In the comic book series, Carl begins as a mean and coldblooded child, but as the events of the zombie apocalypse force him to grow up, he becomes colder, and sometimes makes brash decisions for what he thinks is the good of the group.

The character's development is similar in the television series, where he adopts a callous personality, putting him at odds with his father, who wishes to maintain Carl's childhood morality and innocence as much as possible.

At the same time, his father begins to lose his morality, which eventually puts Carl into conflict with him for various reasons, particularly in regards to helping strangers in need.

When the dead rise, Lori takes Carl to a purported safe zone in Atlanta, Georgia, along with Rick's partner, Shane Walsh.

[3] After the group buries Shane and leaves Atlanta, Carl is shot and wounded by ranch foreman Otis while searching for supplies in the woods.

[volume & issue needed] Throughout Lori's pregnancy, Carl was thrilled with the idea of a baby sister and when Judith is born he is fiercely protective over her.

[volume & issue needed] When Rick decides to attack a group of survivors known as the Saviors, they retaliate by killing Glenn Rhee.

[volume & issue needed] After the roughly four-year time gap, Carl decides that he wants to leave the Safe Zone to journey to The Hilltop and start an apprenticeship with Earl Sutton, the blacksmith.

[volume & issue needed] Shortly after arriving there, two boys attack him and Sophia, and Carl fights back with a shovel, nearly killing them.

Upon learning of his father's shooting days before the outbreak, he is devastated, even wanting to give a blood transfusion to help which his mother talks him out of.

Carl along with Lori and Shane are part of the survivor group camping in a quarry outside of Atlanta, and has made friends with Sophia, Carol's daughter.

When Rick is found and brought back to the camp, Carl is overjoyed to see his father alive, and Lori instructs him to distance himself from Shane.

As Rick's group heads to Fort Benning, they are forced to hide themselves from a horde of walkers amid a jam-up of cars on a highway, during which Sophia goes missing.

They spot a deer, but as Carl approaches it, he is accidentally shot by Otis, a farmhand from Hershel Greene's farm nearby.

The operation is successful, but Carl is bedridden for several days, leading Hershel to allow Rick's group to stay on the farm while he heals.

The events have caused Lori to enter into childbirth, but she knows she requires a C-section that will likely be lethal, and says her goodbyes to Carl as Maggie operates.

When the Governor attacks the prison, Carl helps in its defense, including killing a terrified teenager compelled to fight when he was advancing on the unarmed Hershel and Judith.

Despite a population of teenagers at the prison, Carl remains distant from them, having been hardened by his experiences, and instead keeps check on Rick, who has relinquished the group's leadership.

Rick wants him to help the kids during the flu-like outbreak that is lethal to many, which in turn leads to the dead becoming re-animated until appropriate medicine is brought back to stop the illness.

Carl finds a heavily injured Rick in the chaos and helps him to walk away, but then they see the empty baby carrier where Judith had been and fear she died.

Carl is put in charge of defending the survivors when Rick and the others leave to finish off the remains of the Terminus population that are seeking revenge from the group.

Deanna, who already knew she was dying, sacrifices herself to give the others time to escape by covering themselves in viscera from dispatched walkers to fool the horde.

He plans on killing one of them with "Lucille", a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, to force them into servitude, and threatens to cut out Carl's other eye and feed it to Rick should any of them intercede.

Carl decides to stowaway aboard one of the trucks when they drive away, discovering that Jesus, one of the Hilltop survivors, is also there, seeking the location of Sanctuary, the Savior's base.

After Negan leaves, Rick, encouraged by Michonne and Carl, decides to take a stand against the Saviors, and starts to find allies and weapons.

Two years after Negan's defeat and imprisonment, Rick has continued to honor Carl's legacy by keeping the joined communities working together, despite any inner turmoil amongst the Saviors.

However, even though Rick's allowing Negan to live was done to honor Carl, Daryl and Maggie are still hellbent on killing him to avenge Glenn's death.

Negan continues to be a prisoner in Alexandria, and he shares an amicable relationship with Judith, telling her stories about the past that an overprotective Michonne keeps from the young girl.

Although Entertainment Weekly writer Clark Collis drew parallels to a serial killer, Kirkman suggested this was an initiative to give more screen time to the character.

But to have barely even really recognized what the world is and how it works and what to expect and then to be thrust into this apocalyptic threat and to grow up and mature with these kinds of situations.