• Robert Kirkman's comics of The Walking Dead take the violence to the next level.
•The comics of the show are too dark for TV and can definitely leave you with nightmares.
•The show adds occassional humor and romance to lighten the mood.
The Walking Dead is darkness personified. Though the AMC series has recently taken flack for its violence and subject matter, it doesn’t hold a candle to the comics. Whereas the TV show leans on the occasional humor and flickering romance to add much-needed levity, a sustained reading of Robert Kirkman’s comics is like getting stuck on a roller coaster in the deepest rungs of hell. Even if you try to exit the ride, you’ll never be able to clear the images from your mind.
When things get bad, they only get worse, and if things seem good, prepare yourself for disaster. While the larger differences between The Walking Dead show and comics are well documented, the truly chthonic nature of the source material deserves attention of its own. A quick review of the comic’s darkest moments will prove just how gentle the show is by comparison, and how hopeless Rick Grimes and the survivors truly are.
Here are 15 The Walking Dead Comics Moments Too Dark For TV:
15. The governor removes his zombie daughter's teeth and kisses her
There are a great many diversions from The Walking Dead comic and television show, but none encapsulate those differences more succinctly than The Governor. His repulsive treatment of his daughter is at the peak of his madness. Following a series of soulless acts, The Governor reaches his apotheosis when he yanks out his reanimated daughter’s teeth with a pair of pliers. It’s a gruesome image, but before we even grow accustomed to the visual, it’s immediately supplanted by something far worse: the Governor moving in for a full-on make out session.
Unsurprisingly, he vomits instantaneously, but reminds himself that he has yet to get accustomed to the taste of dead daughter flesh. When asked about this reprehensible moment, creator Robert Kirkman said, “[He’s] the worst case scenario for what living in this world does to people…I was just trying to think of the worst things The Governor could ever do.” Mission accomplished, good sir.
14. Dale gets cannibalized
In the valley of the apocalypse, it’s hard to recognize the lesser of two evils. The Hunters were loosely adapted in The Walking Dead show, and anyone familiar with the source material can easily understand why. As also happens in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, these post-apocalyptic warriors become full-fledged cannibals who use their own children as food. This primitive behavior is rightly seen as an end-of-the-line survival tactic, but The Hunters take things a step further by expanding their appetite to poor Dale Horvath himself.
After suffering a zombie attack and bite, Dale is knocked unconscious before awaking to a garish sight. With his leg roasting on a spit, Dale earns the privilege of watching the Hunters dine on himself. They taunt him between bites before he bursts into laughter and shouts, “Ha! Ha! Ha! Tainted meat!!” To Dale’s great delight, the Hunters spew chunks to rid themselves of the freshly-poisoned zombie flesh. Though a similar fate befell Bob Stookey in the show, his cannibalization doesn’t quite stack up.
13. The medieval torture of the hunters
In both the comics and the show, there’s little doubt that Rick Grimes will do anything to survive. Though a man of great sensitivity, he also has the capacity for extreme brutality. Immediately after finding a legless Dale Horvath and realizing what the Hunters had done to him, Rick flips off the switch on sentimentality and embraces his inner sadist.
Taking the Hunters captive, Rick teams up with Michonne, Abraham, and Andrea to exert maximum hurt. What ensues is a series of executions and tortures that puts Rick in a league alongside the Governor and Negan himself. In slowly killing and mutilating the Hunters, the comic panels become so relentlessly disturbing that it’s little wonder they didn’t get adapted for the show. Rick even threatens to eat them in the same way they devoured Dale. Had AMC incorporated the real justice shown to the Hunters, Rick would have become a dubious hero with little to no contrast against the villains to come. Indeed, he later shows remorse in the comics for the atrocities committed against the cannibals.
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