The DCEU might have already killed Dick Grayson (at least in Zack Snyder’s version)

Today in completely mind-boggling decisions from the DCEU, Zack Snyder has it that Dick Grayson is not alive as of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Set aside the word that Nightwing is still probably in the works, because it’s probably going to be part of DC’s non-DCEU films slate. There’s a reason for even this slight amount of confidence, and that reason, as it so often is when it comes to the DCEU, is none other than Zack Snyder.

As reported by CBR, Snyder simply said that “Richard” was the victim of the Joker’s deadly caper referred to in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Being that Dick Grayson’s full name is, indeed, Richard John Grayson, and that there are no other Richards to have donned the mask of the Boy Wonder… yeah, the DCEU killed Dick off, and we didn’t even get to see him.

Obviously, this doesn’t deprive DC’s films from using Nightwing or Dick in his time as Robin (or Batman), because of the aforementioned plans to not make every movie fit into the Snyder architecture, as CBR notes. Frankly, it’s probably for the best that those non-DCEU movies are a thing, because not having the man that survived Infinite Crisis solely because no one wanted to kill him is one heck of a way to write yourself into a dark corner. (Not that Snyder needs help in that regard.)

It just seems like a questionable choice to begin with, though. CBR points out that most thought that Jason Todd was the murdered Robin in question. After all, Jason’s death (or not-death, depending on when you look; yes, Batman canon is complicated) has been a generally accepted piece of Bat-lore since the ’80s. In fact, it’s even the Joker’s fault! Killing off Dick instead seems like a sharp left turn for absolutely no reason, and no, Snyder did not elaborate.

Although the two probably aren’t connected, we can kind of see why the DC TV version of Dick would say such a vehement thing about Batman in the Titans trailer. Letting an alternate version of you die is pretty terrible.

Maybe the multiverse had some ripples that day.