When Robert Kirkman, the creator ofThe Walking Deadfranchise, first developed the idea of a zombie apocalypse, he gave very little thought to the question of how and why the zombie virus was created. While writingThe Walking Deadcomic book series, which debuted in 2003 and ended in 2019 after 193 issues,Kirkman deliberately avoided revealing the zombie virus originin favor offocusing on character developmentand the various moral dilemmas resulting from the zombie apocalypse.
This character-based philosophy carried over to the flagshipThe Walking Deadtelevision series, which, following the show’s debut in 2010 till its final episode in 2022, largely avoided dealing directly with the science behind the zombie apocalypse, especially the virus origin. However,after avoiding the subject for over a decade, the origin mystery was finally resolved in the final episode ofThe Walking Deadspin-off limited seriesThe Walking Dead: World Beyond, in which it’s revealed that the zombie virus originated in a French laboratory.
While the reveal of the zombie virus’s origin solved the franchise’s most enduring mystery, it also laid the groundwork for further exploration of the virus’s origin through otherThe Walking Deadspin-off shows.
How and Where Did The Zombie Virus Originate?
The Walking Dead
The origin of the zombie virus was finally revealed in the final episode ofThe Walking Dead: World Beyond, which ended on July 12, 2025, after two seasons and 20 episodes. In the post-credits scene of the show’s final episode, titled “The Last Light,” the virus is revealed to have originated from a biomedical facility in France with the Primrose and Violet research teams. The post-credits scene opens inside the long-abandoned lab, where one of the lab’s former researchers returns. She intends to find a cure for the zombie virus. Upon activating a laptop, she watches a dire video message from Dr. Edwin Jenner, the last survivor from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) facility in Atlanta, who committed suicide in the first season ofThe Walking Dead.
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While watching the video, in which Jenner expresses pessimism regarding the possibility of finding a cure, another survivor, a man, enters the dilapidated lab and points a gun at the woman while smoking a cigarette. After learning that the researcher was part of the Violet team, the smoking man declares that the researcher and her colleagues were primarily responsible for the creation of the virus and subsequently worsening the resulting outbreak.
However, while the smoking man holds Primrose and Violet solely responsible for creating the virus, the woman clearly suggests that the man also played a role in unleashing the virus upon the world. When she says “When you did what you did” to the smoking man, she seems to be implying that the man, either by himself or more likely as part of a group, previously invaded the facility upon learning of thedevelopment of said virus, which, after being discovered by the CDC on July 17, 2025, was declared to be a pandemic and then, of course, caused the collapse of modern civilization.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, which debuted with the show’s abducted titular character awakening in France, where he remained throughout the show’s first season, shed more light on the virus’s origins.The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixonconfirmed that the virus originated in France by including a flashback that showed the initial chaos from the outbreak. At the same time, the series deepened the potential of the virus to mutate and implied further experimentation after the initial outbreak. Introducing acidic, synthetic, and faster zombies showed that there may be an even greater mystery behind the outbreak’s origin and initial plans by those who created them.
WhileThe Walking Deadcreator Robert Kirkman has consistently expressed ambivalence toward giving a clear explanation for the origin of the zombie virus throughout the franchise’s history,Kirkman nonetheless originally developed a much different explanation than was revealed in the final episode ofThe Walking Dead: World Beyond.
When Kirkman first pitched the idea of aThe Walking Deadcomic book series to publisher Image Comics in 2003, Kirkman, under pressure to create a fresh narrative hook for the series,explained that the zombie apocalypse resulted from an alien invasion, in which aliens used zombies to weaken Earth’s infrastructure prior to an alien invasion. In 2018, Kirkman cryptically teased that the zombie apocalypsehad a science-fiction origin. Kirkman elaborated upon this in a 2020 Twitter message, in which Kirkman declared that “space spores” were responsible for launching the zombie apocalypse. The tweet was deleted.
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Kirkman seems adamant that the reason behind the virus is not essential to his comics, as reflected in a Tumblr Q&A in 2018 viaBloody Disgusting. He noted that “It (the origin of the zombie outbreak) couldn’t be less important to the story and the lives of these characters. It would be completely out of place in the story.” To his point, Kirkman did exemplify that the information would be irrelevant to the characters he created:
“Honestly if a scientist from Washington came to the character and told them what happened the characters would just shrug and say “Oh… okay…” it wouldn’t change their lives at all.”
While the reveal of the zombie virus origin eliminated the biggest mystery withinThe Walking Deadfranchise and violated creator Robert Kirkman’s long-held principle of not explaining the virus origin, the reveal has established the basis for a fascinatingnew era within the franchise. Now that all the material from the long-running comic book series has been seemingly exhausted withinThe Walking Deadtelevision universe, a deeper exploration of the creation of the virus and its possible cure could sustain the franchise for at least another decade.
While viewers are divided over the decision to reveal the origin of the virus, the reveal was necessary for the purpose of maintaining interest in the franchise, in which the origin reveal only represents one intriguing piece of a larger puzzle. Moreover, the reveal hasn’t changed the franchise’s overall narrative structure, which continues to be grounded in the micro-dynamics of human nature. Indeed, while the reveal is of great interest to audiences, the reveal has had no meaningful effect on the lives of the franchise characters, most of whom couldn’t care less about how and why the zombie apocalypse started.
The Walking Dead Outbreak Timeline:
Outbreak & Early Days
The zombie outbreak begins
California declares a Stet of Emergency
Rick Grimes wakes up in the hospital
Herschel’s farm falls
Prison Era
The prison is discovered
The prison is destroyed
The Negan Era
Negan arrives
The Negan war ends
StreamThe Walking DeadonNetflixand the spinoffs on AMC+. Six seasons of The Walking Dead are streaming for free onPluto TV here.
