10 Biggest Comic Book Bait And Switches
2. Nightwing Dies - Nightwing "Dies" But Dick Grayson Does Not
In Batman #55, Batman and Nightwing team-up to fight some crime. While chatting with Commissioner Gordon about a suspicious note that was found, Nightwing is unceremoniously shot in the head mid-quip by KGBeast. Of course, this gets a bit complicated - after all, how can the comic kill off Nightwing when he has an ongoing series of his own?
Turns out that "Nightwing dying" really meant that the superhero Nightwing is metaphorically dead. Surviving being shot is the start of something new for Grayson. He has amnesia and continues to struggle with memory lapses - but he knows that he isn't Nightwing (no matter how many times Babs tells him otherwise). He isn't even Dick Grayson: he's picked out the nifty new name of Ric and he's cool with his new life as a taxi driver.
As far as bait and switches go, on the surface this doesn't seem that bad. Dick Grayson isn't dead, but there are lasting repercussions from the near death that reshape his series and add new struggles for the character.
The problem for fans was they'd just spent 49 issues following the story of a very different kind of character. Dick Grayson is funny, optimistic and morally upstanding. Ric is an angsty amnesiac who could care less about the Bat-family.