Deaths of Dick Grayson
Part of the Batfam Death Project.
Dick has died five times and travelled to a world of the dead twice. Total time dead: up to several weeks.
Verifiable deaths
1. Killed by the Joker (Emperor Joker, 2000)
Dick was killed by the Joker after Joker stole reality-altering powers from Mxyzptlk and remade the universe to his liking.
It’s unclear exactly how he died, but Joker kept Nightwing’s dead and rotting corpse alongside Tim’s and Jason’s.
Dick was brought back to life when the universe was restored by Mxyzptlk and Hal Jordan (as the Spectre) after Superman defeated Joker.
Time dead: unclear, but it appears to be multiple days and theoretically could be several weeks.
2. Briefly killed by Mr Fun (Batman: Family 2:7, 2003)
Dick was killed by Mr Fun, a skilled assassin working for a gang boss calling herself Athena (who was also CEO of Wayne Enterprises and trying to bring it down from the inside). Mr Fun crept up on Nightwing, hit him in the head with a golf club and then, while he was concussed and disoriented, used pressure points to stop his breathing and heart.
Cass fought Mr Fun off Nightwing, but Mr Fun shot her off the roof with one of dead Nightwing’s wrist rockets. When Cass recovered, Mr Fun had left (to kill the person they were supposed to be guarding). She returned to Nightwing and resuscitated him using CPR, which apparently cured his head injury too.
Time dead: long enough for Cass to fight off Mr Fun (which wasn’t easy) and recover from being shot down, and then give Dick CPR, so probably a good few minutes.
3. Killed and raised by Lex Luthor (Forever Evil 6–7, 2014)
Dick was hooked up to a murder machine involving a bomb wired to his heart, such that it could only be disarmed by killing Dick. Lex Luthor stopped his heart by making him swallow a pill.
Batman of course then started going feral on Lex until Lex persuaded him that he could bring Dick back, which he did with a shot of adrenaline to the heart.
Time dead: long enough for Batman to get in a good couple of punches on Luthor, plus time for Luthor to detach Dick from the machine, so probably up to two minutes.
4. Beaten to death by groblins (Dark Nights: Death Metal 7, 2021)
Dick, along with other members of the Batfamily, was overwhelmed by a swarm of ‘groblins’: mindless evil Jokerised Robins invading from the Dark Multiverse, led by the Robin King (an evil child Bruce Robin). His death happens off-panel but we see his corpse lying on the ground.
(Then Bruce, who was already dead and a Black Lantern, raised his dead family members as zombies.)
Dick was restored to proper life when Wonder Woman, powered by the determination of her friends, defeated the evil Batman Who Laughs and persuaded the gods to remake the multiverse as it was before the evil universes invaded the good ones.
Time dead: somewhere from quarter of an hour to an hour? Or perhaps a lot longer, if it took longer to rebuild the world. It’s always a little tricky to be sure when world remakes are involved.
5. Gave too much blood (Nightwing 4:124, 2025)
Dick found a gang of mutated and irradiated people who desperately needed blood transfusions. Being O Negative, he was able to donate his blood.
But he gave too much and died. His heart was restarted with a shot of adrenaline.
Time dead: ‘a second’ (probably several seconds actually).
Afterlife visits
A trip to Dis (Titans 1:4, 1999)
Dick, along with the rest of the Titans, signed a magic book created by a demon called Goth that summoned them to Dis, a region of Hell. Goth had positioned himself as an actor and superstar and got his fans to sign the book, then led them in a chant to transport them to Dis.
Kory was amongst those who had signed the book and was transported, so Dick and the rest of the Titans went after her.
They discover that the way to get out is to find things to care about, and spend some time individually persuading people to care one at a time, but they start to lose hope, infected by the aura of apathy in Dis. Kory, who is less affected, attacks Goth and throws him down from a height, causing his fans to return to the mortal world because they are worried about Goth and the Titans to return because they are worried about Kory.
Time in afterlife: looks like several hours.
Hell heist (Nightwing 4:103, 2023)
Raven created a portal to bring Nightwing, along with Beast Boy and Cyborg, to Hell to find Blockbuster’s contract with the demon Neron, wherein Blockbuster sold the soul of his firstborn daughter, a nine-year-old called Olivia.
They found the contract and returned to the mortal realm, also courtesy of Raven. (Turned out Neron’s contract was easy to thwart: Dick just had to become a foster parent and assume legal guardianship of Olivia. Neron tried to tempt Dick with super powers, but while Dick very much enjoyed the free sample he was not even briefly tempted to give up Olivia for them.)
Time in afterlife: probably a few hours of travel, fighting, and research.
