10 Most Disturbing Comic Book Panels Of All Time

Comic books are filled with incredible stories written by amazing people, but at their core, comics are a visual medium. The art is the means by which the story unravels for the reader, and while comics don't really work without the story, often, a single image can be worth a thousand words.

That's not just an idiom when it comes to comic books, as many tell a terrifying, disturbing, or horrific story in only a single image. In a lot of cases, that's what the cover is for, but the cover is mostly about getting someone to buy a book, which leaves the contents to bring readers back, issue after issue.

When a comic book panel can be described as one of the most disturbing of all time, it has to be a really good one. With more than a century of artwork spread about the millions of pages of comics, that leaves hundreds of millions of pieces of art to choose from, and this list identifies the ten most disturbing.

That's a high bar to set, but the panels seen on this list definitely meet it. Some of them are single panels, while others are splash pages, acting as a single panel/page, but all of them are disturbing for a variety of reasons.

Comic: Invincible #111

Robot started out as a superhero, having been a member of the Teen Team, and a friend of Mark Grayson, otherwise known as Invincible. As he progresses, he matures and manages to transfer his consciousness into a cloned body of Rex Splode, leaving his disfigured body behind. Following this, he joins the Guardians of the Globe.

Things go well for a while, but when Robot and Monster Girl are trapped in an alternate dimension that progresses through time differently, Robot's attitude towards world domination shifts from not being interested to making it his primary goal in life. He and Monster Girl took over the alternate dimension world and returned after experiencing decades of time in their absence.

Robot decides to hatch a plan where he will take over the world, but not to rule it with evil intent; he truly believed he could save the planet by ruling over it. Knowing this won't jive with Mark, he sends him to an alternate dimension in issue #108.

Mark returns and confronts Robot in his home in issue #111. At the time, Robot was holding Eve hostage, and while Mark is attempting to handle the situation, Robot rips off Eve's leg without a moment's hesitation. It's a terrible twist, which happens all of a sudden, and without much warning, making the panel particularly disturbing for the average reader.