Warning! Spoilers for The Walking Dead comic book series
In The Walking Dead comic book series, creator Robert Kirkman nearly killed Rick Grimes much earlier in the story than what ended up happening. In a letters page from a deluxe reprint of an issue of the series, Kirkman wrote that without knowing how long the series would last, he considered killing Rick as early as the sixth issue, with Shane murdering him and Carl discovering it.
While The Walking Dead has a massive cast of characters throughout, its nearly 200 issues, the main character of the series is Rick Grimes, who wakes up amidst the zombie apocalypse and ends up joining his son and wife and a group of survivors. While The Walking Dead's creator Robert Kirkman wrote Lori's characterization and how he believed he messed it up, the writer almost made a huge change to the Grimes family, as he had an alternate plan to kill Rick Grimes hundreds of issues before his actual death that never ended up making it into the story.
In The Walking Dead Deluxe #6 by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, Dave McCaig, and Rus Wooton from Skybound Comics, Kirkman wrote about plotting the death of Shane. While Shane died in The Walking Dead after being shot by Carl after trying to kill Rick Grimes, Kirkman considered flipping the moment on its head, as he had an alternate story that would have seen Rick die in the fight. He wrote that he wasn't sure The Walking Dead would continue on and last past six issues and had plotted Rick Grimes' death, giving it serious consideration to the main story before deciding on what occurred.
Kirkman discussed what would have followed if Shane had killed off Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead, writing that Carl would have been scared telling his mother Lori the truth over fears that he would also kill her. As a result, Shane would have become the first big villain of the book. But, of course, that never happened, as Shane died in The Walking Dead #6, while Rick nearly made it to the series finale before being killed himself.
While the alternate story from Robert Kirkman would have made an interesting dynamic, he made the right choice by having Carl kill Shane and not have Shane kill Rick. Rick played an essential role in what would become of The Walking Dead after Shane's death, and imagining the series without him is very hard to do. Shane was broken after Rick's return, and his rage ultimately cost him his life. Rick Grimes' death early in the series, as Kirkman puts in the same letter, is a fun "what if" in the world of The Walking Dead.