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“ | Batman: Enigma? Where are you? Enigma: I'm right here. Well- figuratively speaking anyway. Disappointed I didn't choose to meet up in person? Batman: What's this about? Sionis hire you to throw me off his trail? Enigma: Think of me as an information broker. I've got data handlers everywhere-feeding me all kinds of interesting stuff! Batman: And you think this is going to destroy Gotham? Enigma: Ohhhh yes. See-bullet wounds and broken bones will eventually heal. But incriminating photos? Videos? Emails? That kind of damage can never be repaired. Tomorrow morning-when I release everything I've got, the city's going to collapse. Resignations. Arrests. Deaths. It'll be chaos in the streets, Batman and there's not a thing you can do to stop me! |
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~ Enigma revealing his plan to destroy Gotham City. |
“ | Young: Patient Interview #21. Patient name is Edward Nigma, also known as the Riddler. So, Edward. Warden Sharp tells me you've been leaving threatening messages on the walls, again. Riddler: One would have to be severely paranoid to read threats into harmless riddles, Doctor Young. May I treat you with one? Young: Very well. Riddler: What walks on four legs, then two legs and finally three? Young: A human being. As a baby, it crawls on four legs, as an adult it walks on two and in later years it uses a cane. Riddler: Hm hm hm hm hm. Good try, but the answer to all three is a baby. True, it crawls on all four but cut off its legs and it can wiggle on only two limbs. Give it a crutch, it can hobble around on three. You see. Young: That's horrible. How can you even joke about that? Riddler: Easily, Doctor. It's not my baby. |
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~ The Riddler showing his lack of empathy for others to Dr. Penelope Young. |
Edward Nashton, better known as Edward Nigma or The Riddler and previously known as Enigma during Batman's second year, is a major antagonist in the Batman: Arkham franchise.
He is one of Gotham City's most professional criminals and is obsessed with proving to the world that he is smarter than all people, specifically Batman. He tasks the Caped Crusader to optionally find his personal trophies and solve certain riddles in a series of challenging puzzles, and he puts people in horrifying death traps that often result in the brutal death of the person trapped in them.
He was voiced by Wally Wingert, who also voiced Amshel Goldsmith in the English dub of Blood+ and Howard Brand in Serious Sam 4. In Batman: Assault on Arkham, he was voiced by Matthew Gray Gubler.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- While his father did call him a moron when he was younger and hit him due to thinking he cheated during a school contest, this is not played for any sympathy.
- In fact, the Riddler smugly admits when Dr. Young tried to sympathize with him that he really did cheat during the contest, and it has nothing to do with his current actions in the present as all he cares about is being better than everyone else.
- While he is clearly insane, he is perfectly aware of what is right and wrong and displays full agency over his actions, proudly calling himself Gotham's greatest supervillain.
- His inability to accept Batman beating him does not arise from him being legitimately unable to see reality, but rather because of his god complex, which makes him not want to admit that anyone could be better than him.
- Despite the Arkham video game series' high Heinous Standards and his utter incompetence compared to villains like the Joker and Scarecrow, Riddler stands out due to the brutal nature of his death traps, giving him a dark edge, plus the unique way he attempted to destroy the city and the brutal crimes he organized during Riddler's Gambit.
- While his pathetic behavior and man-child attitude can be comedic at times, not to mention how he continuously refuses to believe that Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same person after the latter's identity is exposed, this does not detract from the threat he poses, as he is treated as a genuine one by Batman, and his horrid crimes are played for horror.
- He lacks the redeeming qualities of his comic book counterpart, as well as any respect the latter has for Batman or anyone else.
- Although they are both egotistical and sadistic, the latter is motivated by his genuinely tragic and abusive past to be the villain he is today, as well as by the lack of love and attention that he experienced in his childhood. This Riddler, on the other hand, does not experience these tragedies.
Arkham Origins[]
- He abused his position as head of the GCPD Forensics Division to become the Hacker known as an Enigma and would hire data handlers to gather up blackmail material on Gotham's top people as part of his plan to destroy the city.
- At the request of who he presumed to be Black Mask, he stalled Batman's progress by hacking the Radio towers across Gotham to prevent Batman from using his Batwing. He would also rig the tower controls to kill anyone who tried to access them, which resulted in the death of David Shannon, a maintenance employee.
- He would also have the thug he hired to rig the towers, John F. Baker, killed to cover his tracks.
- He attempted to upload all his blackmail data to the internet to have the resulting chaos be enough to incite the societal collapse of Gotham City, hoping for the complete destruction of the city.
- He hypocritically calls Batman's methods brutal and illegal, despite his own methods being way worse and hoping to destroy the city.
Assault on Arkham[]
- Serves as Amanda Waller's broker during his time in the Suicide Squad before finding a way to deactivate the nano-bomb Waller put in his neck and escaping from her grasp to save himself and spite her with his mind games, purposely buying time for Batman to arrive so he can stop Waller's soldiers from killing him.
- He offers Killer Frost and her Suicide Squad teammates to defuse their nano-bombs with electroshock therapy when they break into Arkham Asylum to kill him under Waller's orders, but he does so just to save his own life and not because he sympathizes with the Squad.
- Thanks to the Riddler, all of the Suicide Squad members who went with him to the Medical Ward survive, except for King Shark, who dies because his skin was too thick to defuse the nano-bomb, with the Riddler not even bothering to electrocute him again when he still had time.
- He tries to shoot Batman dead once he realizes that he is impersonating Black Spider. When Batman knocks him with his Batarang, the Riddler nearly shoots Captain Boomerang dead and accidentally resumes the electroshock therapy on the Squad, electrocuting them again much to their pain and not even trying to turn off the process.
Arkham Asylum[]
- He became a serial killer, trapping civilians in deadly death traps that resulted in their brutal deaths over the years, and they most likely still died if they successfully solved any of his riddles.
- When he learns of Joker's plan to destroy the city, he shows no concern for the loss of life that will happen, only hoping his favorite diner place will still be open, and he refuses to share information with Dr. Young about it despite the fact that it could save lives.
- He escapes from Arkham Asylum and leaves riddles for Batman to solve. When he succeeds, Riddler tries to enact his final challenge for all of Gotham, only to be foiled by his location being discovered and being arrested by the police.
Arkham City[]
- After entering Arkham City, he would once again set up riddles and death traps for Batman to solve, which he would start by kidnapping Aaron Cash and the rest of the people in the Medical Center to use in his games.
- He would place 5 hostages in elaborate death trap rooms and force Batman to solve them to save the hostages under the threat of a torturous death for the hostages.
- He would place the rest of the hostages in his hideout, putting explosives on their heads and forcing them to endlessly walk around for hours under the threat that if they didn't constantly move, they would explode. However, Batman manages to solve all the riddles, defeat Riddler, and free all the hostages, and for his defeat, Riddler was forced to endure the same torture as he did with his hostages, not knowing that Batman already deactivated the bomb, which is played with satisfaction.
Riddler's Gambit[]
- After the death of the Joker, Riddler would attempt to use other Gotham villains in a plan to establish himself as Gotham's top supervillain.
- He had people who worked on his death traps killed every hour by Deadshot.
- He kills one of his own men for comparing him to the Joker and has no problem blowing up the Gotham Merchants Bank with his goons still inside, showing he does not care for his own hired help.
- He puts Robin through torturous puzzle rooms that result in him nearly drowning, freezing to death, and being roasted alive.
- He gives Mr. Freeze access to Ace Chemicals to create explosives for him, which he has him test using the Gotham pipelines, with the explosion from them threatening to kill thousands of people.
- He helped Mad Hatter develop nanotechnology to control people by having him take over a casino with hostages.
- He would lure Vicki Vale and her cameraman under Wonder City under the pretense that he would take an interview with her, only to have her cameraman dismembered, have Vale held hostage, and nearly be decapitated by Harley Quinn, forcing Robin to save her.
- He forced Robin into a Mechanical Guardian robot and used Mad Hatter's nanotechnology to force Robin to destroy everything in his path, killing bystanders in the process, and tried to force him to rampage in Midtown, the most heavily populated area in Gotham City, to cause multiple casualties, nearly destroying most of Gotham City.
- He cruelly attempted to force Batman to sacrifice Robin to save the city in an attempt to break him.
Arkham Knight[]
- He kidnapped Catwoman and strapped an explosive collar to her neck, forcing her and Batman to solve deadly death traps to free her.
- The final of these death traps in particular is explicitly stated by Riddler to have been designed to be impossible to complete, ensuring Riddler had no honor whatsoever and all he wanted was to best Batman.
- He puts explosives in his own thugs heads, forcing Batman to choose to either save them or let them die and even attempting to convince Batman that they were not worth saving.
- He attempts to murder Batman with his robot suit and Riddlerbots and deliberately cheats by only using robots that Batman cannot hurt at all, so he can win. This is especially dirty, as Riddler claimed that his games were fair, and by creating an unwinnable scenario for Batman, he showed he had no true sense of honor and only ever cared about his perfect victory.
- While in jail, he used the pretense of talking to his lawyer to try and call his computer and use it to call his robots to break him out of jail.
- He attempted to have his death traps and robots kill Catwoman when she came to destroy his robot factory.
- When Catwoman destroyed all his security, he attempted to cowardly beg for undeserved mercy, despite all he had done. Also, Aaron Cash used a taser to incapacitate the Riddler after the Aaron realized Riddler’s plan, making his defeat played with satisfaction.
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League[]
- Five years later, Nygma managed to escape custody by helping the corrupt guards cheat on their taxes.
- He somehow manages to replace the money he lost, and he knows about the fact that Catwoman left Gotham City after Protocol Knightfall. It is heavily implied that he plans to doxx and get revenge against Catwoman for stealing all of his funds back in Arkham Knight, because Harley Quinn gets mad at Riddler for almost revealing her new address.
- He goes back to his old schemes and becomes a nuisance to the Suicide Squad by having them solve riddles throughout Metropolis.
- His reason for doing all of this is extremely and utterly petty. He's still in denial about Batman's true identity after five years, and he's annoyed that Amanda Waller didn't choose him to be a part of Task Force X, showing that he's still craving attention. He didn't want to join to genuinely save the world, he only wanted to join to boost his ego yet again.
- He hacks into the implanted bombs of Task Force X so that he can communicate with them, and he gives Captain Boomerang an electric shock to show that he isn't playing around when he wants them to solve his riddles and collect his riddler trophies. This pretty much gets in the way of their mission to save Metropolis and the world from Brainiac and the brainwashed Justice League.
- Whenever a challenge of his gets solved, Nygma taunts whoever manages to solve it with faux affability, followed by some taunting. Although he does seem to be more respectful towards King Shark and even acknowledges his intellect, it's mostly feigned kindness too.
- Once all of his riddles are solved, he once again gets cocky and angry with Task Force X and vows to give them even harder riddles due to the fact that Batman is no longer interested in his challenges.
Trivia[]
- This is the only version of the Riddler that is Pure Evil, and is taken the most seriously out of all of his incarnations.
- In Arkham Asylum, after asked how he could say a tasteless riddle about mutilating the legs of a baby by Dr. Young, he says it's because it's "Not his baby" which could suggest he wouldn't harm or at least mutilate his own children. However considering the fact he never thinks of having children, and due to his narcissism he would likely see a child as a potential heir or just an extension of himself, it's not preventing.
External Links[]
- Riddler on the Villains Wiki
- Riddler on the Arkham Wiki
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Arkhamverse Pure Evils | ||
Joker | Scarecrow | Riddler | Calendar Man | Hugo Strange | Simon Stagg |
Pure Evils | ||
Comics Other Earths Movies Direct-to-video Movies Television Novelizations Video Games See Also |
Pure Evils | ||
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