10 Comic Books Where Evil Won

6. Torso

Torso Comic
Image Comics / Brian Michael Bendis

Torso tells the story of The Untouchables sequel that never was, focusing on Eliot Ness after his legendary takedown of Chicago gangster Al Capone as he tries to unearth the mystery of the Cleveland Torso Killer, a real-life serial killer who was said to have personally targeted Ness once he became the city's Safety Director in the 1930s.

A collaboration between Marvel-turned-DC writer Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andreyko, Torso is a moody, atmospheric read that lays bear the true horror of the Torso Killings, telling the story from the perspective of Ness and two other detectives, Peter Myrlo and Sam Simon.

Bendis himself researched the case extensively while developing the comic, which in real life went unsolved despite Ness believing the culprit to be a doctor called Francis E. Sweeney, a veteran of The Great War who was also a surgeon. The story goes that Ness was unable to apprehend Sweeney due to him being related to an influential Cleveland politician, Martin L. Sweeney, but Torso dares to fill in the blanks a little more gruesomely.

After resorting to burning down a Hooverville Ness believed the murderer was selecting his victims from, detectives Myrlo and Simon make a breakthrough in the case, but things go horribly, horribly wrong.

As with The Fade Out, it's better that you read this one without getting spoiled. Just be prepared for a gut-wrenching conclusion.

Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.