WARNING: The following contains images suitable only for mature readers.
"Preacher" debuts Sunday on AMC, promising what looks to be a surprisingly faithful take on the acclaimed Vertigo comic series by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon (although it was originally even more of a direct adaptation). Heck, they even included Arseface! Still, there are a number of moments in the seminal comic so twisted they likely couldn't air on a broadcast cable network, even one like AMC, which routinely pushes boundaries -- as fans of "The Walking Dead" know quite well.
REVIEW: AMC's "Preacher" Takes Bold Risks That Pay Off Big
Looking back at the original series, CBR rounded up 10 moments so extreme they will likely never be adapted to television. (Obviously even a TV-MA rating means the book's heavy profanity won't be directly translated, so we won't even mention that.)
Face Off ("Preacher" #5 and #7)
In the second arc of the series, Jesse Custer, Tulip and Cassidy travel to New York City, where they meet up with an old reporter friend of Cassidy's, Si Coltrane. In Issue 5, we see the serial killer dubbed the Reaver-Cleaver skin the face off of a victim. That's already tough to imagine seeing on TV, but Issue 7 takes things to another level by showing the face nailed upside down onto the victim's face! That's far too gross for AMC. It might even be too much for a pay cable outlet like HBO or Showtime.
Chicken Loving ("Preacher" #10)
Jesse Custer grew up on a plantation called Angelville, raised by his grandmother after his father was murdered for trying to escape with his wife and son. Jesse's mother was later seemingly killed after standing up to her own mother's standard punishment of Jesse, which was to seal him up in a coffin at the bottom of the lake with just a hose to breathe through. His grandmother had two main enforcers, the steady, steel-eyed Jody and the unhinged, perverted T.C. In Issue 9, Jody nails the head of Jesse's dog to a fence, which you could just about see a TV show depicting -- off-camera, of course. But then there's that scene in "Preacher" #10 where Jesse's inbred best friend Billy Bob is woken in the barn by T.C. having sex with a chicken ... then accidentally urinated on by T.C. ... who slices his throat open as punishment for what T.C. perceived as spying. Perhaps any one of those things might fly, but certainly not all of them combined.
A Tale of Two Fingers ("Preacher" #21)
Allfather D'Aronique is the head of the Grail, a secret organization dedicated to protecting the bloodline of Jesus Christ from "impurity," and a distant uncle of Jesse Custer. When we meet him in "Preacher" #21, he's so heavy that four men can't safely lift him out of his plane (Herr Star, who also works for the Grail, just shoots the man most responsible for dropping him, as he knows it is better than what the twisted D'Aronique will do). A man without boundaries, he's also bulimic and carries around an ivory stick in the shape of two fingers, which he uses to make himself vomit on himself. Naturally, he then continues eating as if there were nothing wrong. Far too disgusting for TV.
All the King's Horses and all the King's Men ("Preacher" #24)
The tricky aspect of the Grail's plan is that in order to protect Christ's bloodline, they allow the descendants of Christ to inbreed. Thus, by modern times, the "Messiah" is severely mentally disabled. In and of itself that's a tough sell for a TV show, but I could perhaps see a slightly reworked version of it. Herr Starr's mutiny against Allfather D'Aronique, however, is clearly too disgusting for TV, as Starr pushes him out of a helicopter, where he lands on the "Messiah" ... and they actually show the after-effects, in their disturbing glory!
Phallic Imagery ("Preacher" #27)
One of the recurring jokes throughout "Preacher" is that bad things keep happening to Herr Starr. Early on, he loses his ear in a gunfight. Later, his assistant makes an arrangement for Starr to visit a prostitute, but instead hooks him up with a male "sexual investigator." Afterward, Starr can't find sexual gratification from anything but that. All of it is handled off-panel, so much of it could be translated to the show. "Broad City" proved you can have a strap-on appear on cable television without issue, so that shouldn't be problem. The injury Starr receives that makes his head look like a giant penis? That's probably a bit too far. The same basic injury might occur, but there's no way it will look that obvious.
Wub ("Preacher" #39)
The problems continue for Herr Starr when he finds himself stranded in a remote part of the American Southwest after he dropped a nuclear bomb on the Saint of Killers in Monument Valley. He and his crew were "rescued" by an inbred family called the Chunts (Karl, Ernie and Cyrus Chunt), who live in an abandoned silver mine. The Chunts killed and ate the rest of Starr's crew and had already cut off and eaten Starr's leg when he finally regained consciousness after his plane crash. The only way he was able to escape was that Cyrus, who is severely mentally disabled, gave Starr back his gun that Cyrus retrieved from the crash site. But Starr had to first wipe Cyrus' ass clean (Cyrus repeatedly is saying "wub," which is how he says "wipe"). Starr then kills the Chunts and escapes.
Nazi Filth ("Preacher" #48)
During the brief period when Jesse works as the sheriff of Salvation, Texas, he runs afoul of the evil Odin Quincannon and his lawyer, Miss Oatlash, who uses her great legal skills to protect her employer's illegal operations. In return, besides paying her well, Quincannon ignores her activities as a dominatrix who worships Adolf Hitler. Nazi imagery is a tricky one for television, but Nazi imagery mixed with a dominatrix who, in "Preacher" #48, kidnaps Jesse and tries to rape him? That's probably a bridge too far.
Meat Cute ("Preacher" #48)
The vile Odin Quincannon is the owner of a meat-processing plant and a proud member of the Ku Klux Klan. Throughout his appearances, we see him enter a mysterious room in the plant naked, we hear sex sounds, and when he comes back out, he's covered in blood. When Oatlash discovers what he's doing, she's horrified. In "Preacher" #48, we finally see what Quincannon is up to: He's having sex with a giant woman made of meat. You probably guessed it, but a guy having sex with giant meat-woman is probably not making its way onto television.
God's Eyes ("Preacher" #49)
God doesn't come off very well in "Preacher," functioning largely as the overarching villain of the series, even more so than Herr Star, due to his actions in fear of Jesse now possessing the "word of God" (although God does manage to do a few good things, like save Tulip's life). In "Preacher" #49, God comes to Jesse in a vision after first showing him a disturbing distortion of Jesse's life. He tries to reason with Jesse, and attempts to create a truce between them. Jesse doesn't go for it, and God responds by assaulting him, tearing Jesse's eye out of its socket with his teeth.
One More For the Road ("Preacher" #58)
Herr Starr's final indignity suffered in the series occurred after he matched wits with Eisenstein, the brilliant and wily Grail agent who had first recruited Starr. Starr believed he had finally met his match, but was able to kill Eisenstein and his bodyguard. However, while he was celebrating, the pit bull of Eisenstein's bodyguard attacks him. Starr manages to kill the dog, but not before it bites off his penis.
What's interesting about "Preacher" is how much the comic book did not show. It would often imply some of its most disturbing events, which naturally lends itself to adaptation.
For instance, while Jesus De Sade was an extremely disturbing character, so much of his worst offenses were implied, not explicitly shown, which makes him a surprising (yet warranted) exception to this list. Of course, you can debate whether even implied child pornography would be too much for AMC.
Similarly, some of the things that Cassidy does to the women in his past are so disturbing it wouldn't be surprising if they were excised from the TV series. At the same time, the network allowed Walter White to do some heinous things, so there's a good chance Cassidy may go further than expected. There's a difference, though, between what AMC might choose not to show and the element on this list, which are so extreme there's no easy way to dance around them on TV.
Regardless of what path AMC's "Preacher" takes, it will be fascinating to see how much of the original comic book series makes it to television intact.
"Preacher," starring Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga and Joseph Gilgun, debuts Sunday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on AMC.