While The Walking Dead franchise has introduced some iconic characters to viewers, the show has also created some legendary weapons. The original show’s relatively simple premise concerned a world suddenly dealing with a zombie apocalypse, without ever using the word “zombie.” The best characters in The Walking Dead have adapted to the new world, creating lives and communities against this dangerous backdrop, which brings out the best and the worst in humanity. The Walking Dead was so successful and there was so much potential in the concept that there are now several Walking Dead spin-offs, with more on the way.
The many Walking Dead spin-offs each introduce new characters and their ways of dealing with walkers. However, more importantly, they show time passing, which affects how the characters survive and how the core communities each work differently. In the earlier Walking Dead seasons, the walkers were a new threat, and people turned to weapons like guns, which were easily available. Resourceful characters, like Daryl Dixon, understood the importance of quiet weapons from the start of The Walking Dead. Still, other characters have learned quickly, with many of the longest-surviving Walking Dead characters creating new, unexpected, and iconic weaponry.
10Rick’s Colt Python
Rick’s Gun Was A Perfect Weapon For Him
While many of The Walking Dead‘s original characters, like Andrea, needed to be taught how to shoot, Rick was at an advantage. As a sheriff, Rick was already able to handle a gun, and one of the first things he did after waking from his coma was to go to his office and retrieve his gun. Rick’s Colt Python became his signature weapon, and it was even recreated when a fan made a detailed Rick Grimes LEGO project.
Rick’s Colt Python may not have been the best choice of weapon in the hands of a different character, but Rick was very effective with it, easily using it to put down walkers. The Colt Python stayed with Rick for the majority of his time in The Walking Dead, and it still played a symbolic role after he left the show. After The Walking Dead‘s time jump, the gun is seen once more, this time in the hands of Judith, becoming one of several connections to her father.
9Morgan’s Staff
Morgan’s Weapon Is A Symbol Of His Character’s Journey
Morgan has had one of the most complex and harrowing journeys of all the Walking Dead characters, losing his wife, and then his son, and being forced to put both of them down. His experiences in the early days of the apocalypse led him to struggle with mental illness and violent rages. However, Morgan’s encounter with the pacifist Eastman changed his journey for the remainder of his time in The Walking Dead, and gave him his staff, which became his signature weapon.
Eastman taught Morgan how to fight with a staff, and after his death, Morgan refused to use other weapons. Though he may have vowed never to kill another person, Morgan is the best Walking Dead character at killing walkers. He has even used his staff to fight living characters and is just as formidable as characters with deadlier-looking weapons. The staff has become a visual reminder of Morgan’s Walking Dead journey and is one of the most effective (if underestimated) weapons in the show.
8Daryl’s Flail
Daryl Now Has Two Main Weapons
Daryl Dixon’s weapons tend to be difficult to master, and the flail is no exception. While Daryl spent most of The Walking Dead series inseparable from his hunting crossbow, he picked up a new weapon for his fight with the Whisperers. The protagonists needed weapons that they did not need to pause and reload, and Daryl was able to use the flail to take down several walkers and Whisperers at once. It is not an easy weapon to use, and Norman Reedus hit himself a few times during filming.
After 13 years of being associated with the crossbow, Daryl’s flail has become his new signature Walking Dead weapon. Daryl was reunited with Carol in Daryl Dixon season 2, and it appears that Daryl Dixon season 3 will also reunite Daryl with his crossbow. Still, if anyone can have two signature weapons, it is Daryl, and as one of the Walking Dead franchise’s most resourceful characters, he would likely see the wisdom in having both a close-range and a long-range weapon.
7Michonne’s Katana
Michonne’s Opening Scene Is One Of The Walking Dead’s Best Moments
When Michonne made her legendary entrance into the Walking Dead franchise, Danai Gurira had not yet been cast, so the entire scene was filmed without showing Michonne’s face. Still, this entrance instantly showed a lot about Michonne. Her understanding that walkers do not harm each other allowed her to use her walker “pets” as a shield, while her sword made her instantly formidable. Not all Walking Dead characters have signature weapons, but Michonne’s katana is a key part of who she is.
While Michonne’s katana stays with her throughout most of her time in the Walking Dead franchise, the TV show changed the source material, giving the weapon a different backstory. In the Walking Dead comics, Michonne found the katana in her neighbor’s house while looking for supplies, and she taught herself to use it by practicing on the walkers she found. However, Michonne already owned the katana in the TV show, which showed it hanging on her wall in a flashback scene.
6Alicia’s Barrel Shroud
The Improvised Weapon Saves At Least Two Lives
In the first Walking Dead spin-off, Fear the Walking Dead, Alicia Clark uses a sharpened barrel shroud as a weapon. At this point in the walker apocalypse, regular weapons are harder to come by, and the characters have become more creative when searching for things to use for self-protection. Alicia finds the barrel shroud on an abandoned machine gun at a derelict water park and adapts it. Alicia adds a strap to the weapon and uses it in place of the balisong she had carried.
Alicia’s barrel shroud saves her from walkers and surviving people, but she passes it on to Sherry when she gets a new and improved weapon. The barrel shroud then becomes more than just a walker-killing tool, as Sherry uses it to dig her and Dwight out when the drainage pipe collapses. Still, the barrel shroud and its former owner have something in common, as both their fates are a mystery. Alicia’s fate in Fear the Walking Dead is currently unknown, and Sherry no longer seems to have the barrel shroud.
5Alicia’s Bone Blade Arm
Alicia Used One Signature Weapon To Create Another In Fear The Walking Dead
Alicia’s sharpened barrel shroud saved her from walkers on many occasions, but it had a key role in one of the Walking Dead franchise’s most shocking scenes, saving her life once again. When Alicia is bitten by a walker, she uses the barrel shroud to amputate her own arm. Alicia survives, having a new prosthetic arm made from the bones of her old arm, and attaching blades to the end of it. This weapon is a testament to Alicia’s strength and looks incredible (if disturbing.)
The Walking Dead universe rules allow a character to be saved from infection by a walker if they can amputate the affected limb quickly. That said, The Walking Dead appears to have retconned its walker bite amputation rules, with Alicia potentially suffering from the long-term effects of an amputation that wasn’t done quickly enough. She may have become ill, but Alicia’s prosthetic arm became one of the greatest weapons seen in the Walking Dead franchise, for its incredible backstory alone.
4Nat’s Missile Launcher
One Of The Most Creative Walking Dead Weapons Yet
Nat is one of the most interesting new characters in the Walking Dead franchise, and, if he had not been killed, viewers could have seen him become an asset in a similar way to Eugene. Nat’s way of dealing with his rough upbringing resulted in him becoming an expert at inventing tools, and this became his most valuable skill in the walker apocalypse. Nat built some of the most effective weapons in The Ones Who Live, including the missile launcher known as a screamstick.
Nat’s screamstick is one of the Walking Dead franchise’s most impressive weapons yet, and Michonne used it to blow up a horde of walkers that were blocking the way. Nat proved that the powerful invention was even capable of taking down aircraft when he shot the CRM helicopter down, unaware that Rick was on it. While many of the Walking Dead characters have an epic moment or two, Nat single-handedly taking down a helicopter can rival most of them.
3Daryl’s Crossbow
Daryl Dixon’s Original Weapon Showed He Was A Survivor
Of all the original Walking Dead characters, the fan-favorite Daryl Dixon appeared to be most capable of surviving the apocalypse. His former world skills set him up for success as a tracker and hunter, and he had a signature weapon while most of the other characters were still learning how to use one. Daryl’s crossbow was an effective hunting tool as well as a walker-killing weapon, and he quickly learns to use the bolts as close-range weapons, when he cannot get far enough away to shoot the crossbow.
Daryl has evolved as a character throughout the Walking Dead franchise, which has shown him taking on a flail as his new weapon in both The Walking Dead and Daryl Dixon. Still, viewers may be pleased to know that Daryl’s iconic Walking Dead crossbow will return in Daryl Dixon season 3. Now that Carol has retrieved it and brought it back to him, promotional shots for Daryl Dixon season 3 have shown him carrying both weapons. This makes him even more dangerous if that was even possible.
2Aaron’s Arm Mace
The Character Became An Unlikely Walking Dead Survivor
As the characters discovered that amputating a bitten limb could save their lives, the Walking Dead franchise had ever-increasing numbers of characters with amputations. That said, Aaron was not injured by a bite, but in a gruesome construction accident, during which his arm was crushed by falling logs. In the six years after the accident, Aaron wears several alternative prosthetics, beginning with a wooden hand, and progressing to cooler weapons.
Aaron reveals his mace attachment in season 10, which even impresses Negan. Aaron builds up his strength throughout The Walking Dead, and by the time the reveal scene happens, he is capable of shattering a walker’s head using the mace. Aaron began his Walking Dead story as a mild-mannered and gentle man, but eventually told Michonne that he was “sick of being nice.” Over time, Aaron became formidable with the help of his built-in weapons, eventually becoming one of The Walking Dead‘s unexpected survivors.
1Negan’s Bat
Lucille Became The Walking Dead’s Most Infamous Weapon
Negan’s introduction was arguably the most iconic in the entire Walking Dead franchise, and his obsession with his barbed wire-wrapped baseball bat, Lucille, was one of the character’s disturbing quirks. Negan killed some major Walking Dead characters, but it may come as a surprise to learn that only two were killed using Lucille. The initial scene in which Negan beats both Glenn and Abraham to death has gone down in Walking Dead history, but these are the only two main characters to die via Lucille.
Negan may be having a redemption arc in the Walking Dead franchise, even teaming up with Maggie in Dead City, but Lucille is back by his side for season 2. With Maggie possibly still looking for revenge, it is certain that she will not react well to seeing the weapon that killed her husband in one of the most impactful The Walking Dead episodes of all time.
