The Riddler by Moderately-Radical on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

When the denizens of Gotham’s underworld need to get the dirt on their enemies or plan out the perfect heist, they call the Riddler. Real name Edward Nashton, the Riddler is an information broker known and utilized by all the top crime organizations. Nothing happens in Gotham that he doesn’t already know about or can’t quickly deduce. Born the penniless son of Scottish immigrants, Nashton used his brains to make himself indispensable, even despite his lack of any particular loyalties. Hell, most of his clients don’t even like him. His massive ego is matched only by his eccentricities, such as his penchant for challenging clients with riddles and berating them when they answer incorrectly. He considers himself the smartest man in Gotham, and his confidence is well-earned; though rarely one to get his hands dirty, he keeps the city’s underworld running like clockwork. When the Batman first arrived on the scene, Nashton was none too thrilled about the threat to business. At the same time, however, he felt he had finally found a worthy opponent against whom to test his wits. So began a game of cat and mouse. Nashton planned crimes even Batman could never solve, left clues to test his mettle, and set elaborate traps to defeat him. Although Batman has always evaded him thus far, this just makes the Riddler respect him all the more. So he accepts with grace what defeats Batman is able to deal him, patiently working towards the endgame. Either Batman will finally gather enough evidence to put him away, or he will finally solve the ultimate riddle: who is the Batman?

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I really enjoyed The Batman and I totally see the logic behind making the Riddler into a serial killer. The problem is that the Riddler already has some conceptual overlap with the Joker, and I didn’t want to reinforce that. So where the Joker is crazy and unpredictable, my Riddler is sane and methodical. Even the very recent comics have been painting him more as a sadistic psychopath, but I want to go back to when he was one of Batman’s more cerebral, less violent foes. At the same time, I did want him to be menacing enough to stand alongside Batman’s more murderous rogues, so I’ve got him as a very man-behind-the-man type. He might never get his hands dirty, but a lot of death and destruction can be traced back to him.
I wanted to put this more serious version of the character in a suit you could actually imagine someone wearing (this is mostly the reason I made him so shortly removed from Scotland, btw. For some reason I felt his fashion sense would go over better in Europe, probably just because I’ve watched too much old British TV.) I was originally only going to put the question marks on his tie, which I thought was totally believable, but it was too subtle. So I put them on the vest, which is a little sillier, but then he’s an eccentric guy like that. This is also why I went with the glasses over a mask, made the bowler black, made the cane only coincidentally suggestive of a question mark, and removed all the purple (also helpfully furthering his distance from the Joker).
“Nygma” is a dumb made-up name.