An image from the set of The Walking Dead’s eleventh and final season shows the first look for newcomer Michael James Shaw’s character, Mercer, in his comic book accurate red armor. TWD’s season 10 introduced Officer Mercer’s troops when Eugene’s (Josh McDermitt) small group were taken into custody by the armored soldiers of the Commonwealth Army in Charleston. The small group was supposed to rendezvous with Stephanie (Margot Bingham). Walking Dead fans got a sneak peek of Mercer’s unique red armor back in April’s final season teaser that revealed the zombie show’s return on August 22nd, on the AMC Network.
FIRST LOOK at Michael James Shaw as the character of Mercer in Season 11 of #TheWalkingDead! pic.twitter.com/JZVgVdzLQi
— The Walking Dead World (@TWalkingDWorld) May 24, 2021
Officer Mercer is a late addition to The Walking Dead comic books created by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard. He first appeared in issue #177 of the zombie saga, which ended with issue #193. In the comics, Mercer (A U.S. Marine) leads the Commonwealth military and is part of the Ohio-based settlement. The place becomes inspired by Rick Grimes when his group of survivors make their way to the settlement that’s run by Governor Pamela Milton and her son Sebastian.
During the Walking Dead Extended Season 10 Preview Special, showrunner and executive producer Angela Kang talked about the white-armored soldiers in TWD’s season 10 episodes “A Certain Doom” and “Splinter” are “just the iceberg”.
“There’s more characters within that group to meet, but we will start to get into them a bit, get a sense of their vibe, what they’re about, through our characters’ perspective. But there’s so much more cool story to come in Season 11.”
The resources being used by the Commonwealth military like their armor and weapons “tells you that this group is really formidable, they are organized, they have some access to the materials that you need to create in a uniform fashion, so that’s really unlike some of the groups that we’ve seen,” Kang mentioned. “Because our groups have only been able to do things like that on a very limited basis, like how Eugene was only able to make a handful of perfect bullets. But these guys have a lot more going on.”
Eugene, King Ezekiel (Khary Payton), Yumiko (Eleanor Matsuura), and Princess (Paolo Lazaro) were captured and questioned by soldiers in TWD’s season 10 bonus episode “Splinter”. We’ll soon find out more about the CRM when The Walking Dead’s eleventh and final season premieres this fall on AMC. And all TWD fans are wondering, will we see the return of Rick Grimes in the final season?
