AMC’s “The Walking Dead” is the biggest television show in a long time. It dominates Nielsen ratings and continues to pull in record numbers of viewers with each new season. At its peak, it hit over 17 million viewers for one episode (the season 5 premiere) and has drawn over 10 million viewers per episode since the 7th episode of the third season. Basically, AMC has a bona fide winner on their hands and there’s no end in sight for this show.

As everyone knows, the series is based on the Image Comics/Skybound Entertainment comic of the same name, which was created and written by Robert Kirkman. With over 150 issues released, the comic is still well ahead of the TV show in terms of storyline. That’s why many people are pretty certain that [REDACTED] is going to be the one that Negan kills in the season seven premiere, because that’s how it happened in the comics. Whether or not that’s what’ll happen is another story altogether, which brings me to the point of this post: “The Walking Dead” TV show has had some serious deviations from the comic and I think it’s about time that we looked at a few of them!

1. Rick’s Hand

Let’s start off big, shall we?

One of the more shocking moments in the comics was when The Governor cut off Rick’s right hand during their first encounter. It happens when Rick, Glenn, and Michonne are investigating a crashed helicopter, which leads them to the town of Woodbury. It is there that they are captured by The Governor and his men, who proceed to hold the three hostage and torture them mercilessly, trying to get information as to where the rest of the main crew are located.

The loss of Rick’s arm in the comics obviously has a strong effect on the character. Apart from making physical tasks harder, it hardened him as a person, just one more event that whittles away his humanity and empathy. On the show, such a task would’ve been very difficult to pull off and maintain.

In a Reddit AMA, Kirkman explains, “To clarify, I think cutting Rick’s hand off when we did was great for the comic. It’s just that in another medium it would be harder to pull off. We cheat in the comic because things aren’t moving. You can’t do that on the show. You’d see Rick not being able to reload his gun and things like that. The CGI of cutting off Rick’s hand would be expensive, but we did it with Hershel’s leg so if we felt strongly about Rick losing a hand, we’d do it.

2. The Governor’s Fate

Speaking of Philip Blake, aka The Governor, let’s talk about how version on the show doesn’t get anywhere NEAR as fucked up as he does in the comic. In the show, Michonne breaks into his room, runs into his zombie daughter, kills her, and then scuffles with Blake, resulting in him losing an eye. That’s about the gist of it.

In the comic, things are a bit more twisted and deplorable. As mentioned previously, Blake held Rick, Glenn, and Michonne hostage and you better believe he treated her in the most despicable ways imaginable. She was raped, beaten, and tortured, over and over again. When she managed to break free, she took her sword and got her revenge on Blake, carving out his eye, cutting off his right arm, slicing off his genitalia, and nearly killing him. The only reason she didn’t finish him off is because she decided that she wanted that she wasn’t done and she wanted the opportunity to inflict more pain upon him in the future.

It’s one of those moments in the series where you can understand her pain and the reasoning for her vicious actions. However, the severity and the magnitude of her “justice” is horrifying in its own right. She had every opportunity to kill him (something she’d later come to regret not doing) but she chose to descend to his level.

3. Lori and Judith

While Kirkman has openly stated many times, including the aforementioned AMA, that, “No character is too popular to die,” it feels like the comic is more open to slaughtering its characters in the most devastating of ways. One such instance was the death of Lori and, yes, Judith, the latter of whom is still alive in the TV show.

In the comics, Lori not only survived giving birth to Judith in the prison, she was pretty much perfectly fine, being 100% capable of raising and nurturing her and Rick’s daughter. The relationship between them all seemed to be steady with a lot of love going around. Alas, Michonne’s failure to kill The Governor is what ultimately led to their shocking deaths.

When The Governor and his men come to attack the prison and kill Rick and his crew, all hell breaks loose. It’s pure pandemonium and everyone is desperately fighting to survive. Towards the end of the battle, Rick is trying to steer everyone into the woods surrounding the prison, hoping that they can escape in the trees. As everyone is fleeing, Lori, who is holding Judith in her arms, is shot in the back with a shotgun, the blast blowing through her and her daughter, killing them instantly. Rick can only look in horror before realizing he needs to snap back to reality and protect Carl.

I think it’s pretty obvious why the show didn’t kill a baby, although I’m kinda torn on that one. While I understand their hesitance to show a young child’s death on TV, they’ve done it before. The very first scene of the show was Rick killing a young girl walker while scavenging for gasoline. Then, Sophia was shot outside of Hershel’s barn and who can forget, “Just look at the flowers, Lizzie“? Yes, Judith is much younger and completely indefensible but if no one is safe, then I say no one.

4. Andrea

One of the most upsetting character redesigns from the comic to the show was Andrea. In the comics, she is tough, she is cunning, she is powerful, and, in short, she’s a badass. She and Rick end up in a relationship and she becomes essentially a mother figure to Carl. She goes through everything the series throws at our heroes, remaining one of the few survivors of the original Atlanta group.

But in the show? Fuuuuck…. They absolutely ruined her character. Instead of making her strong-willed, she instead gave up at nearly every turn. Yes, her sister died and she had to shoot her as she was turning. Yes, that would mess with anyone’s head. Guess what though. She did that in the comic! She didn’t descend into a black depression in the comics (although she was severely affected) nor did she ever get bit and then take her own life.

If you’re a fan of Andrea in the comic, you’ll no doubt hate her translated depiction in the show.

5. Hershel Greene’s Farm

While the show spent all of season 2 at the farm, that location was only in a handful of issues towards the beginning of the story. It starts out much the same, with Carl being shot by Otis and Hershel helping tend to the boy. Rick and Hershel are originally at odds regarding the zombies as Hershel refuses to believe that they’re dead. Well, that is until his zombified son Shawn and a few other zombies break out of the barn – where Hershel was holding them in the hopes that they could be tended to – and attack everyone, including his daughter Lacey who gets bit. In his grief and horror, Hershel kills all the walkers, including his children Shawn and Lacey.

Here is where it’s substantially more different than the show. In the comics, Hershel finds Glenn and Maggie in the same bed the next morning whereupon he forces Rick and his group out of the house at gunpoint. The group leave, find the prison, and then Rick returns to offer sanctuary to the Greene family, which they accept. Otis, who is still alive (unlike in the show where he is shot and left for the zombies by Shane), stays to tend to the animals on the farm. They eventually return to the farm after the Governor’s all out war on the prison, where they find Otis has turned into a walker (Rick dispatches him).

So there you have it. What the comic had condensed into a few issues the show writers expanded into an entire season. Unnecessary? Maybe. Boring? Absolutely. That second season is a drag and everyone knows it.

6. Merle and Daryl

This one is super easy to lay out because the difference between these two characters from the show and the comic is that they aren’t in the comic. These two were created specifically for the series and the reactions have been interesting, to say the least.

For Merle, the immediate reaction was pretty negative from critics. After all, his character seemed completely unlike anyone around him and he was a giant pain in the ass. However, his reappearance in the third season generated far more positive reactions, with people excited by his return and his more restrained attitude.

For Daryl, he was originally supposed to be a recurring role that came up now and again. However, fan adoration skyrocketed him to become probably the most popular character of the series, arguably surpassing Rick in terms of recognition. To this day, the chant of “If Daryl dies, we riot!” still echoes through the Twitter-sphere whenever it seems he is in peril.

7. Dale’s Fate

Oh Dale, we hardly knew ye…

In the TV show, Dale was an old, friendly guy that tried to be the sane, rational voice in a world that had gone mad. Unfortunately, his views and attitudes were often more harmful than helpful and it could be said that it was his own inner conflict that got him killed. Or we could blame Carl because he was being a total little shit in the second season.

To lay it out real quick like, Carl is messing around with a zombie that’s stuck in a mud pit but his teasing allows the zombie to get loose. As Dale is taking a late night stroll, the zombie descends upon him and basically eviscerates him. The survivors run to his side and realize that there is nothing they can do to save him. Daryl puts a bullet in his head and that’s the end of Dale.

One other thing to note before I go into the comic’s portrayal of Dale: he and Andrea were at serious odds throughout the second season, mainly due to her blaming him for not letting her die in the CDC explosion.

Okay, onto the comic version of Dale: As before, he’s an older guy who owns the RV that helps transport the survivors. His relationship with Andrea is a bit different from the show in that the two are romantically involved for a while. Furthermore, he lives throughout the prison sequence (although he gets bitten by a zombie and has to have his leg amputated in order to save his life) as well as the group’s return to the Greene farm.

Here’s where the comic really fucks with Dale and I personally think it’s one of the most horrifying things the comic has ever done: there’s a point in the story where Dale gets bitten on the shoulder and he doesn’t share it with anyone. Rather, he waits until night and wanders into the woods so that he can die on his own terms. It is there that he is kidnapped and knocked unconscious. When he wakes up, he realizes that his other leg has been amputated and that his abductors are cannibals who are eating his flesh. He begins laughing maniacally, screaming “Tainted meat!” over and over as everyone around him begins vomiting uncontrollably. They beat him within an inch of his life and drop his body in front of Gabriel’s church (where the survivors are taking refuge). Andrea then mercifully ends his life.

Even writing about that sequence messes with my head.

8. Carol Isn’t the Badass We Know and Love

In the show, Carol begins as a meek, subservient character to her abusive husband. It’s only as the show progresses that she steels herself and becomes one of the most beloved people on the screen. In a weird way, she kinda becomes what Andrea should’ve evolved into. No, she and Rick don’t hook up but she learns weapons the same as Andrea, she becomes hard and tough like her, and she becomes an integral member of the core group. Wanna know how she is in the comic? Well, you only have to read through issue 42 because that’s when she commits suicide by letting a zombie eat her neck. Yup!

Alright, let me explain. In the comics, Carol’s husband isn’t a horrible piece of shit. Rather, he ends up taking his own life during a deep depression after seeing his parents get killed and subsequently come back as zombies. Meanwhile, Carol is the type of person who cannot be alone, so she takes Sophia to Atlanta where they run into Shane and the core group. As they move on, they come across Tyreese, who Carol begins shacking up with. All is well and good and they appear to get along fabulously.

Enter Michonne. Carol basically is worried that Michonne and Tyreese will start hooking up and she will get pushed out of the relationship that the two have built. Unfortunately, she’s right as she stumbles upon Michonne giving Tyreese a blowjob when they’re all staying in the prison. That night, she tries to offer the same but ends up feeling shame, regret, betrayal, and anger. She ends the relationship and has him move out. So begins her spiral into depression and potential psychosis. Desperate to have some sort of relationship, she proposes a polygamous situation with Rick and Lori, both of whom individually turn it down.

Crushed by this, she plans her suicide, which involves sitting next to a zombie that is being held for testing purposes, telling it her story and laying out her feelings, and then leaning in and letting it bite her neck. As she lays there bleeding out, she demands that everyone let her die in peace. Tyreese cradles her body, overcome with guilt. As she turns, she tries to bite him in his distracted state. He is saved by Andrea, who shoots Carol before she can harm anyone.

So there ya go. Carol in the show is alive while she’s dead in comic and has been for a long time.

9. Sophia Isn’t Dead

Remember how I said that Andrea is alive and well in the comics, even after all this time? Yeah, same thing with Sophia, Carol’s daughter who died in the 2nd season, was trapped in Hershel’s barn as a zombie, and was then mercifully finished off by Rick when she came stumbling out.

After Carol’s suicide, Glenn and Maggie take Sophia under their wing and act as surrogate parents for the young girl. She also develops a friendship that might be considered one of those fake childhood boyfriend-girlfriend relationships with Carl, although that turns bitter for a while after she and Maggie move from Alexandria to the Hilltop Colony following the murder of [REDACTED] at the hands of Negan. As she grows older, the friendship between her and Carl rekindles and he even kills two young boys who were attacking her.

As mentioned before, Sophia is alive and well in the comics and seems to be turning into a fiercely capable young woman.

10. Lizzie and Mika vs. Billy and Ben

One of the more difficult-to-watch moments in the show was when Carol and Tyreese had to watch Judith along with sisters Lizzie and Mika. Lizzie, it turns out, is a budding psychopath who is intent on killing Judith AFTER she kills Mika. However, in her mind everything is okay with her sister because “I didn’t hurt her brain.” Carol is forced to kill Lizzie in one of the most heartbreaking and darkest moments the show has offered. Personally speaking, Melissa McBride was absolutely stunning in that scene.

In the comics, Lizzie and Mika don’t exist. Rather, Andrea and Dale adopt twin brothers Billy and Ben, who are the children of Allen and Donna, two characters that died early on in the comics. These two were adapted into the sisters above, as seen in the moment when Ben kills his brother Billy but tells Andrea, “Don’t worry, he’s going to come back. I didn’t hurt his brains.” He then embraces her, his new mother. Dale stumbles across Ben hugging Andrea with Billy’s body laying in the grass, at which point he becomes overwhelmed with emotion and stands there sobbing.

The group struggles to decide on what to do with Ben. Abraham makes it clear that he should be killed while Andrea, Dale, Maggie, and Rick are shocked by this suggestion. Rick sees the sense in it, although he is loath to admit it, while the other three walk away in shock and horror.

It’s Carl, if you can believe it, who sneaks into the van where Ben is quarantined and kills him. It takes several issues but he comes clean to Rick and it ends up being a touching moment where the bond between the two strengthens. Still, it’s not easy when it Ben dies as Dale’s grief ultimately ends up being his undoing (see above).