Secret Wars on Infinite Earths: The Comic Book Fight Club

BATMAN versus RIDDLER

Who Riddled The Riddler? (DC)
Where: Batman #490 When: March 1993
Why: Doug Moench How: Jim Aparo

The Story So Far...
A note written in cut-out letters signals the return of The Riddler and his latest deadly puzzle: "What crowns just one but beats a dozen? Bim bam boom. Some percussion."

Commissioner Gordon summons a weak and weary Batman to crack the code, but the grim detective will be beaten to the solution by a man who has vowed to study his every move -- and break him!

With the midnight deadline fast approaching; Batman races to the belfry atop Gotham City Hall where The Riddler awaits -- but a brief encounter with another shadowy figure has changed The Riddler's game. Will Batman be ready?

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Batman 3 (Athlete)
Intelligence: Batman 5 (Professor)
Speed: Batman 3 (Athlete)
Stamina: Batman 5 (Marathoner)
Agility: Batman 4 (Gymnast)
Fighting: Batman 5 (Martial Artist)
Energy: Batman 4 (Arsenal)
Total: Batman 29 (Metahuman)

Batman rarely has much to fear from a physical confrontation with Riddler. The puzzle-fiend's obsession with brain teasers lives in the mind -- but we're opening the Edward Nygma file with a very unusual case: Who Riddled The Riddler?

The answer is important: Bane was one step ahead of solving The Riddler's latest clue, and used his advantage over The Dark Knight to forcibly dart Riddler with a forty-eight hour dose of the powerful super-steroid called Venom!

Suddenly the slight, and sometimes meek, Riddler is developing some serious muscle, and even without years of combat training - it's enough to tear the stitching of his jacket and level the playing field with an unsuspecting Batman!

Preparation is a key component of Batman's uncanny ability to overcome superior opponents, but even he can be surprised. We saw The Joker make a getaway when cosmic unlikelihood caused distraction in Crisis on Infinite Earths #2, and outright defeat came when Alpha Lantern Kraken conspired during Final Crisis #2.

Not all surprises have to be cosmic in nature, but these dramatic unlikelihoods are comparable to the sudden muscle developed by Riddler. Made all the worse by Batman's recent bout with unexplained extreme fatigue and lingering anxiety!

Challenging Batman on the battlefield of the mind is one way to secure a victory, and although we give the intelligence edge to a broadly studied Batman in The Tape -- Riddler also earns a 5 for his expertise with complex strategy and concept analysis. With superior physical strength he becomes a formidable threat!

We all know the Venom super-steroid will eventually help Bane break Batman's back sometime after he mangled Killer Croc, but will the sudden boost delivered to Riddler result in victory? Let's solve the riddle by finding out!

The Tape: Batman Ranking: Batman (#1)

What Went Down...

A hulking shadow retreats to the darkness of a Gotham City belfry as the bell tolls midnight and Riddler is shaken from his bewilderment.

His bomb has begun its countdown -- much shorter than the deadline imposed by the chemical agent now coursing through his veins. He knows he must flee the coming explosion, but The Batman arrives to strike as suddenly as the dart that pumped Riddler full of venom!

Batman swings into the bell tower with 9 seconds on the clock, driving his feet into Riddler's waiting ribs.

It's a blow that would ordinarily put Riddler down for the count, but as his muscles begin to bulge through a question-marked green jacket, The Riddler feels no pain!

A straight punch to the face catches Batman completely unprepared!

His shock that Riddler is still standing is quickly replaced by bewildered analysis of incredible newfound speed and strength.

The Batman knows something is amiss, but with the seconds ticking away he must focus his efforts on dodging another lunging punch from The Riddler, whose confidence has suddenly skyrocketed.

Sidestepping the attempted blow, Batman counter-strikes with a well placed chop to the back of Riddler's neck. It does nothing!

Observing Riddler's "manic" aggression and enhanced skills, Batman detects the obvious presence of a drug. He can only suspect the involvement of his most recent arch-adversary - Bane.

The Bat ducks another stiff right-hand, leaving Riddler's fist to slam into the cold, hard stone of the bell tower.

The puzzler compels Batman to succumb to his blows, citing the deadly explosion that will come in just 5 seconds! The Dark Knight responds silently with another chop to the side of the head.

Batman considers the possibility that he may also be suffering weakness, but will have no time to further test the theory.

With 4 seconds on the clock -- Riddler desperately charges head-long towards the Dark Knight Detective in a desperate bid to clear the way!

Riddler leaps the belfry railing for the safety of the night, while Batman scrambles to use the information he learned during the fight to stall the swinging bell -- and halt the connected timer that will trigger the bomb!

With 1 second to spare, he fires his grappling hook around the striking mechanism and pulls it back from the bell. With his strength quickly fading, he tosses a batarang that shatters the detonator and ends the desperate struggle - for now.

The Hammer...

It can be surprising, after all this time, that we're still finding major characters to add to the fight club rankings. At the time of this writing we recently logged Black Knight, Blue Beetle, and Omega Red -- colourful characters you might've expected to factor in ahead of some of our more obscure entries.

The Riddler is certainly among the upper echelon of Batman rogues and recognizable DC Comics villains, but I'm not so sure he elicits the same degree of expectation as some of those more combative characters.

History shows that there are many Riddler confrontations for us to consider, but when I think of Batman's perpetually puzzling sparring partner - I don't think of a contest of fists, but rather a challenge of minds. Not exactly our usual domain.

My favourite incarnation of The Riddler is really quite meek. The quivering wreck of The Long Halloween comes to mind: with green blazer, bowler hat, and a constantly buzzing brain that seeks stimulation from challenging The Batman, or solving mysteries, as in that story, and the popular early 2010s incarnation.

Despite the concept lending itself to this physically unimpressive interpretation, earlier versions of the tights-wearing comic book villain could often be drawn quite muscular. In subverting his modern modus operandi with a dose of the Venom super-steroid, today's featured issue brings back the bulk, and puts him back in the classic question-marked tights for a titanic rematch.

Of course, despite the subversion, Batman #490 broadly serves as something of a return to form for what I'd call the definitive Riddler. It begins by resetting the villain from an even stranger early nineties tangent, which involved occult human sacrifice, costume zombies, and worshipping the demon Barbathos.

Though somewhat memorable, each of these excursions into experimentation were understood as temporary story-driven deviations, always returning to a more intuitive, iconic version of the character. I say this as writer/director Matt Reeves ignites enthusiasm for a very different interpretation in The Batman.

This new big screen vision eschews comic book reference to draw inspiration from elsewhere, notably the real-world "Zodiac" serial killer, and David Fincher's film based on related events, as well as some of his other works.

At a glance, this take has unfortunate ties with clichéd mid-2000s fan-fiction that took the blunt cues of Christopher Nolan, and imagined a Saw-inspired Johnny Depp portrayal, because this brand of grimy sadism has somehow become the poor man's version of "realism", preferable to a more forthcoming work of fiction.

As you can probably tell - I don't have a great deal of enthusiasm for this.

I'm bored with misery-sodden superhero adaptations, and an over abundance of pop culture bleakly glorifying the murderers and scumbags. A reset, or at least abundant available alternatives, feel overdue by more than a decade, but that's opening the door to a gauntlet of problems suffered by cinema, and pop culture as a whole. I should keep my grumbling a bit more focused.

The raincoated serial killer with a Harrods bag on his head has backstory that reminds me of the Hush storyline, but its wielded in all too typical fashion to make the world smaller, and a little less interesting. Antithetical to the comic book approach that birthed the shared universes movies are constantly chasing.

With many thousands of significant characters swirling around comics -- and room for many more -- my desire for film adaptation is always to see an iconic aggregate of what's on the page, maintaining all that makes a character distinct from any other that might soon join them in cinematic canon. On-model consistency that, admittedly, has become less reliable in comics, as well.

The majority of my irritation lies in the details, presentation, and weakly wielded references that appear preoccupied with other things, and much less interested in what's being adapted. Great creators make balancing broader awareness look easy, marrying external reference and inspiration with innate understanding and care for what its applied to. Yes, Riddler could kill, but he isn't a copycat killer.

He also isn't finished when our featured fight concludes! Which means we'll be able to come back for a rematch to discuss more about a Riddler enhanced with physical strength, and the unique place in time the issue takes place, between Death of Superman and Knightfall.

If you'd like to find more from the comic origins of your favourite characters you can follow links throughout this post, or dive into the Secret Archive for a complete index of featured fights in order of publisher, series, and issue number.

Secret Wars on Infinite Earths has featured well over 650 battles and ranked in excess of 1,000 characters! If you'd like to help me continue creating more entries consider becoming a patron on Patreon. As a thank you you'll unlock extra updates, content, and options to sponsor your favourite topics in future articles.

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Winner: Inconclusive
#1 (--) Batman
#481 (new) The Riddler