where there was, like, this sci-fi comic that speaks to the same themes of relationships and love, and all that. And I was like ‘It should have a catchphrase that the main hero says.’ And I’m like ‘What could be kind of like a cheesy catchphrase? Okay, our game is about survival.’ And then I just went on thesaurus.com, typed in ‘survival’ and ‘endure’ came up, and I’m like ‘Endure and survive! There it is!’ It’s very meaningful but obviously has great thematic resonance.”

Written by comics legend Alan Moore, Watchmen tells the story of a world on the brink of World War III, and a massive conspiracy that is unearthed when the vigilante Rorschach begins to investigate a superhero’s murder. While the story is progressing, a subplot emerges within a seemingly unrelated comic being read by one of the side characters. Although Tales of the Black Freighter may seem superfluous at first, it comes to act as a counterpoint to the main plot and foreshadows the twist ending. 

In The Last of Us game and tv show, Savage Starlight is a comic book series that players can collect as one of four classes of collectibles in the franchise’s first game. The sci-fi comics are entirely in-universe and consist of 14 issues, telling the story of battles between superheroes and malicious masterminds. 

In the interview, Druckmann did not comment on whether or not Savage Starlight will foreshadow coming events as Tales of the Black Freighter did in Watchmen. Fans of The Last of Us know that Ellie (Bella Ramsey) is a fan of the comics, and Joel (Pedro Pinto) collects them for her. However, anyone familiar with the game knows that every issue of Savage Starlight is a harbinger of things to come, so it may be worth your time to rewatch episode five and take a closer look at that comic.

The Last of Us airs on Sundays at HBO Max.