Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) are one of the iconic couplings in AMC’s The Walking Dead. However, according to CBR, this relationship very nearly didn’t happen in the comic book series on which the TV show is based.
Ever since AMC brought The Walking Dead to life, there have been comparisons between it and its source material. Often, the storylines in AMC’s production have mirrored the comic books and, at other times, diverged completely.
The relationship between Maggie and Glenn, though, has remained fairly faithful to the comics books.
However, the comic book creator Robert Kirkman recently shared that there was nearly a very different relationship for Glenn in the original source.
Glenn and Lacey nearly hooked up
When Glenn showed up at Hershel Green’s farm in Season 2 of The Walking Dead, Hershel’s daughter, Maggie, made him an offer he couldn’t refuse by way of sleeping with her. After that, the pair became pretty much inseparable.
In the comics, a similar introduction played out with their early interaction. However, initially, Kirkman would have Maggie’s older sister, Lacey, be the one to wind up sleeping with Glenn.
In the comics, Glenn had a thing for older women and had been eyeing off Carol (played by Melissa McBride in the TV series) when Maggie first notices him. Having Lacey be the one who noticed instead of her younger sister would have made more sense with what had been known about Glenn at the time.
Maggie was not going to be a major character
With Lacey filling Maggie’s storyline, this would mean that her character would likely have played a minor role in the series. In fact, it could be surmised that she may even have wound up dying when walkers were accidentally released from Hershel’s barn.
This would have placed Lacey in the more prominent role where she would have filled all of the plots that Maggie went on to achieve in the comics. She also would have wound up being the mother of young Hershel Rhee (Kien Michael Spiller), who recently appeared in the TV series.
Of course, considering the pair are siblings, if Kirkman had chosen Lacey over Maggie, it may simply mean that the iconic due viewers know and love today would have been very similar in make-up regardless.
Kirkman also admitted that Maggie was ultimately chosen because she appeared more “relatable” to readers than Lacey and was closer in age to Glenn. In the comics, Maggie’s boyfriend had never returned, assumed dead, when the zombie apocalypse occurred, so it makes more sense that she might want to randomly hook up with someone in the midst of such a tumultuous time.
The Walking Dead airs Sunday nights at 9/8c on AMC.