![]() The Riddler’s fearsome reputation carries over to more than just his fellow supervillains, however. Nightmarish examples of this are seen in Batman: One Bad Day - The Riddler, with the Riddler outsmarting the inmate next to his cell over a seemingly innocuous matter of movie trivia, causing the hapless individual to fatally stab himself in the neck with his fork. Further incensing Gordon and getting the veteran lawman to act recklessly and drop his guard is the insinuation that it was the Riddler who recommended to the Joker to shoot Barbara Gordon while she was in front of her father to further push to the breaking point of his sanity and hint that he is even more insidiously cunning and cruel than the Clown Prince of Crime.Īs Batman compares notes with Gordon later, he learns that the Riddler is deliberately often kept in isolation from the other Arkham inmates to prevent them from driving them to madness and death with his mind games while he attempts to pass the time. Instead, the Riddler shares an unsettling familiarity with Gordon’s personal life, including an intimate awareness of the commissioner’s extramarital affair with his young subordinate Sarah Essen as depicted in Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s Batman: Year One. For Nygma, the police and Arkham security are little more than cannon fodder between him and the only adversary worthy of his talents: Batman.Įdward Nygma, villain of special notorietyīrought in for questioning after committing murder in plain sight, the Riddler makes it clear he isn’t in custody to play fun and games with Gordon – at least not in a way that Gordon has grown accustomed to. In one gruesome display, the Riddler brutally slices off the top of one Arkham Asylum guard’s fingers with little more than a metal food tray and his own cell door. More than simply relying on mind games and sleight of hand to get out of trouble, this is a Riddler that has no qualms with getting his hands dirty in sharp contrast to meeker and more physically diminished iterations of the character. This is a Riddler that is almost bored with how much smarter he is than the standard rank and file of Gotham City’s finest, including Commissioner Jim Gordon. And rather than trying to get one over on Batman by trying to stay one step ahead of the law, the supervillain allows himself to be arrested after murdering a man in full view of a local security camera before coldly staring into it until he is apprehended. No longer the gleeful trickster daring the opposition to solve the puzzles and wordplay he presents, there is something visibly darker and more sullen about the Riddler this time around. While Edward Nygma appears not unlike his classic appearances in Batman: One Bad Day - The Riddler, dressed in a subtly verdant suit and bowler with green grease paint covering his eyes, there is something more menacing about his demeanor this time around. Spoilers ahead for August 16's Batman: One Bad Day - The Riddler. Here’s how the Riddler changes up his criminal approach in this Batman: One Bad Day one-shot and how it alters his standing in the DCU. Daring Batman to match wits with him, Batman: One Bad Day - The Riddler showcases a much more gruesome side to the Riddler and one that catapults the villain in a new direction. No longer content with simply leaving puzzles for the Bat-Family and Gotham City Police Department to solve with all the crimes left in his wake, the Riddler decides to remind the entire city why he has been so quietly terrifying all along. However, any question that the Riddler poses a genuine threat to the DC Universe and deserves his own place of infamy among Gotham’s most depraved is quickly settled by the prestige format one-shot Batman: One Bad Day - The Riddler by Tom King and Mitch Gerads. Though the Riddler has oscillated between a serious antagonist for Gotham City to one of the less sinister foes that Batman has combated, the enigma-obsessed enemy has been a constant presence in that Batman mythos across the DC superhero’s many multimedia adaptations. ![]() One of the most enduring supervillains in Batman’s extensive rogues’ gallery is the Riddler, an emerald-clad criminal mastermind that often challenges the Dark Knight’s reputation as the World’s Greatest Detective. ![]()
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