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The arrival of Negan on AMC’s The Walking Dead (2010) has been highly anticipated by fans of the ongoing comic book series. At what point Negan would appear on the television adaptation has been widely speculated and theorized for years, especially during season six as the show inches closer to the relative spot in the comic timeline where Negan is introduced. The huge announcement that actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan has been cast as Negan, and will allegedly bring the character to life for the first time during the Season Six finale, may be the biggest Walking Dead news since the series began.

But why? Who is this guy, and what makes him such a big deal?

Those familiar with Robert Kirkman’s long-running comic series know the importance of Negan— the ultra trash-talking, murderous, charismatic and monstrous leader of a gang known ironically as The Saviors. Negan is physically intimidating, muscular, and was actually modeled after Henry Rollins (one of many actors fans suggested would be effective playing the role).

When Negan and The Saviors are first revealed in Issue 100 of the comics, it is the start of the most significant conflict Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln on TV) and his crew ever face, and serves as a turning point for everything that follows. “All Out War” is the volume’s subtitle; an apt representation of the events. Negan and his gang offer a greater challenge to Rick’s group than anyone who has come before, even rendering the messed-up megalomania of The Governor (David Morrissey) tame by comparison. Without giving away any plot details (in case the show follows a similar path), the conflict Rick and his group face with Negan and The Saviors lasts quite a while, involves substantial loss to both parties, and ends unpredictably. It leaves everyone emotionally warped—particularly Rick—and the outcome of the situation dramatically changes their perspective moving forward.

Negan represents the absolute outer limits of what people turn into in the post-apocalyptic zombie world of The Walking Dead. He controls by fear, intimidation, melting people’s faces with irons, and splitting open heads with “Lucille,” his barbed wire-wrapped baseball bat. He is the picture of deplorable human trash. That said, Negan is more than just a giant hulking, destroying Terminator-like beast. As with The Governor and most Walking Dead characters, he is multi-layered and occasionally even likable—if not simply for the sheer extremity of his behavior, because of his condescending and explicit humor. Negan is the definition of a character you love to hate.

The Walking Dead has always been a show about people that uses the zombie apocalypse as a backdrop to explore human behavior. It’s a show that constantly poses moral questions, tests the limits of its characters humanities, and shows the way people succeed or fail in dealing with an awful existence. Negan is a man perfectly suited for survival in this world, capable of commanding others, but he’s cracked as a person. The comic books introduce him via a display of unforgivable brutal violence paired with his sadistic sense of humor, immediately instilling a perfect picture of who this guy is and how he operates. Extremes are all he knows.

Adapting Negan for cable television will likely pose a challenge for showrunner Scott Gimple and the writing crew. The qualities that make Negan tolerable on paper, those traits that serve to contrast the intense depravity of his actions, stem from his ridiculously prominent use of expletives and his charismatic brand of insane dialogue. He’s as funny as he is loathsome—but his humor and charisma originate from a very HBO-level use of language and behavior which will have to be captured in a cable setting. Maintaining the comic book depth of Negan’s character within the limitations of cable TV rules won’t be easy. Though AMC’s censors let The Walking Dead’s production team get away with a lot, Negan will put the show’s ability to push the limits to the test.

Though the AMC series frequently deviates from the source comics, the show weaves in and out of the comics’ core narrative and keeps many of the broader themes the same. Negan’s relationship with Rick and company is so paramount to the progression of the comic story that we will likely see many similarities emerge, even if through altered application. The comics are now almost 50 episodes past the point where Negan first reared his ugly head, and no new danger has since emerged that even comes close to he and The Saviors. There has even been a time jump distancing Rick’s group in chronology from the events, but the shadow of Negan’s brutality still hangs over everything the group does, coloring their decisions and behaviors. The Walking Dead shows no sign of coming to a close or leaving AMC’s lineup of programming any time soon, so the show has ample opportunity to explore The Ricktatorship vs. the Saviors in good form.

One thing is for sure— Not everyone who meets Negan will live to see the other side of the fight, and nobody walks away unscathed.