What We Know About The Walking Dead's Scrapped Villains, The Gardener and The Contractor

The Walking Dead is the seminal zombie comic book. But while the zombies are a major threat, the franchise's human villains are even more memorable. That makes it particularly interesting that a couple of iconic evildoers were left on the cutting room floor - with one of them soon to make their grand debut.

The Walking Dead was a long-running comic and TV series and, like with most long-running stories, things changed over time. The ideas that Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard started out with transformed along the way, including the villains.

While many of the series' most iconic villains - like the Governor and Negan - have already made an outsize impact on pop culture, some of The Walking Dead's villains never actually made it to their debut. However, The Walking Dead's unrealized villains, the Contractor and the Gardener, are about to officially debut years after the comic series ended.

The Governor Was One of The Walking Dead's First Major Villains

The Walking Dead #27 by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn, and Dave McCaig

A recurring theme in The Walking Dead is how humans are far more dangerous than the undead monsters that plague the world. This theme was first made prominent with the appearance of Brian Blake. The leader of the town of Woodbury, the Governor had a significant amount of resources at his command, as well as people willing to die on his orders. He was the main antagonist for several chapters in the book, but his obsession with destroying Rick Grimes and taking over the Prison they lived in eventually led to his downfall.

The Governor was similarly adapted to the TV show, where he had the same role. The Governor was a brutal and sadistic man, but he didn't really seem to have a firm grasp on reality. Originally known as Brian, the Governor was a weak but good man, which changed when he took on the personality of his colder brother, Phillip. After taking on this personality, Brian continually tried to drown his previous personality by committing darker and darker atrocities. The character channelled fascinating ideas about just how far someone would go to try and survive in the new world.

Negan Was the Greatest Walking Dead Villain - But Readers Never Got to Meet the Contractor

The Walking Dead #100 by Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, Cliff Rathburn, and Dave McCaig

If the Governor was the exploration of a man who had to force himself to survive in the cold new world, Negan is the exploration of a man who thrives in such a world. A former school coach, Negan was poised as a dark mirror to Rick. He was a brilliant and effective leader of a huge community. While he had no qualms about killing people to enforce his will, he did have a strong code of ethics that he held to. He truly believed that the strong had to protect the weak, no matter what. These beliefs made him just a bit more nuanced than characters like the Governor.

As a well-written character, it's no wonder that Negan became one of the most popular Walking Dead villains ever created. It's clear that Kirkman and his co-creators put a lot of time and effort into depicting these characters, which is why it's so interesting to hear about two characters who didn't make the cut: the Contractor and the Gardener. Currently, nothing much is known about either one, but considering the depth that Kirkman put into both the Governor and Negan, they both would likely have been fantastic villains in their own right.

Currently, readers have the least amount of information regarding the Contractor. Kirkman briefly mentioned the character in a Q&A from the backmatter of The Walking Dead Deluxe #104, but nothing else is known about them, to the point that even Kirkman seemingly forgot the finer details of the villain. While he mentions that the villain has a "cool name," he doesn't really offer any other explanation about who they are. There is, in fact, a character known as the Traveling Contractor from The Walking Dead: Survivors, but it's unclear if the two are related.

A Fan-Favorite Walking Dead Character Will Face the Gardener, an Unused Villain

The Unrealized Villain Is Finally Making An Appearance

One of the most popular Walking Dead characters is Clementine, which is ironic considering she wasn't originally part of the comics. First appearing in Telltale's acclaimed The Walking Dead video game, Clementine starts out as a young girl who is taken care of by the player character known as Lee. Over time, Clementine grows enough to take care of herself and ends up on her own adventure in the apocalyptic world, leading her to settlements where she's faced off against several villains, both in the video games and her graphic novel series by Tillie Walden.

Clementine has appeared in a few comics due to her popularity, and it seems that Kirkman has decided to use this as an avenue to explore some ideas that just didn't make it into the original book. In the upcoming Clementine: Book Three by Walden, readers will finally get to see the Gardener, another unused villain. Currently, there is nothing known about the character at all, just that they will be in a mentor position to Clementine, but whether that's a good mentorship is yet to be seen.

 

The Gardener's First Official Appearance Is Key to Clementine's Character

Clementine: Book Three Is Available June 25th, 2025 from Image Comics

The Walking Dead franchise has established itself as having some of the best villains in comic book history. The Governor and Negan were both fantastic portrayals of the darkest parts of humanity in an apocalyptic world, and that's not even mentioning the other villains such as Alpha and Beta. The creators used these characters to explore just how far people will go to survive when they're untethered from the expectations of society or the trappings of morality.

The Gardener and the Contractor likely would have been equally amazing villains, and while readers will likely never see the Contractor, as even Kirkman admits he's forgotten what the villain was meant to be, there's still time to see the Gardener. Readers saw how Rick went up against some of Kirkman's greatest villains with Negan and the Governor, and now they'll be able to pick up the next chapter in Clementine's life to see exactly who the Gardener is - and what they would have been had they appeared in The Walking Dead.