Riddle me this.
I am at the beginning of eternity, the middle of forever and the end of time.
What am I?
Everybody is really obsessed with The Joker and Harley Quinn and even Two Face when it
comes to Batman’s rogues gallery, but my favorite is obviously The Riddler.
Maybe it’s just because he’s such a snappy dresser and maybe I just like all of those
cryptic clues and brain teasers that he leaves for the Caped Crusader, but I’ve just always
been fascinated by this guy.
So that’s why he’s my Halloween costume and today, I want to take a look at the history
and origins of the Prince of Puzzles himself.
Edward Nashton was known from the get go to have a high IQ, but his parents suppressed
his intelligence out of jealousy and gave him frequent beatings.
That is until one day when Edward’s elementary school announced a special contest where the
student who can assemble a puzzle the fastest would win a prize.
Ed (hoping that winning would bring him popularity) broke into the school and practiced the puzzle
over and over again until he could assemble it in under a minute.
Unfortunately, all this ended up accomplishing is making bullies take more notice of Edward
who picked on him more and more.
However, Ed took comfort in his prize, a book of riddles and other mind games.
This evolved into a full on obsession and even got Edward interested in practicing magic
tricks, sleight of hand, and trap building.
When he grew up, Eddie ended up getting a day job as a package delivery boy, but quickly
grew bored, instead opting to becoming a thief.
However, there was no finesse or panache to being a petty crook.
He needed a gimmick.
And so, Ed changed his name to Edward Nigma, left riddles every time he completed a job,
and officially became The Riddler.
This gimmick ended up becoming a full on compulsion and in fact, The Riddler once tried to perform
a robbery without leaving a puzzle and found that he was literally unable to!
Eventually though, Batman got involved with Nigma’s crime spree and ever since their
first tussle, Riddler was obsessed with outwitting the Dark Knight.
For years, The Riddler would perform pretty one note crimes.
That is until he set up a series of riddles that unknowingly set up Batman to prepare
a ritual where The Riddler would sacrifice the Caped Crusader in order to control a bat
demon named Barbatos.
Yeah, that didn’t end up happening…
Soon thereafter, Nigma traveled with Catwoman to Rome and even tried on her outfit.
We’ll just linger on this image a bit longer so it’s permanently etched into your memories.
Anyway, it turns out that Riddler was manipulating a series of attacks on Catwoman during this
time in an attempt to drug her and learn Catwoman’s secrets including the identity of Batman.
Eventually though, Nigma became afflicted with cancer, but managed to cure himself by
using one of Ra’s Al Ghul’s Lazarus Pits.
In addition to curing his affliction, Riddler’s bath in the Lazarus Pit gave him a moment
of clarity and he was able to deduce that Bruce Wayne was Batman for himself.
This led Nigma to approach Bruce’s old friend turned nemesis, Thomas Eliot, and rope him
into a complex scheme where Eliot would become the villain “Hush”.
The Riddler was able to get nearly EVERY member of Batman’s Rogue’s Gallery into this
plan and even the newly resurrected Jason Todd, one of Batman’s former Robins who
had died years prior.
Batman was able to take out of the Rogues and outed Riddler as the mastermind, but when
Nigma tried to blackmail Bruce by threatening to expose his true identity, Batman noted
that The Riddler could never tell anyone since it would render the information worthless.
Like a riddle that everyone knows the answer to.
Oh, and for extra security, Batman threatened to tell the League of Assassins that Edward
used their Lazarus Pit so you know that also kept his mouth shut.
The League wasn’t Riddler’s only problem though.
See, Hush came back around seeking revenge on Edward for the botched job and beat him
into a bloody pulp.
This caused Riddler to seek out a hiding spot with Poison Ivy.
However, Ivy was also pissed off for being manipulated during the Hush storyline and
broke Riddler both physically and mentally, making Edward feel like a shadow of the man
that he was.
After this, Ed lived crushed and homeless until he was discovered by an ex-NSA codebreaker
who helped get Ed back on his feet.
In actuality though, this man was using Edward to do his work for him in order to get back
into the industry.
Furious, Edward underwent an extensive makeover, killed the codebreaker, and went right on
back into a life of crime.
During this time, The Riddler even made a few trips to Star City to mess with the Green
Arrow, most notably when he kidnapped Arsenal, Green Arrow’s former sidekick.
During the Infinite Crisis storyline however, The Riddler was struck on the head and was
in a coma for almost an entire year.
When he finally came to, Ed had a severe case of amnesia where he forgot a lot of his previous
life, including Bruce’s identity.
So he threw away his life of crime, and also the makeover just magically disappeared.
I guess DC wanted to say that it never happened.
It’s also around this time that Bruce Wayne was suspected of murdering a woman named Karrie
Bishop, the daughter of a wealthy lawyer.
Karrie’s father had Arkham Asylum write The Riddler a clean bill of health and hired
him on as a private investigator.
Now, The Riddler did prove that Bruce Wayne was being set up, but his killer that he brought
to the forefront was not the real guy.
When Batman came around and said that HE found the real mastermind, it was revealed that
Riddler’s suspect was merely a patsy.
Despite his first case being a flop though, Nigma still had several high profile clients
looking to hire his services.
Batman was skeptical of this “reformed” Riddler at first, but he eventually came a
bit around and even tested Riddler’s moral compass by hiring him on as Bruce Wayne.
Unfortunately though, all good things must come to an end because no matter how great
the reformed Riddler was, Nigma went right on back to his criminal lifestyle with not
much of a reason or explanation.
All The Riddler ended up becoming is yet another hired gun, albeit with longer hair, a little
more insanity, and he now worked with his supposed daughter, Enigma.
Well then Flashpoint happened and sort of reset the entire DC universe.
In this new timeline, The Riddler was actually the first “supervillain” that Bruce encountered
as Batman.
Ed started out as a strategist at Wayne Enterprises for Philip Kane, Bruce’s uncle who was running
the company while Bruce was off training to become Batman.
When Bruce returns to Gotham however, Philip wanted to keep his hold on the company so
he turned to Nygma for advice of what to do.
Edward suggested that Bruce should be killed and when Philip refused, Nygma took this task
upon himself.
After failing though, Philip was furious at his strategist so Edward simply resigned.
Shortly after quitting Wayne Enterprises, Nygma created his Riddler persona and managed
to take control of Gotham City, instigating what he liked to call “Zero Year”.
By cutting off the city’s power and using a special chemical to rapidly grow Gotham’s
plants, the city became a massive jungle ruled by The Riddler and his legion of drones.
However, Nygma gave the citizens of Gotham a chance to “get smart or die” by giving
the entire city a chance.
Tell Edward a riddle he doesn’t know the answer to and he will give up the city.
Batman manages to take Riddler down and free the city, but Nygma was broken out of jail
by The Joker to help him out in the Death of the Family storyline.
Well… until Joker betrayed him because it’s The Joker.
What did you expect?
Unfortunately, The Riddler stopped really being used in Batman stories so much like
how he went to fight Green Arrow before, Nygma went to Central City to take on The Flash.
The Riddler managed to manipulate the police force into seeing The Flash as a menace and
donated several drones that could detect and track his Speed Force.
Heck, the police even roped in Flash’s Rogues to bring him in!
All of this was done to force The Flash to reveal his identity and guess what, it actually
worked!
Barry Allen outed himself as The Flash, but was let off the hook when his friend’s nephew,
Wally West, was discovering his new Speed Force powers which was picked up on the drones,
causing Riddler and the police to think that Barry was merely an imposter.
With his identity safe and The Riddler clearly breaking like… a dozen laws, The Flash stopped
Nygma and that’s everything you need to know at the time of this recording!
If you’d like to read more about The Riddler for yourself then I would recommend checking
out Batman: Hush, Batman: Zero Year, and Detective Comics around 2006.
But hey, which Batman villain would you like me to talk about more in the future?
Scarecrow or Two Face?
Click to cast your vote or tweet me @TrailerDrake.
If you’d like to watch more Batman goodness for yourself though then just click that annotation
right there for another amazing video!
But hey, thank you very much for watching this one.
I actually had a lot of fun making it.
So you there, the viewer, I give you my hats off.
This did not go back on my head properly, but we’re going to keep it in.