With the third season of The Walking Dead in production, AMC is already gearing up fans for what is promised to be a “faster, darker” year as we venture forth into the longest arc of the comic series so far with the setting of The Prison. One thing fans truly adored about the Season 2 finale happened to be the appearance of fan-favorite Michonne, who remained only cloaked with her hood but still stood tall and in true badass fashion after slicing a walker to pieces with her katanna. Now, AMC is ready for another reveal as the first official image of actress Danai Gurira as the zombie killing character has been released.
The photo comes from EW, who exclusively showcased the photo:
Creator of the comic and writer of the series Robert Kirkman told the magazine, “The essence of the character — her personality, her motives, everything that makes Michonne Michonne — remains intact from the comics. But like a lot of things on the show, there will be little tweaks and differences here and there. We saw that her introduction is slightly different from how it was in the comic, and her interaction with Andrea is really going to be a really cool addition to the character that I think will get television viewers up to speed, and they’ll get to know her a lot faster than comic book readers did.”
Gurira joins new cast member David Morrissey as the very menacing and important character The Governor, and if the series sticks closely to the comics’ story audiences are in for a huge event when The Prison plot is over. However, with the inclusion of Maggie and Hershel taking a very different path than that of the source material, it’s unclear exactly what the series could plan to do in the third season. Michael Rooker will also be returning as Merle Dixon, older brother of fan-favorite Daryl, who hasn’t been seen since Season 1′s early episodes but appeared in hallucination form last season to his little brother.
The upcoming season will be 16 episodes long, and split into two runs of eight hours a piece. The first run will begin this October, while a second will likely air sometime in Early 2013.
