Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

Riddle me this. What is the comic Book Omniverse podcast that does a deep dive into the multiverse? Answer it's, dear Watchers, of course.

And we are traveling through the storylines before and after that inspired or took inspiration from this week's amazing alternate universe. And your enigmatic watchers on this journey are me Guido and me Riddler Rob. Oh, that works well. That works well. I guess I could be guessing. Guido.

We love our alliterations, uh, here. And I have a question for you, Guido. What's new? There's only so many times you can say that, though. What is new in our little section of the multiverse?

Well, we're just ready for our huge announcement. We've been talking about for our regular listeners, the fact that we have a, uh, patron program coming up, an entire separate series. We're doing, yes, two podcasts. So we are getting ready so that we can have that all announced before we're at New York Comic Con. So for people who want to join us and see what benefits you'd receive, we're getting ready to announce that also, this episode could be the latest release of a comic we've ever covered. So that's fun. Uh, and who came up with this episode?

I think that was me for a change.

For the first time, here we are, episode 64. And this is the first time. I mean, sometimes I'll ask you, like, well, what should we do? What do you think of this? You'll throw out an idea, and I'll turn it into gold. But this was really your, uh, choice.

Well, you still had me. Well, you had a big hand in it because I made you read it.

And you happen to, like, read this.

Comic because I don't read a lot of superhero comics outside of this podcast. So you said, I, uh, read this comic. It took me a couple of weeks. Then I read it, and it was like, oh, and this is an alternate Earth. This would be a great issue because we still haven't touched too much into the Batman universe. We've done a little bit of Batman, but for a character that has been around as long as he is, there's lots of untouched spots of that batcave.

It's true.

Well, I'm excited to, uh, jump in. And if you are joining us for the first time, we have three sections of the show origins of the story, and what inspired this other reality. Exploring multiversity, we dive deeper into our alternate universe and pondering possibilities. We examine the impact and what's followed or what's coming in the future. And with that, dear Watchers, welcome to episode 64. And let's check out what's happening in the multiverse with today's alternate universe. And today, we are asking the question, what if the Riddler had one bad day inspired by the Jokers killing joke?

So this is a, ah, DC universe, Earth of an unknown designation. It is not the prime earth. DC. And we will share more about what happens on this alternate universe, what brings it about, what it could mean, its relationship to canon and all that in just a little bit.

Mhm but before we do that guitar, what is your background with Edward Nigma, if that is his real name, and a lot of nuity isn't quite sure, aka the Riddler.

So I, as people who've listened when we've covered Batman before, no, have not been a big Batman fan. I read Nightfall like most people my age did in the I've seen all Batman media, of course, like some don't, like a lot of them. Um, and I have read Batman pretty consistently for a few years now. So in terms of The Riddler, who is surprisingly actually not in that, uh, many comics, I have to say, relative to other iconic villains. But regardless, I really didn't read a lot of The Riddler other than the way he shows up in big DC events or shows up in Nightfall briefly, up until Tom King's Run when, uh, he writes The War of Jokes and Riddles, I read that, loved it. And then Riddler has shown up recently now and again in some of Mariko, tomake's Run, I read that. And then, of course, this issue. So I really am not a Riddler expert at all. And other than the popular media representations like Batman 66, of course, and The Animated Series, of course, and then the most recent, The Batman i, uh, mean Jim Carrey, but we don't have to talk about that. So that's about it. So I'd, uh, say low, moderate. What's your background with the riddler?

So my introduction to the Batman universe really came from watching reruns of Batman 66 at my grandparents house growing up. And my favorite villain on the show is probably Egghead. I had affinity for Vincent Price at an early age. But my favorite of the core villains, the villains that appear that in the Batman the movie was easily The Riddler. He's so good. I think it's especially because of Frank Corsion's performance. Mhm he's actually the very first villain on the Batman TV show. He's in the pilot, which is interesting that it's not the Joker or the Penguin more famous villains, but it is The Riddler. And Frank Caution, he was a comedian and an impressionist. He wasn't really an actor. And he approaches the role with this insanity and this vim and vigor that some of the other actors don't.

And you charm though, too. That's where it works.

Well, yeah, he's got this crazed look in his eye that the other ones don't. And maybe some of it is because Burgess Meredith was a super trained actor and Frank Corset was a comedian. So he's approaching it with this intensity. And I just loved him on that TV show. And then I did, of course, love him in Batman the Animated Series where he's voiced by John Glover, who's one of my favorite actors of all time also. And then really batman forever. I saw batman returns in the theaters, but batman forever? I think in my mind, it was the first movie I ever went full in for. I was, like, at the right age where I had the tie in books, the video game. I would go to taco bell or whatever to get, like, the game pieces and everything. It was the one thing that I would collect, every single thing of it. And I wasn't a huge jim carrey fan. I didn't love ace venture, dumb and dumber, but him and Tommy lee jones in that movie, and even val Kilner's batman, that was my Batman movie. It hit me right at the right time. So I've always had this affinity for the riddler. And even though I didn't read batman comics religiously growing up, I had, like, a big one shot where he has, like, a talk show that was like a one shot. They did. And I think in the mid to late ninety s, I had that of the riddler. And he was just definitely a character that I always gravitated to much more than the joker.

Yeah, it makes sense. It's in line with your kooky villainy. Although, interestingly, I'd say he's at his cookiest in the stuff that was probably most new to you and me in some of his classic appearances. So I'm excited to talk more about those.

Yes. Well, speaking of, let's unravel the, uh, maze that is our origins of the story.

Right now on this very show.

You're going to get the answer to all your questions. Our amazing story begins a few years ago. Okay, we are going back. It's the postworld war II era. There's no television. There's black and white movies. Well, there's some color movies, too, but it is the this is detective comics number 140 from October 1948, simply titled the riddler.

This is written by bill finger, penciled by dick sprang, inked by Charles paris, edited by jack schiff. Colorist unknown, as most were at that time. Even these credits actually don't appear in the book, so they are pieced together from later archival stuff. We read this because it is the first appearance of riddler, and this was probably like, only the second golden age batman book I've read, other than his first appearance, which I'd read before. And then we covered in our episode on batman. And this was really fun.

Yeah, totally. Yes. This has everything that you think of from golden age and stuff that they would use in the 60s show, chiefly giant props. Well, that's everything that you could imagine.

There's so much in here, especially because it's 1948, so it's not even silverage Batman. Silverage Batman. It would have made sense to me that it has all of the DNA of the Adam west series. But it's really interesting to me and was surprising to me to find the DNA of the Adam west series here in 1948. With these oversized props with lots of puns and corny sayings that I don't even think are intentional. I don't think they're meant to be sincere. I don't think it's just the writing of 1948, I think. M they are tongue in cheek. They are meant to be a joke. I mean, The Riddler is constantly using double entendres and being funny. So it was wild to see all of that present in this book. And then we were reading together to stop and be able to do a crossroad puzzle in the comic. That is so cool.

Yeah. That's, I think, a, uh, common thread throughout a, uh, lot of the books. Not actually the one bad day, but the next book we're also talking about where you can really kind of play along. It's kind of the fun thing about Riddler comics. And I think you also had that other Riddler comic that you shared well.

That comes to yeah, I was about to say and had any relationship to what we were exploring in the alternate universe today, I would have made us read it again. But Kieran Gillen did that extraordinary Riddler story in Batman, uh, black and white, where it's a choose your own adventure. So that is like from a few years ago. Anyone who's interested in this way that the Riddler's presence in a comic can make it sort of meta and help you engage. I mean, Kieran Gillen brings that to its ultimate fruition and payoff. But it is here too. And that was cool to see also. But the other thing that I noticed about this was it's also pretty dark.

Yeah.

So he threatens to kill someone. He intends to kill someone. He's choking the guy with the metal poles so that he can escape. And Batman has to save the guy. He's then going to blow up Batman and Robin in the end. Mhm and then at the end, when he drowns, which I love the absurdity of a question mark being formed in the water, they think he's dead. It's actually surprisingly dark, while it also is surprisingly sort of campy and overthetop and absurd.

Mhm. Mhm yeah, I was a little bit surprised by that, too, because I definitely think of the comics from this era not being as dark and not the villains are just out to rob the bank, right? Which the Riddler is also out to.

And this is pre worth them.

Mhm.

So that could be why it's pre code. So maybe that's why it feels a little darker.

Mhm and the other thing, too, it's interesting because, of course, we'll talk about this throughout our discussion, but every book that we read today was a Riddler origin story. And, uh, while big elements of his origin do change from issue to issue, the core of his origin is there. And what I think is so interesting that set up here is that, yes, he's clever, but he is a cheat, which is interesting. I was surprised yeah. That's an element of The Riddler you don't see in the movies. And the other things where, yes, he's a genius, but he's not above cheating. And even in what you mentioned at the end, where he's going to blow up Batman and Robin, he puts them in this glass maze. He tells us as the audience, oh, he's blocked the door. There is no way out. So he's cheating. And even going back to his origin story, one element that's true in all three books is that he is ultimately a cheat when it comes to I.

Think that element evolves. Actually, in the beginning that we read.

Today, he's much more dastardly of a cheater in this original one where he's just kind of a no good nick from.

I was surprised that detail. But you mentioned the maze. So r1 quick tangent, I need to know if in the 1940s, there were glass mazes. They refer to it like it's just over on the pier. Like, oh, he must be over at the Glass Fun Maze at Pleasure Pierre Amusement Park, where there are glass mazes. Because I would really like to do a glass maze.

The imagery that it made me think of is the movie, uh, The Lady from Shanghai, the Orson Wells movie, where the big climax takes place in a mirror maze.

Well, mirror maze is I know, but this is specifically a glass maze, where the trick in it is, is that you could walk into walls. Like, the way he gets out of it is he's marking the walls and then the really absurd way he ultimately gets out of it is burning a bunch of the carpet so that the heat contracts, uh, the metal or whatever. And then he can push one of the glass panels out. It's all very, uh, scientific, but I just really need to know if there are glass mazes and if we could please bring them back.

Yeah, well, even this first book, I think, speaking to what you were saying, the Riddler allows Batman to be the world's greatest detective and also this great scientist. And a lot of other villains don't do that. But you can see the detective of comics, the detective skills of Batman. You can see, oh, this is also someone who's skilled in science as it comes out in the climax there. And I don't think that's something that The Penguin necessarily would bring out of that man. But the riddler does.

Yeah, I agree. It was a ton of fun.

Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And then we're going to jump. So it's very interesting. When we were looking into issues to do, I think that's probably pretty common with a lot of these golden Age characters where you don't get too much into their backstory for generations. So even though this first issue with The Riddler had his backstory, you don't really get much evolving. And then in the 90s through today. Like every other year or every year, there seems to revisit their backstories. So there was a lot to choose from. But we chose Detective Comics annual number eight from July 1995. And this is called questions. Multiply the mystery.

Quite the title. This is written by Chuck Dixon, who we have discussed on this podcast. Penciled by Kieran Dwyer, who also did the inks colored by Richmond Lewis, lettered by Albert de Guzman and edited by Darren Vincenzo and Scott Peterson. This is a year one annual. So DC has used the Year One moniker for origin stories from the 90s through to not long ago. They'll put it on when they're just signifying that it's going to tell something about their origin. This year 1995, almost all of the DC Annuals were Year One stories, all telling different versions of the origin. But of course this story is framed by him telling the story. So the whole issue does not take place in the past. It's taking place with him and Arkham telling the story of his origin. And so Dixon is reusing a lot of the Silver Age stuff. Now this is post crisis, so they can play with what existed pre crisis, but he's super faithful to it.

Yeah. While Robin is gone. Robin is in detective conference number 140. There is the Riddler's first big crime. Here is the same crime as in his first appearance. And some of the clues in his Riddle are exactly the same clues that.

We see in the cross, but he adds to them. That's what's interesting. Mhm, yeah, the origin is the same. First of all, he cheats with the jigsaw puzzle that his teacher asks him to do and then he gets obsessed with Riddles. And then yeah, that's the big crime with the crossword puzzle. Chuck Dixon actually adds a few clues to it to make it a little more complex, but it ends up being the same thing that he's flooding out the bank so that he can get to the money and the police won't be able to get there to it. And meanwhile, they're at the Basin Street banquet. The other addition is of course the two is to, um, query and echo women sidekick.

Very nice.

I don't know a lot about, but they are just like, uh, the um.

Debbie Macro, Sugar and Spice.

And who's the other one? Andrew barrymore. Of course. Yes, they reminded me a lot of them.

Yeah, the one off that I mentioned where the Riddler has a game show. They are also featured in that. But yeah, it's definitely very Batman Forever where the Riddler doesn't have sidekicks, but Too face has these very similar side kicks and it almost harkens back to the Batman 66 Too where everyone had a sidekick. And often a lot of the male villains also had these kind of mall women characters as well. I don't know if the Riddler did, but uh, yeah, they're very 90s definitely in how they are drawn, but it is a fun addition and they are like kick ass, uh, henchmen too. Yeah.

They happen to be paid in fish nest.

That is true. But he even says they give as good as they get when they're fighting Batman. So it's not just like, oh, we've got like these gorgeous babes but they actually are like fighting too.

Yeah. So one big thing that Dixon adds here that I don't know if it was hinted at or introduced, it was very hard to tell not being a big Batman expert, so any listeners can correct us. But he adds in about Riddler's parents. So it's not clear to me if that got introduced earlier or if this in 1995 is the first time. But as he's telling the origin story, it's not a great deal of emphasis but he's talking about his parents fighting about him and sort of just how miserable his home life was. So that was part of I think, why then were to understand that he became obsessed with magic and puzzles and trickery and Harry Houdini and sleight of hand in part because of his parents. And then he does talk to the other element that Dixon puts in here that is not so much in the 1940, uh, eight debut, though it's somewhat implied is the way that to him it's all about the performance and the art of it. That's all that matters. That's why he does everything he does.

I thought one of the best things that was added in this issue is that he gets a day to day job when he graduated from high school. He works for like FedEx. Uh, but then he takes up crime and he says, oh no, taking up crime, robbing stores, it's just like having my FedEx job. It's no different, it's just doing it. And the puzzles then make this something more than a day job to him. Like that is what he actually enjoys. And I like that aspect of it where uh, he's doing this to keep himself entertained because otherwise he is just thinking, oh, this is just normal. It's less of a kind of psychosis, I think, in this telling of the Riddler that he has to do it and more about how he does want to keep himself entertained, but also show himself as being the smartest person in the room, which we see a lot uh, in the flashbacks about how he's trying to trick his schoolmates and often doing it. Going back to what we were just discussing, he is doing it often duplicitously, when he can't do all, um manipulation. Yeah.

M, it's definitely all manipulation. Dixon also uses a lot of riddles. I think that's probably what you were referring to in terms of this being a slightly interactive piece. A lot of them actually go unanswered. I kind of wanted to web search a bunch of them because I don't know what you call Twins, both named William. Or Where Cows go on it's in.

The next, um, panel. What do you call twins, both named William. And in the next panel, it's a double bill at a movie theater, which is where cows go on a date to a movie theater.

The Laziest mountain in the world. Everest. Oh, my gosh.

Movie theater. Okay. The world's greatest detective.

Well, some of it is. I don't love the art in this issue, so I think I was skimming past it, but I didn't look for a bunch of Easter eggs in the, uh, panels.

Oh, yeah, those are great. I don't know, Guido, having you probably read much more comics from this era does feel very of its time. It's got a very sketchbook kind of quality. Like it's not fully detailed. Lots of line drawings, almost. In a way.

Yeah. It feels, uh, undone. It feels like a draft, almost, so I agree. And I'm the biggest fan.

I think it goes, though, with the kind of film noir feel that they're going here, including the framing device. And it kind of ends with the Riddler being we don't quite know what mental state he's in. We're actually made to think, uh, how he was comatose and now he's kind of speaking and we don't quite know where he is in terms of mental state then.

And the twist at the end is the whole framing. He's a narration. He's talking to someone and he even responds to them as if they're saying something. And he's like, no, of course you'd think that, but that's not what happened. Or this is what you've been looking for all this time. This secret about me. And then he kicks it and it turns out it's a mirror and he's talking to himself. And so then they lock him up even more. And the, uh, doctors who were interviewing him from Arkham say they were on their lunch break. That's it on this one for being Chuck Dixon. Who? Uh, yeah, it's Chuck Dixon. It was not that bad. It was straightforward, it was fine. It was nothing too special, but it was fine.

Mhm. And what is the second segment of this show? Well, the answer is exploring multiversity.

There, uh, needs to be some riddles in it, though, that's I know.

I didn't plan this in advance.

I am your guide through these vast new realities. Follow me and ponder the question, what if.

And we, as the Council of Watchers have dubbed this alternate Earth what if the Riddler had one bad day, inspired by the Jokers killing joke? And this is from Batman. One bad day. The Riddler number one. The story is actually called Dreadful Rains and this episode is coming out in September. And yet this issue is dated October 2022. So we're in the future.

Uh, this is written by Tom King, penciled by Mitch Jared, who also did the inks and the colors lettered by Clayton Cows. Edited by Dave Vielgosh and of course, Tom King and Mitch Jared have worked together a number of times in the DC universe on the, uh, Mr. Miracle series. Sorry, I'm just trying to figure out what series it was. So this is part of the One Bad Day series which has just been well, I guess has just started coming out. It had been announced not that long ago. There are a series of Batman one shots, each called One Bad Day, the villain's name. There are eight of them for Batman's most famous villains. So this was the first one. The Riddler, too faced, just came out the week we're recording and m releasing this. Then we have penguin Mr. Freeze catwoman, Bane, Clayface and Reishalgul. And they are all written by really amazing and drawn by really amazing teams, most of whom have worked on Batman or all of whom have worked on Batman in some way. So it's a very cool project. And the way they build One Bad Day is comics top talents tell definitive tales of the greatest rogues gallery in pop culture. So it's a very neat project and each one is a oneshot. Now, of course, what is not clear is that they aren't canonical. It's subtle, though. So it's like DC's Black Label, where it is a subtle thing where it's just slightly askew. And this could be canonical. And I want to actually talk more about how it could be situated. But one last thing on the series before we dive into the issue. The series is inspired by Batman's the Killing Joke So not just, I think, in tone and even art, I'd say the panel breakdowns are very reminiscent. You kind of switch between these nine panel pages with three panel pages and then splash pages, but there's a structure to it and you break that structure at key moments. All of that is very, uh, batman. The killing Joke, of course, by Alan Moore and Brian Boland very famous dark Batman story. But the other inspiration is that in that Joker talks about one bad day. So this is a quote from the Killing joke Batman. Uh, the Joker is talking to Batman, who's running through his house of horrors and says, I've demonstrated there's no difference between me and everyone else. All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day. You had a bad day once. Am I right? I know, I can tell. You had a bad day and everything changed. You had a bad day and it drove you as crazy as everybody else, only you won't admit it. So that's really perhaps the thesis of The Killing Joke that the Joker doesn't think he's that much more deranged than everyone else. Of course he is, but that everyone is one bad day away from doing these horrible things. And then, of course, in the killing joke. There's also, uh, maybe roughly a day. And he does all these horrible things to Batman. So this series is, uh, inspiration. Uh, yes.

And also the reason why the Joker was not amongst the names that you read of characters that are getting this new series, because he's basically already got his one Bad Day.

Yeah, and I want to talk about that when we situate this in the universe. But let's try to summarize real quick for people who haven't read it. We are going to be spoiling the whole thing. And this is recent, so, um, warning. But basically, it starts off it's so good. First of all, it starts off with Riddler seemingly randomly killing this person who's just leaving work one day. And then Ridler is demanding to see Batman, and it flashes back to an origin. This origin is slightly different in this origin, or it's not different, but it's a different story we're seeing as part of the origin. It's not contradictory. He's at this school where his father is the headmaster. And in this origin story, we keep flashing back to, he has a teacher who's putting Riddles at the end of a test for bonus points or points. And he just thinks that he shouldn't be allowed to do that. And he ends up cheating in the end. But the teacher knows it because, of course, the teacher changed the Riddle last minute, and Riddler put the old answer on it, and he ends up killing that teacher, which I guess is sort of the origin of his villainy in that regard. His name. And this is Edward Tyranny, which is the only time that name has been used. Now, the Edward Nigma name has been questioned before. He's also been called like Ed Nashton, so he has a few different names.

The Nigma has also been spelled differently. His origin is nigma with an E. Other times it's nigma with an Y. So there's lots of things there. His look has also changed so often, too, like in this Batman, One Bad Day, he's a redhead. Kind of makes you almost think of Jim Carrey a little bit, but then the flashbacks. At least he's a red head. Then he's bald. Other ones, he's got the black hair. He's definitely changed his look more than some of the other Batman, which would.

Make sense for the character and could be explained by the character's personality. So as the plot of this progresses, he ends up killing a whole bunch of Arkham guards or getting them to kill each other and escapes and has, ah, a confrontation with Batman, where it turns out that essentially he's, I guess, in some ways, bored, uh, potentially, which is a good link to the Chuck Dixon origin here sequence. But he realizes that the only way he's going to actually defeat Batman is to play on the fact that Batman doesn't want to kill, and therefore he threatens to kill at. Random if Batman does anything toward him or if the police do anything toward him. And he, uh, exemplified that by killing the person at random at the beginning. So the whole issue, like Gordon and Batman are trying to find the clues, and there are no clues. He just killed that person at random to prove that he's now crossed the line. He's going further. It's the one bad day premise. So Riddler is like, I'm going to go further. And then, I don't know, should we spoil the end or should we talk about it?

Well, I think we're going to have to talk about the end because I think it's key to this being in a multiverse, really.

It's true. Okay.

Yeah.

So in the end, uh, a lot of good stuff that we're just glossing over here. A lot of good dialogue and conversations and amazing Tom King writing and occasion, amazing Mitch Garrett's art. But in the end, Ridler is at his hotel room, where he thinks he's sort of beat everyone. Uh, the police are leaving him alone. He keeps threatening people. The banks will give him whatever he wants. He has a bug. And it turns out, as he's watching what he thinks is Batman talking to Gordon bugged on the rooftop, it's Batman describing that, in fact, the Riddler let go of the reins and crossed the line and changed. And what The Riddler never accounted for was that Batman could also change and that this was a recording. Batman then comes in and kills The.

Riddler, which we don't see, but is strongly implied.

Well, riddle me this, though. We meet but once. You know me, forever thereafter, what am I? Death, obviously. So that is how it ends. All right, so that's the summary. Let's go. I made you read this because I loved it and thought it was one of the best Batman stories I've ever read. What did you think?

Yeah, I loved it as well. I think it's got a very creepy horror. It kind of remind me in tone and even look, yes, of course, definitely of the new Batman movie. But I was also reminded of minehunter, the Netflix TV show about, uh, the FBI profilers and serial killers, where it's got that kind of thing, because it's definitely kind of them trying to profile the Riddler, but then kind of realizing they can't really profile him because he's changed the rules in a way. And it has that cool dynamic of which actually, Dixon does as well. But here, it's definitely pushed a lot, um, stronger in these flashbacks and that every few pages, we're going back to the past. We're also focusing on the current story as well, which is very interesting that it's, uh, a strong element of both the year one and the one bad day issues. But, yeah, I think it's great. I think the writing, the art, very creepy. Everything's kind of set at night. So thinking another David fincher property other than mine hunter Seven, where everything's kind of raining all the time, and with.

That green hue, instead of like a dark gray or instead of something colorless or a muted color, everything is sort of green tinted.

Mhm.

And then the flashbacks are orange tinted, so that provides a contrast.

Yes. Another thing that we didn't talk about that's inherent in both the year one, but even pushed again much further, here is the riddler, thinking of himself as a riddle, as something that he wants to solve. And here, a lot of it is tied up with the identity of his mother, who he doesn't know. Uh, it seems like it was ah, his father had a one night stand with a prostitute, it seems.

Well, and then when he met her, he killed her right away.

And then he meets her because he.

Didn'T want the answers. And I love that it's a dark book, but it has all of tom King is one of my favorite writers, and it's because of his characterizations and vision, is really dark, but somehow it doesn't feel overbearing the darkness. Right. And there's something about his writing, and I think it's the psychology of the characters he gets into. And so that's a great example where it's like a really horrific story, but it gives us so much understanding about the riddler that he's saying people always go back to their mother to understand themselves. And so he realized when he finally met her in that brief moment and she was the stranger to him, that if she told him something, it would answer questions. And so he decided to kill her right away so that she couldn't answer any questions about who he is.

Mhm.

And that's super powerful and super dark and disturbing.

Yeah. And going back to his origin story, this is the third version of the origin that we're discussing today. And what's interesting, I think, throughout the three issues, is how the character, Eddie's character, changes. So in his original origin story, he's always kind of a jerk from the very beginning. And then he's just always into tricking people. Right. And then the Chuck Dixon one year, uh, one, he's into tricking people, but he's a wall flower. There's nothing special, really, about him. He then picks up puzzles. He's kind of just, uh, off to the side. And then here, he's much even more of a sympathetic figure. He's really being psychologically and physically abused by his father, who's the headmaster here. And he is special. So he has this kind of genius intellect as a kid. And no matter what he does, it's not good enough. And some of it's the sins of his father and his mother that his father can't get older.

That's why I mentioned the evolution of that part of the origin here, because the cheating here doesn't feel like he's just a cheater. No, it feels like he's responding to pressure, and that's a much more interesting thing to me than just he's a cheat. Because as we mentioned, we were both surprised to see in the Origin that he is just a cheat, because that part of his character hasn't really shown up in a lot of other depictions. So I think Tom King might potentially agree with us that he's not just a cheat. His cheating in that moment was for another reason. It wasn't just to pull a fast one.

And I kind of agree with Eddie in the flashbacks because he even says to this teacher, it's okay if you make these Riddles extra credit, but they shouldn't count as the main part of the test because I've studied everything else, and I can't study for these. And the teacher is kind of this very 70s hippies, got a big mess.

Uh, he's teaching the cool way.

Yeah, he's teaching the cool way. And it's like, I kind of agree with, uh, Eddie that, oh, this shouldn't be so you even feel there. Oh, it's one more way that the world is just trying to devour this person. Even the teacher who thinks he's helping him is really not helping him at all. And actually, whenever Eddie goes to the teacher looking for help, the teacher is just like, oh, no, I'm doing this for your own good. It's like, oh, no. You should be more receptive to clearly a child that's in pain here.

Yeah.

Mhm.

So, I mean, I love this book. I think it does a great job with the thesis of one bad day, which could just take a character to its extreme. Take one of Batman's robes to an extreme. What has them go over a line? How do they go over a line that still represents who they are? And I think this does that beautifully and darkly and disturbingly.

And in terms of the multiverse, uh.

Let'S talk about that.

Yeah, because when I read this at first, I think I even asked you afterwards, wait, this is not in main continuity, right? Because he kills film freak. Riddler kills film freak. But then I was like, okay, that's a minor character, right? Like, maybe he just kills him and then he kills actually, we learned that he's also killed BlackMask at the very end. That's kind of in the wrap up. So I was like, wait a second. So that probably wouldn't happen. He's a much bigger character. And then those final panels where we know, okay, Batman himself, uh, has stepped over the edge, and he's going to be killing the Riddler. That's the only time when it really clicked in for me. It's like, oh, this isn't because I didn't know the concept going in. So it really wasn't until that end where it was like, oh, this isn't actually a continuity Batman story.

Yeah, it's interesting they didn't make it Black Label because Black Label tends to signify to people. It's an else world story, but a mature one. And this certainly fits that criteria. I'm not sure why it's not under the Black Label imprint. But what I'm interested in the, um, alternate universe aspect of it is yeah, it's not main DC Earth cannon. Fine, I'm okay with that. My question, though, is could it be Killing Joke Earth canon? Now, The Killing Joke is such an interesting and very controversial piece because it was intended to be an alternate Earth. It was not intended to be canonical. And this is popular story. I don't know how true, but story is that because it became so wildly popular, DC introduced it as canon, which is why we had Batgirl in a wheelchair and why we had ramifications of that. But I think that Brian, um, Boland and Alan Moore, I think both definitely Brian Boland have talked about like, Joker is supposed to have died at the end, which is very structurally. This Riddler comic is very similar that it ends with this moment where it's like, I think he's killing him, but it doesn't tell you for sure. So The Killing Joke should have been an alternate universe wasn't was made canonical. And this book, I think, really could live if we put The Killing Joke in an alternate universe. This book could live in it because Ridler actually refers to Gordon's One Bad Day being when the Joker came to shoot Barbara. So this book acknowledges the existence of the killing joke. So I almost see it as they're almost creating a Killing Joke universe with these oneshots. And that's interesting to me. More interesting than either having it completely stand alone pocket or again, I don't need it to be canonical because, yeah, you can't have Batman having killed the Riddler canonically in DC comics. So I kind of like the idea of a Killing Joke universe. It's a dark place, but it works okay for me. Um, I did read really quickly, I light quick read the Two Face One to understand a little bit. Well, I'll hold that for pondering possibilities. I'll hold the future of the One Bad Day series for them. So anything else on this story's place in the multiverse?

No, I think it's, uh, definitely just a great read. And I like the fact that when we talk about what ifs and elsewhere else, it's sometimes really taking the characters into new directions. It's Batman, but it's set during the 18 hundreds. So it's kind of interesting. It's fun to see. Okay, we can basically do a Batman story, but we're just going to tweak it just a little bit. And that's how it's going to exist in a, uh, multiverse rather than, okay, we're going to take the Riddler and he's going to be in the year 3000. So that's very fun.

Yeah, that can be the sequel to Robin 3000. Um, yeah, I agree. And I think, again, Tom King, who I believe might have the longest run writing Batman, clearly gets the characters. Guess what? A Batman book is. Guess who the riddler is. And so even though he's bringing all of it to an extreme that we don't normally see, he's holding on to the pieces that are interesting to fans of the book and the stories and the characters. So I think that is amazing.

Mhm. And another word for questions is pondering, kind of. Right. So let's ponder some possibilities. Will the future you describe diverted? So let's talk about the One Bad Day series first and then the potential that it has, and then kind of get into some Riddler possibilities because, of course, this issue came out in the future, October 2022. So we don't have any future issues to really talk about.

Yeah, we didn't read anything to follow this because we like to read things after the alternate universe to look for inspiration and threads. So the one bad day. I did read The Two Face One that came out. I read it quickly. It is totally incredibly similar. It does the same thing. It is visually pretty similar. Even though it's a different team, it is visually pretty similar. It does the same thing where it takes Two Face and it says, okay, what makes Two Face Two Face? And what is something that will bring Two Face to the edge and go over a line and what does that do to Batman and how does Batman deal with that? So it completely succeeds, in my mind, on that aspect of it. It doesn't have any direct reference to The Killing Joke, which I thought was interesting. I didn't know if maybe each One Bad Day would sort of refer to that. And it also doesn't have any reference to The Riddler. So I'm curious if all the One Bad Days could live in the same universe, which would mean that Batman has had eight really awful days.

Yeah, well, and it's fitting, I think. I'll be curious to see how the series evolved because it's very fitting that they started with Riddler and Two Face because both of them have the biggest Achilles heels of a lot of those characters that you mentioned. Right. So by the Riddler not doing his clues, it fundamentally changes who he is. And I haven't read the Two Face One, but of course, Two Face being driven by chance and the coin and that kind of thing, that doesn't really exist as much for the Penguin, for Catwoman, for Mr. Freeze. So I'll be curious to see how they approach those characters in well, it's.

Interesting that you say that. The order that they're going in, it does feel like it's sort of building in strength because it goes riddler to face, Penguin, Freeze, Catwoman, who doesn't have the strength of power but has the strength of relationship and being an antihero. But then Bane, Clayfus, Rachel, Ghoul are the final three. So those three are the superpowered rogues who are nearly unbeatable in different ways. It is interesting that perhaps the One Bad Days are building a bit. Again, I doubt they're going to be explicitly connected, but I'm wondering if they will do anything to contradict one another or if they could live together as an eight issues series. Or maybe they will become explicitly connected and we just don't know. Yes, I think it's a very cool series. These teams are the writers and artists that anyone would want to see. John Ridley, Jerry Duggan, Gwill. Wilson, Joshua Williamson, Colin Kelly and Jackson Lansing and Tom Taylor all as the writers. And then the art is equally amazing. So I'm excited for the One Bad Day series, but thinking about The Riddler, we got a major on screen depiction of The Riddler just earlier this year, right? Wasn't that this year?

Yes, I think it was this year, sometime recently.

And do you think he'll be back in that world of Batman movies?

Uh, m, I think he will be back in the way that they brought Kelly and Murphy Scarecrow back in the Nolan movies where he wasn't like the main villain, but he was there to help provide continuity between the films, which they might also do with The Penguin as well. Although he may or may not be getting his own series on HBO. So I think that might be the way that they're using him. I don't think we'll see Paul Danos Riddler have a huge number significant role in the movie.

Will we ever see a Riddler with a sense of humor anywhere other than on Harley, which is, by the way, just so amazing. And Jim M. Rash, some of the best depictions, uh, of some of these characters ever are on the Harley Quinn cartoon.

Agreed. And it's Jim Rash on that from Community who is very funny and the Riddler looks like Jim Rash as well. So it's fun there. But yeah, I mean, I didn't dislike the Matt Reeves Batman movie, but uh, I was mixed especially on the Paul Dano, uh, interpretation because I was thinking the character, not only does it look like the traditional Riddler, he doesn't even try the suit. We're not going to put him in the jumpsuit, I got that. But we can still also put them in like the question mark suit. Uh, really, uh, doesn't even have question marks. And it's really not too much about The Riddles, which is also something I think in Batman Forever they didn't quite get as much. I would love to see it just kind of go hall hog into something a little more close to the Frank Gorschen performance, which I guess Jim Carrey is doing a little bit, but it's a little serious.

But even if you don't go that far, all the rebirth era and beyond DC looks of Riddler have been a little bit like the stylized Riddler that's even on the cover here. Like he has the, I don't know, bowler hat and the suit and the green gloves and the cane. So there's a way you can do ridler that doesn't put them in a green spandex suit covered in question marks, but still gives them a little bit of a flare, considering that the character always has a flare. Even in this even in this dark, extreme version of him, he has a flare and putting him in a green army surplus coat and goggles is like, not his mask.

Uh, in The One Bad Day is actually kind of similar to how you see Robert Pattinson's eyes, or in a lot of the movie where it's the smeared mask is like makeup. Um, but they still do put him in like the three piece suit as well. So they kind of have best of Both worlds where he's not just wearing a domino mask, but he is still in kind of a suit. So I think there's something to be done there. Further, I don't know how we'll see it if we'll be on a TV show or another movie, but I would.

Love to see that when Warner Bros. Sells off DC, then, uh, we'll have finally the versions of these characters that we deserve.

And I think too, you were saying at the start that he's not as featured as much in the comics as other characters and I think because there is a trickiness to make him different than the Joker in a way, because they both can rely on comics, rely on tricks. I think once you dig though, into the issues that we read today, you can see where the difference lies between those two characters. But I do think that's a struggle that they've sometimes had with his depictions, especially on screen.

Well, uh, I think about this every time I read him and every time I've read them in Tom King's Run. It must just be hard to write them because you have to think of all the riddles you're going to use. Like both the larger riddles in terms of what he's doing and where the twist is going to be, but even the smaller, like just the sparring with words that he does. He probably takes a lot of either research or focus or time or edits or something, but he's probably a little hard to write just for that reason too.

Mhm. Yeah, well, I'm good to solve the riddle of the riddler today.

Yeah, and it wasn't one bad day at all. I can't think of a questioning word that can get inserted there.

Well, on that note, that is a wrap. Dear Watchers, thank you for listening.

I've been robbed in Quito.

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In the meantime, in the words of Oww, to keep pondering the possibilities.