The yanking of proverbial dogs' chains in Comic Books.
- Black Adam's entire storyline in 52 is one long, tragic, and incredibly cruel example of chain yanking.
- Adventure Time: The Ice King in Lich Land. The moment he steps in, he's reunited with his finance, Betty. The following events are akin to a Fix Fic where all of Ice King's misery and Loss of Identity are melted away as he exchanges kisses and sweet nothings with Betty. Too bad that none of it is real.Ice King: You're just as real as I— (Fake!Betty shatters into a million pieces) --as I remember.
- Asterix:
- Sometimes the pirates in the series think they can actually take down the ship they see. Or Can They? Nope! They are on board. It can be Phoenician, Egyptian, or Roman, but it's all the same. And that's when they're lucky. If they're unlucky, something will make things worse.
- Luckily for them, what happened in Asterix in Corsica (they took a job to take three people in Corsica with the idea of robbing the passengers, only to realize in open sea that they were transporting a Corsican clan chief and them. As they were sleeping they manage to sneak out of the ship, and reboard it when the Corse and them have disembarked in Corsica... At which point the ship is blown up by the fumes of a piece of Corsican cheese!) hasn't been topped... Yet.
- In Asterix in Britain, the pirates manage to avoid having their ship sunk by the Gauls, only to accidentally run it aground.
- Batman regularly runs on this, in all media - at least from the villains' point of view. Batman just will not die.
- In the 1960s TV series, the villains always manage to capture Batman and Robin about halfway through The Caper, but never manage to finish them off with their Death Traps. The Mad Hatter seemed to have finally triumphed in "The Contaminated Cowl" by using deadly radiation to fry the Dynamic Duo into skeletons - but then it turned out the heroes had escaped after all, and had deliberately left behind the skeletons as a ruse.
- "Almost Got 'Im" was the animated episode in which the Joker, the Penguin, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, and Killer Croc are bonding over their mutual frustration on this very issue. No matter how smart they've tried to be, Batman always finds a way out of their murder plots: he has an unexpected ace up his sleeve, he manages to create a distraction, he pulls an idea right out of his ass, or another hero intervenes to save him. Since "Almost Got 'Im" is told mostly in flashbacks, we know Batman managed to make it out alive each time, but our Willing Suspension of Disbelief still kicks in as each story-within-a-story unfolds.
- In The Killing Joke, Batman pleads with the Joker to reconsider the death course the two of them are on, making a genuine offer of help... and there's a panel, about a panel and a half, where it looks almost like the Joker will accept. The Joker even turns the concept into a joke that has even Batman laughing.
- Brightest Day sees Boston Brand brought back to life by the Life Entity, with instructions to learn to appreciate it. And he does, coming to enjoy both his life and those of others, and even falling in love with Hawk and Dove. Then he completes his real mission, raising Swamp Thing, and gets killed again. And the Life Entity refuses to resurrect him again, because he's completed what it needed him to do.
- Happens to Hawkeye four times regarding his wife Mockingbird.
- After a bitter separation and impending divorce, Clint and Bobbi finally reunite and get back together. Not long afterward, she's killed in a battle and dies in his arms.
- Clint goes to rescue Bobbi's soul from the Marvel version of Hell, only to discover that he was tricked into rescuing Hellcat instead.
- Then he ends up in Wanda's reality and they're in a relationship again. Then the world goes to hell, the Bobbi in House of M leaves, Clint finds out that he's actually dead in the real world, then when everything goes back to normal, Clint is restored to life with all the memories of House of M.
- Then came Secret Invasion, when a Skrull ship crashed and revealed a group of the heroes. Most were discovered to be Skrulls, but Clint tested the Mockingbird they found with a question and decided she was the real Bobbi. Then it turned out she was actually a Skrull who honestly believed that she was the real Bobbi, which led to Clint shooting and killing her. The real Bobbi finally returned at the end of the event. Only that turned out to be bad when, in the course of a team-up, Clint realizes the Bobbi who he reunited with was the Skrull and the real Bobbi still considers them divorced.
- Iznogoud occasionally wins... very briefly. As the animated series put it: "Iznogoud, the rat vizir, he never wins, that much is clear..."
- In the short-lived Marvel Adventures: Iron Man series, Tony finds out at long last that his father, who drove Stark Industries into the ground and abandoned him and his mother, had been cheated by a business associate and left in shame, but really had loved him. He hires a PI, Jessica Drew, to track his father down. And she finds him, and everything checks out, even memories... Then it turns out to be a plot by the Chameleon. Later he does find his dad and realizes that he's just as irritating as ever.
- Journey into Mystery (Gillen) sets up the possibility of real change and redemption for Loki, only for him to screw himself over in the end. They managed to change some things, in Loki: Agent of Asgard they're even worthy of Mjölnir... for about 10 minutes. Which is yet another dog chain yanking moment.
- Metal Men: The backup feature that appeared in the first seven issues of Keith Giffen's Doom Patrol run has an actor named Leonard Ruttman fired when one of the Metal Men's screw-ups in satellite repair results in his show Douglas, Robot Hunter getting cancelled due to low ratings. An electric shock causes him to think he's the titular character of his TV show and attempt to destroy the Metal Men. By the final installment, he comes to his senses and is excited to hear that he's being hired back for a renewal of the show, only to then get killed when Dr. Magnus' house blows up.
- Every time things seem to be going well for the Runaways, something always happens to ruin it, whether it's Gert's death, Iron Man's attack on the Hostel, angry people from Karolina and Xavin's pasts, or Old Lace's death and Klara's freak-out. At one point, they finally managed to make a deal to get the Avengers to leave them (mostly) alone... and then Nico and Chase got kidnapped by Arcade...
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) gets his chain yanked HARD: Just after he gets back together with Princess Sally, not only does the Evil wizard Ixis Naugus return completely sane (thanks to the Chaos Emerald) with Geoffry who was his loyal servant the whole time, but he ends up turning most of the council and the people of the city against one of his friends due to her being Brainwashed and Crazy a few issues ago. Then Eggman comes back with his brand new battleship of doom; The Death Egg Mk 2. Then during the attack on said Death Egg Sally get KILLED right before Eggman sets off a Cosmic Retcon. Then after Sonic fixes it a la his Super Form and prevented her from being killed, she ends being robotized to save the rest of the world. Then after that Sonic gets flung from the Death Egg and is forced to leave Sally behind in order to save the city from one of Eggman's robot. Then after THAT, Ixis Naugus wins over the city by destroying the robot and (unintentionally) healing Bunny's robot part's and becomes KING! THEN AFTER THAT, the Battle Birds and the Babylon Rouges attack the city and blast a giant HOLE in the city in order to activate an ancient artifact. THEN AFTER THAT, when Max and his family try to leave the city Eggman attacks again, his Metal Sonic self-destructs and puts Antione in a coma!
- Spider-Man: Spider-Man has a big support cast, and people keep getting killed. Sometimes the writers decide to bring them back. This never works. Possibly the biggest example is when his parents turned out to be alive again; they'd been killed when he was a baby. They turned out to be robots. Supporting cast coming back from the dead has only "stuck" twice: when the Aunt May who died turned out to have been an actress, and when Mary Jane Watson, who had been killed in a plane accident because having a wife restricted Spidey, was not dead after all. (Cross your fingers for history repeating itself soon, folks.) And then One More Day happened, because Joe Quesada didn't like the changes that had been made to Spidey since the Silver Age and PARTICULARLY not his marriage to Mary Jane, resulting in probably the most infamous Cosmic Retcon of recent years. God damn it.
- Superboy Prime: Double Subversion. At the end of Adventure Comics #5, where Superboy-Prime admits that he hates what he has become and just wants a happy ending. Laurie Lemmon enters the basement and comforts him, telling him that they are sorry for what they did to him and are going to leave him alone—"they" being previously mentioned as being the writers at DC Comics. As they embrace, a Black Lantern ring is shown on Laurie's hand that detects the hope within Prime's heart, implying she is really a Black Lantern and is manipulating him into feeling hope before she kills him. However, when Superboy-Prime is accidentally transported back to New Earth, a flashback shows him reconnecting with Laurie Lemmon and his parents, implying she is the real Laurie Lemmon and they are happy together. Sadly for Prime, he is separated from his loved ones again. He blames the Teen Titans and battles them. When he loses, they imprison him within the Source Wall.
- X-23:
- After years of the abuse she watched the Facility put her daughter through in their quest to duplicate the Weapon X project, Dr. Sarah Kinney finally decided to take the girl and run, issuing her instructions to destroy additional embryos created by the project and to kill the project leader, Zander Rice. But just when it looks like Laura will be able to escape with her mother to live in peace, it turns out Rice had Sarah contaminated with the Trigger Scent (which sends poor Laura into instant berserk mode) as a final "fuck you" from beyond the grave. One Unstoppable Rage later Laura is a Self-Made Orphan, killing the only person who loved her.
- It happens again not long after. After escaping the Facility, Laura turns up at the home of her aunt Debbie and cousin Megan. Debbie knew something about Laura, (it's implied that she knows Laura is Sarah's daughter, but believes she was the product of a bad relationship her sister was in and that both were trying to escape it) and welcomes her into their home as part of the family. Laura quickly connects with Megan and strikes up a strong friendship with her, and it seems as if she will finally escape into a quiet and peaceful life with people who love her. Too bad it turns out Debbie's boyfriend was planted by the Facility and calls in Kimura. The three manage to escape her after a Trigger Scent scare (Megan had the presence of mind to drag her mother into the shower to wash it off after being exposed), but Laura is forced to send them into hiding and cut off all contact with them to protect them.
- She eventually finds her way to Logan, who offers to bring her to Xavier's school to give her a fresh start and help her cope with all the hell she's been through. And then she's attacked and arrested by Captain America. Daredevil even lampshades this by telling Cap that he may have just stolen Laura's last chance at a normal life. The poor girl just can't catch a break!
- And yet again. Just as she's starting to find a measure of peace after Walking the Earth to find herself during her solo series and then joining Avengers Academy, she gets shanghaied by Arcade to fight other teen heroes to the death for his amusement. And no sooner is she rescued, but she turns up wandering Miami in an amnesiac state after being taken and tortured by the Purifiers. Who, by the way, happen to have a copy of the video Arcade released which quite prominently puts just what the Trigger Scent does to her on display.
- X-Men:
- Mutants finally got their own country and safe haven in the form of Genosha. Sixteen Million mutants strong, the mutant race was ready to head into the future under the leadership of Magneto, one of their greatest champions. Then Xavier's evil twin sister sets a couple of Omega Sentinels on the island. Less than a few dozen survive.
- Mutants then began to recover from this disaster (though their population was cut in half.) Humans were finally starting to sympathize with mutantkind and even Magneto (who was presumed dead at the time) was being seen as a force of positive social change. Then Xorn, while disguised as Magneto no less, destroys New York while high on sentient bacteria and murders Jean Grey (Confused? It's okay — most of us were).
- This prompts Cyclops to actively try to cultivate the image of mutants superheroes in order to repair the damage. It seems to be going well. Then House of M happens, and the Scarlet Witch says three little words...
- With just under two hundred mutants left, the rest are almost all depowered or dead, the remaining mutants are rendered more vulnerable than ever. This sets in motion a chain of events that places the X-Men and by default all of mutant kind, in the direct cross hairs of the U.S. Government and The Avengers. Fortunately it also attracts the Phoenix Force and revitalizes mutant kind, even though Cyclops ends up demonized by mutants and humans alike and a fugitive from justice.
- Then just as mutantkind is about to get back on track and Cyclops looks like he's about to redeem himself as a leader of mutant kind, the Terrigan Cloud appears. While it gives birth to Inhumans, it poisons and sterilizes mutants. Cyclops attacks Black Bolt in retaliation and is (apparently) killed, but also does something so horrible that humans are right back to "Kill all mutants" mode. It gets so bad that the X-Men relocate to Limbo. That's right. Life for a mutant sucks so bad on Earth that the X-Men would rather move their entire species to HELL.
- Xombi: The end of the first arc has David Kim hoping to use the technological virus that gave him his regenerative abilities to resurrect Kelly Sandbourne, only to find that he's too late because her remains had already been cremated.
