The Riddler (Edward Nigma, later Edward Nygma or Edward Nashton) is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. He was created by Bill Finger and Dick Sprang, and debuted in Detective Comics #140 in October 1948. He is one of the most enduring enemies of the superhero Batman and belongs to the collective of adversaries that make up his rogues gallery. The Riddler is depicted as a criminal mastermind in Gotham City. He has an obsessive compulsion to incorporate riddles, puzzles, and death traps in his schemes to prove his intellectual superiority over Batman and the police. His real name—Edward Nigma—is a pun itself; an "enigma" is a person or thing that is difficult to understand. With this self-conscious use of an elaborate gimmick, the Riddler's crimes are often theatrical and ostentatious. He commonly wears a domino mask and either a green unitard decorated with question mark prints or a green suit and bowler hat. A black, green, or purple question mark is his visual motif. He commonly says "Riddle me this", before stating his riddles. The Riddler has been adapted into numerous forms of media, having been portrayed in live action by the following: Frank Gorshin and John Astin on the 1960s television series Batman, Jim Carrey in the 1995 film Batman Forever, Cory Michael Smith on the 2014 Fox series Gotham, and Paul Dano in the 2022 film The Batman. John Glover, Robert Englund, Wally Wingert, and others have provided his voice ranging from animation to video games.
Fictional character biography
Golden Age
The character's origin story recounts Edward Nigma's fascination with puzzles from a young age. After a teacher announces that a contest will be held over who can solve a puzzle the fastest, Nigma sets his sights on winning, craving the glory and satisfaction with victory. He breaks into the school at night to practice the puzzle until he is able to solve it in under a minute. Due to this he wins the contest and is given a book of riddles as a prize. His cheating rewarded, Edward embraced the mastery of puzzles of all kinds, eventually becoming a carnival employee who excelled at cheating his customers out of their money with his bizarre puzzles and mind games. He soon finds himself longing for greater challenges and thrills and dons the disguise of the "Riddler" to challenge Batman, believing him to be a worthy adversary. In his first encounter with the Dynamic Duo, Riddler first tried to confound the crime-fighters with his infamous double-entry Riddle Clues and then tried to kill them both in a booby-trapped glass maze on a pier, sealing the door so they could not leave the structure before it exploded, only for Batman and Robin to escape and the Riddler "vanishing" after getting knocked into the sea by the explosion, leaving only his trademark "?" floating in the water.
Silver and Bronze Age Riddler's origin is the same as his Golden Age counterpart. The first Silver Age appearance of the Riddler introduced the villain when he was released from prison. Upon release, the Riddler swore he would no longer leave clues to his crimes. However, during his first attempt at a robbery he discovers that leaving clues has become a compulsion.
Post-Crisis In Batman: The Long Halloween, the Riddler appears as an informant. The Riddler is hired by Carmine Falcone to tell him the identity of the Holiday Killer. Falcone eventually loses his patience with Riddler and has his daughter throw him out on April 1. Outside Falcone's he is confronted by Holiday who fires several shots at him without harming him due to it being April Fool's, the killer also leaves several items pertaining to their identity at the scene. In Catwoman: When in Rome, he joins Selina Kyle on a trip to Italy in search of his fellow rogue's origins. It is there that he manipulates her into believing that some of Batman's most dangerous foes are after her. He has his henchmen employ several gimmicks and weapons used by the Scarecrow, Mr. Freeze and the Joker to achieve this. He hopes to extract Batman's real identity from her, but to his dismay, she actually does not know or care. In the three-part Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight storyline "The Primal Riddle", written by Steve Englehart, the Riddler engineers one of his greatest deathtraps: Batman is thrown into a narrow pit that is slowly filling up with water. The walls are electrically wired, and a set of bumpers are the only thing that prevents the water from touching the walls and causing Batman to die by electrocution. The only options Batman appears to have are death by electrocution and death by drowning, but as always, Batman manages to tamper with the trap's design and develop a route of escape. After Harley Quinn briefly breaks free of her devotion to the Joker, she attempts to hold up a large party at Wayne Manor, only to find that the Riddler is targeting the building also. The two gangs engage in a firefight, but Harley gains the upper hand when Big Barda (who was secretly allied with her at the time) interrupts the conflict and captures the Riddler and his men. During the storyline, Riddler makes constant allusions to a "mystery" that is hidden within the mansion, and after his apprehension, damage done to the building causes the entrance to the Batcave to open. Riddler sees this, and then declares that he has "solved the riddle of Wayne Manor". During this period, he attacks Black Canary and Green Arrow in Star City, and he is easily defeated. This event helps lay the foundations for Riddler's future confrontations with Green Arrow.
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