5 Grim Differences Between the Walking Dead Comic and TV Show

After investigating a crashed helicopter, Rick, Glenn, and Michonne are captured outside the gates of Woodbury. They are then first introduced to the comic’s version of the Governor, who proceeds to question the three as to how many others are in Rick’s group. Not buying Rick’s bluff that they are alone, he proceeds to cut Rick’s right hand off. The abrupt maiming of our main protagonist was a shocking twist that has had serious ramifications throughout the rest of the series. Rick even eventually begins wearing a prosthetic arm regularly.

Many fans of the show are still wondering if Rick’s hand is still on the proverbial chopping block. While some deem the move unlikely due to the logistics of needing to constantly digitally remove the hand in the future, Andrew Lincoln even campaigned to have his character’s appendage detached.

Although she dies shortly after arriving to the prison on the show, the comic version of Lori is a big part of life at the prison. She becomes extremely anxious while Rick is captured in Woodbury and attempts to hide her feelings from Carl. When he returns, Rick brings Woodbury’s medical assistant, Alice, back with him to the prison. Alice eventually helps give birth to baby Judith.

Upon the Governor’s assault on the prison, Alice pretends to hold Lori and Judith at gunpoint in order to trick the invaders from Woodbury into letting them flee. As they are running to escape, a stray bullet catches Lori in the torso and she falls to the ground, crushing baby Judith to death beneath her.

In the comic, Tyreese first joins Rick’s group with his daughter, Julie, and her boyfriend, Chris, in tow. He begins to develop a relationship with Carol and becomes Rick’s right hand (*cough*) man leading up to the group settling in the prison. After hearing a gunshot inside the prison, Tyreese finds a scared Chris alongside his daughter's corpse. Chris explains they had a (clearly botched) suicide pact to shoot each other at the same time. Once Julie begins to reanimate in Tyreese’s arms, Chris finishes her off before Tyreese proceeds to strangle the life out of him.

Once Michonne enters the prison, she makes advances on Tyreese until they eventually hook up. After walking in on them together, Carol breaks up with Tyreese and slits her wrists. Tyreese is later captured by the Governor and ends up sharing the same fate that Hershel receives on the TV show: being decapitated by Michonne’s katana in front of the prison’s residents.

Preapocalypse comic Carol had lived a mostly unsatisfied life as a housewife with her husband and daughter Sophia. Shortly after the outbreak, her husband commits suicide, leaving Carol and Sophie all alone. Constantly timid and in search of companionship, Carol quickly attaches herself to Tyreese once he joins the group.

After her encounter with Tyreese and Michonne, Carol ends her relationship with him, slits her wrists, survives, then proposes the idea of a polygamous relationship with Rick and Lori, both of whom reject her. Broken and confused, she starts venting to a captured walker before allowing it to bite her in the neck. RIP comic Carol.

The comic version of Sophia never has the same kind of disappearance and eventual outcome as her TV counterpart. After Carol’s suicide by walker and the invasion of the prison, she is eventually adopted by Glenn and Maggie. An emotionally scarred Sophia proceeds to suppress any memories she previously had of Carol and believes Maggie to be her true biological mother.

Reeling from the recent death of her brother and father, Maggie also decides to take her own life. She attempts to hang herself from a tree, but Glenn is able to find her and cut the ropes in time. Having lived through feelings of abandonment from two mother figures up to this point, comic Sophia is still alive and has grown into a seemingly well-adjusted teenager, given the circumstances.