Crossed

Crossed is a comic book series created by writer Garth Ennis and artist Jacen Burrows and published by Avatar Press. While containing many different stories, it takes place in a world where a virus turns people into utterly depraved psychopaths who attack anything on sight regardless of relation.

Plot
A mysterious virus appears, turning its victims into the Crossed, people with a cross-shaped rash on their faces who carry out their deepest and darkest desires on virtually anything in sight, man, woman, child, or even animal.

Why It Crossed The Line

 * 1) It has just about some of the, if not THE SICKEST content in not only a comic book, but any form of media. There's constant revolting scenes that makes it difficult to stomach for anyone, that it's honestly surprising this wasn't made into an underground comic. It ticks just about every box for what kind of things to never do, violence against children, genital mutilation, sexual violence against women, endless revolting imagery, and mothers eating their children (no joke). What's worse is that it's seemingly trying to be funny about some of it even though no one in their right mind would laugh at it.
 * 2) It's incredibly violent. While that might sound like fun, it's not at all. While Garth Ennis has made plenty of violent series, at least those have good writing and a darkly comical tone, whereas Crossed just takes it way too seriously and is very mean-spirited about it.
 * 3) RAPE. There's constant scenes of rape, because apparently the Crossed like doing that with literally every human they see. Unlike similarly messed up, yet endearing series, this one is just utterly degrading because of how graphically it's shown and how it only seems to be there to degrade characters (mostly female ones). There's constant scenes of sodomy and rape with every detail shown.
 * 4) On that note, there's also constant nudity that's shown in extremely graphic detail way too often, EVEN IF IT'S OF CHILDREN, WHICH IS ILLEGAL IN MULTIPLE COUNTRIES.
 * 5) The stories often feel like more generic apocalypse versions of The Walking Dead, only with awful characters who do stupid things.
 * 6) The characters are often RIDICULOUSLY AWFUL. Again, unlike The Boys or whatnot, these characters are not in the slightest bit likeable for the most part. They constantly do almost worse things than the Crossed, betray or kill each other for the most petty reasons, and are just either extremely stereotypical, grating, or both. What's worse is that the actually likeable characters often get killed off too early for little to no reason, which forces you to spend more time with characters you couldn't possibly care less about. Also, in case you're wondering, some of them are also rapists.
 * 7) Constant swearing. While a bit of swearing might make an otherwise seemingly-uninspired comic interesting and daring, this uses it FAR too much to the point where most of the characters sound like grade school children who barely learned swear words, and it doesn't help how much they make extremely revolting threats and use the C-word.
 * 8) The Crossed are way too overpowered. While it's kind of interesting to see something other than mindless shambling zombies, they also swear even more than the regular people (if that's even possible), and somehow always know exactly what to do to win in every possible situation.
 * 9) Confusing storylines wherein major events happen completely off screen for some reason and are never explained or mentioned again. Some also have no ending at all. Did the writers themselves even know what they were doing?
 * 10) You will literally see a Crossed sever a victim's penis and wearing it as a necklace.
 * 11) All in all, the series is just an endless parade of brutality that revels in the worst aspects of humanity and takes itself way too seriously to the point where it can be difficult to enjoy, even if you're a gorehound.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Great artwork throughout, even if it's often wasted on showing constant revolting imagery.
 * 2) A few of the stories are a step up, having likeable characters or choosing to show some restraint with their imagery, like Anti-Crossed which has a likeable lead and an actually interesting deconstruction of the series, and Conquers All, which introduces a Crossed who's been able to maintain some humanity and tries to reunite with a woman he loved while human.
 * 3) The idea of the Crossed maintaining human intelligence is an interesting idea, and +100 (by Watchmen creator Alan Moore) introduces the idea that their violent lifestyles are ultimately their downfall. There's also some other interesting ideas like a serial killer who didn't change at all after being turned into a Crossed because he was already evil. (it should be noted, however, that the content of this specific spin-off is even more graphic in some cases, though that may at least partially be the fault of the artists as Alan Moore generally shows some restraint)
 * 4) It does show very well the many reasons why you shouldn't join cult-mentality affected individuals, bad groups of people and corrupted parts of religion which this series displays a similar view considering the Crossed are like those mentioned earlier.