But what if Nashton never picked up the famous green question-mark costume and was ultimately pulled in a different, perhaps more psychopathic, direction? Nashton is traditionally the Riddler’s birth name, the one he used before deciding to become a supervillain. It’s also notable that IMDb lists Dano as portraying Edward Nashton, not Edward Nygma, giving the new Batman team considerable wiggle room when it comes to its depiction of the trickster. Consequently, the supervillain’s menace and guile have been slowly upgraded in most iterations since DC’s New 52 reboot in 2011 – this will be the first movie since then to feature the supervillain, so the approach makes sense. The lightweight nature of the Riddler is a problem fans of the comics have often pointed out. So what’s going on here? The simplest answer is that Reeves has wisely pinpointed the traditional Riddler as far too much of a cheeky klutz to ever truly present Batman with any major threat in what promises to be the most grown-up big screen take on Gotham since Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.

Geoff Johns’ Batman: Earth One saw the Riddler reimagined as a sadistic murderer who tortures his victims with riddles that he falsely claims will save them if they answer correctly. The mystery deepens when we consider that a version of the supervillain as serial killer also exists in the comics, albeit in an alternate DC universe. Mainly cause the Zodiac Killer looked dumb as well. It has a certain intimidation factor to it, but it still looks dumb. It’s fairly obvious that the riddler in #TheBatman is inspired by the Zodiac Killer, and that’s fine.

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