Character Affinity: Riddler
An old nemesis of Batman, Riddler loves lacing his words with riddles possibly the result of a suggested abusive father that made him feel the need to tell the truth which he would do through riddles. He is a genius often characterized by others as a wimp. He has recently gone missing from Gotham City.
Riddler first appeared in Detective Comics #140 back in 1948. He was born in Watersbury as Edward E. Nigma and is known to the DC Universe as the Crowned Prince of Conundrums. He loved asking people questions and won a contest in his school to solve a puzzle and received a book full with puzzles and riddles furthering his obsession. Unfortunately Riddler did not just get a puzzle book from the contest. Instead of attracting positive attention like the Riddler always wanted because of his egotistical nature, Edward attracted the attention of numerous bullies.
Riddler's love of money made him upset to be part of the middle class, so he decided to turn to crime laced with his riddles giving himself more attention. Similar to the unwanted attention he got attention, unfortunately it was from the Batman.
Riddler tried getting money for his next crime and met Query and Echo, who were previously strippers at Pandora's Box. All of them were trying to rob the same convenience store and Riddler, in need of an assistant, hired both Query and Echo. They have similar characteristics but it is unknown if they are related. After Riddler's reform he no longer required their assistance and supposedly fired them, though this has never been seen in the comics. However, the Riddler did mention Query and Echo as his "ex-henchwomen" in an issue of Detective Comics.
Another one of Riddler's closest allies was Thomas Elliot, better known as the notorious Hush. Riddler met the doctor when he was dying of brain cancer, but was later cured after using one of Ra's Al Ghul's Lazarus pits. His cure also came with clarity that resulted in his realization that Bruce Wayne was Batman. He teamed up with Hush and used many of Batman's notorious villains to try and beat Batman.
After waking from a coma he had been in for a year that had resulted when Shining Knight hit him in the head with his mace during Infinite Crisis, Riddler reformed and reverted back to his proper name. Still in love with himself and money, he became a PI and received a fortune. Parts of his Riddler persona did come back after his face was scarred slightly by a bomb and he began to wear his old Riddler mask again. Riddler was often portrayed in recent comics acting suspiciously and thought about returning to villainy after being duped by the Gotham City Sirens, a group he often helped out.
Finally, in Tony Daniel’s recent run of Batman #698-699, Riddler assists Batman (Dick Grayson) in solving the murders perpetrated by Sebastian Blackspell only to be poisoned by Joker toxin. It is later speculated by Dick that Riddler used the poison on himself to avoid suspicion. Unfortunately, after Dick takes down Blackspell, Riddler is no where to be found. Blackspell’s money was transferred to an unverifiable account that Dick believes to be the Riddler’s. Dick also suspects Riddler framed Blackspell and actually committed the murders himself despite being more of a puzzler and never a murderer previously. Riddler will have a lot to answer for, if and when he returns.
