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Level 0
Level 1
- Asterix note Plenty of deliberately-inflicted violence, but nobody gets anything worse than a black eye and it's all played for laughs. A number of characters are said to be thrown to the lions in Rome's circus, but deaths are never shown.
- Patsy Walker, a.k.a. Hellcat!
- Tintin note Characters threaten one another with guns, occasionally characters go insane as a result of head trauma (or "knock themselves silly" as Tintin once put it) and there's slapstick that results in minor injuries, but no serious injuries or blood.
Level 2
Level 3
- Silk
- Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) note Usually a level 2, being less violent than the Archie Comics, but the extensive Metal Virus arcs (the dark tone such as the zombots, who were once innocent Mobians, being attacked though they are invincible, and the sadism of the Deadly Six) and the miniseries (the presence of Mimic and his knife, especially when he threatens to slit Starline's throat in Bad Guys, and offscreen murder which is Played for Drama in Tangle & Whisper) bump the series up here.
- Superman Smashes the Klan
- When the Wind Blows note Though this is a story about nuclear war, there is no graphic violence. However, the effects of radiation poisoning are shown, including bleeding gums (with blood seen in the corner of a character's mouth) and sores on the skin.
Level 4
- Action Comics and Detective Comics note Could occasionally get close to a 5, such as Batman's now out-of-character fatal gunshot towards the Monk in an early issue.
- Championess note Most violence is fairly tame, boxing-related stuff, but a hanging scene and a character getting repeatedly stabbed push things up.
- Princeless - Raven: The Pirate Princess note Mostly around a 3, but several instances of characters getting bloodily beaten up bump it up to here.
- Spiritus note Mostly for brief panels of MMA fighters getting beaten bloody. The very rough art style also works to obscure things
Level 5
- 20 Fists note Several fistfights with fairly realistic blood and bruising, and one character getting slashed with a knife. Mitigated by being in black-and-white.
- Birds of Prey
- Sam & Max: Freelance Police
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) note For the sight of Charmy's purple blood squib, which leaves small splatters and a slow drip, in the original version of Knuckles the Echidna #15 (reprints remove the blood). Would've been a 6 if the blood was red.
Level 6
- Bone note Blood becomes increasingly common four volumes in; scenes such as Kingdok being stabbed in the head, Lucius' electrocution, and a man being sliced in half push it here.
- A Death in the Family note Scores this high for the death of a child via being beaten by a crowbar, with the child's bruised corpse appearing with a decent amount of blood. Could possibly go up to an 8 if the beating wasn't off-screen.
- Batman: Prelude to the Wedding
- Batwoman
- The Killing Joke note Batgirl's spine is violently broken by the Joker, leaving her crippled. It fails to be a 7 as the rumor that he sexually assaulted her is confirmed false by Alan Moore.
- RoboCop Versus The Terminator
- Saga
- Stardust the Super Wizard note Bordering on a 7 and would be higher if it was more detailed, but contains extreme brutality regardless, with innocents being slaughtered en masse on screen, bloodless decapitation and extremely brutal and creative torture doled out by the unintentional Anti-Hero of the comic. This was published in 1939 for children.
- Wings of Fire note Although some grisly moments from the books were removed or toned down, there are still enough cases of violence to put it here, such as blood from neck wounds and impalement. An injured character leaves a large amount of blood on the ground. Bordering on 7 at times, like Tortoise having her teeth pulled out and Flame getting his eye slashed. Would be at least a 7 if the characters were humans.
Level 7
- Batwoman (Rebirth) note Usually at about 5 or 6, but a brief scene of people exploding after suffering Blood from Every Orifice, complete with a panel of their mangled corpses, bumps it up.
- Copperhead
- Daredevil note The comics from the 60's, 70's, and early 80's tended to be at a 2 or 5, and usually blood was Black Blood, however the comics began to show more red blood during the mid 80's, and by the early 90's the comics were now at a level 7, sometimes even level 8, with the comics showing red blood splatters and even a chunky headshot in the Man Without Fear Miniseries.
- Detective Comics (Rebirth) note Mostly bloodless, but one scene features shootings and throat-slittings, with large amounts of blood spray.
- Injustice: Gods Among Us
- Mother Panic note For a scene where a man has his throat slit, with a lot of blood
- The Silencernote Lots of head shots with blood spray, and brutal, bloody fistfights.
Level 8
- Batman: The Cult: note Gorily mutilated bodies with considerable amounts of blood. Notably Bloodier and Gorier than other Batman comics of the time.
- EC Comics: note Peaked at this level, such as a decapitated women's head with the neck stump barely offscreen and the killer holding a axe with black blood on the cover of Crime Suspenstories #22, or a women's face being ripped off and the skinned face being shown in Only Skin Deep from Tales From The Crypt #38, or a head horrifically bloated and ruptured due to exposure to space in The Space Suitors in Shock Suspenstories #11. Borderline 9 to this day and absolutely unprecedented for the era. Despite popular reputation, these stories were intended for teenage audiences and older.
- Immortal Hulk note Absolutely horrific Body Horror, such as a character who can mimic other's forms having their bloody spine exposed for their partially-bisected body and The Devil Hulk's decapitated body parts reforming into a normal body and suffocating them to death. However, characters are not standard humans and are capable of recovering from the most brutal of mutilations, which takes a significant amount of the edge off. Strangely, this is only rated a 12+ on Comi Xology.
- The Mask note The Mask Returns and The Mask Strikes Back peak at this level. Later stories range between Level 4 and 6 due to their more cartoonish direction. The original installment, by virtue of its darker tone and far more sadistic protagonist, sits at a 10.
- Moon Knight note The comics from the 70's and 80's tended to be around level 3 to 5, however the more recent runs have some extremely brutal moments, from Moon Knight cutting Bushman's face off, to having Moon Knight's legs being broken rather graphically.
Level 9
- Invincible note Borderline 10. Although much less brutal than its animated adaptation and despite its cartoonish art-style, this series has considerable gibs from both humans and aliens and enough graphic violence shown in somewhat brief yet visceral detail to make it a very hard 9, not to mention the infamous scene involving Mark being viciously raped by Anissa who grins sadistically during the whole process, which would easily rank a 10 if not for some of the obscuring details.
- Orchid
- The Punisher MAX
- The Redeemer note Lots of intense fighting, dismemberment and sadistic torture. Explicit gore being obscured by dark shading prevents it from going to a 10, however.
- The Sandman note Mostly for the flaying "alive" of George's head in A Game of You.
- Sin City note Would be a 10 if it weren't for the stylistic choice of blood being white instead of red. The film resides here as well.
- The Strange Talent of Luther Strode
Level 10
- The Boys note Extremely gory, over-the-top violence with all sorts of creatively vicious mutilations (including sexualized ones) depicted in considerable detail. While largely done for Black Comedy, it still ranks here with ease.
- Caligula
- Crossed note Some of the sickest content to ever grace fiction, consisting of extended sequences of all sorts of extreme, gratuitous, sadistic, graphic gore, torture and perversion of the most gruesome degree, with every single hideous act of extreme brutality imaginable (from murder to rape, torture, cannibalism and bestiality) shown involving the titular monsters and sometimes even humans subjecting themselves to increasingly morbid and sickening ways to stimulate themselves, be it through extreme sado-masochism, self-modification, hyper-sexuality or murdering people in extremely prolonged and convoluted ways, all depicted in tremendously high levels of visceral, extreme detail. Also, unlike most of Garth Ennis' work, which implements plenty of Black Comedy, it's all Played for Horror here instead, which would make it that much more graphic if it weren't so ridiculous, bonkers and overdone.
- Dark Nights: Metal note Especially in the Batman Who Laughs' backstory, where he brutally slaughters the Justice League with the most disturbing gore and Body Horror present.
- Hack/Slash
- Johnny the Homicidal Maniac note Manages to reach this level despite the lack of red blood and cartoonish artstyle from the sheer brutality and cruelty of the violence depicted.
- Kick-Ass
- Miracleman note There are several moments of extreme violence throughout Alan Moore's run, but Kid Miracleman's brutally violent murderous rampage across London and its gruesome aftermath, shown with gory splash panels of horrific apocalyptic imagery, filled with corpses of people killed in extremely cruel, grotesque and disturbing ways, all of it drawn in explicit detail, is enough to bring it all the way up to this level.
- Old Man Logan
- Preacher note Insanely bloody, brutal, sadistic, vicious, messy violence with all sorts of very creative and grisly Itchy and Scratchy-style mutilations. Despite the violence's over-the-top nature, it's still gory and detailed enough for this level.
- Über
- The Walking Dead note Extremely gory violence and dismemberment against humans, animals and zombies, all of it shown in visceral detail. Although all of it is in black and white, it's still graphic enough to reach this level.
- Wanted note All types of gory slaughter one could possibly think of.
- Watchmen note For the aftermath of the destruction of New York, with mountains of extremely bloodied dead bodies everywhere shown in graphic detail. Otherwise level 7-8.
