Walking Dead Volume 4: The Heart's Desire

The fourth volume of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead collects issues #19–24, with art by Charlie Adlard and gray tones by Cliff Rathburn. As Rick Grimes and the survivors settle deeper into the prison, a katana-wielding stranger named Michonne arrives seeking refuge, and her arrival unsettles the group's fragile order.

Relationships among the survivors shift fast — bonds form, others break — while a violent confrontation forces the group to question Rick's leadership and push toward a committee-based way of making decisions. Kirkman uses the volume to dig into what survival costs morally, as the characters argue over when killing another person is justified.

By its final pages, the alliances and rivalries set up here reshape the direction of the series, and several of the relationships changed in this book stay changed for the rest of The Walking Dead.