Edward Nygma/Riddler

Subject Facts

Full Name: Edward Nigma (born Edward Nashton)
Codename: The Riddler
Age: Mid-30’s to early 40’s
Gender: Male
Archetype: Rogue
Aliases: Wizard101, Enigma
Marital Status: Single
Affiliation: Arkham inmates, Legion of Doom

Subject Attributes

Meta-Human Abilities: The Riddler possesses no meta-human abilities

Standard Abilities:

Gifted Engineer: The Riddler is a highly skilled engineer who can come up with elaborate and deadly mechanisms within a fairly short amount of time. These creations can be as simple as a room designed to fill up with water or as sophisticated as an entire house layered with springing traps and puzzles that need completion to escape.

Skilled Hacker: The Riddler is a capable hacker who can easily steal finances or information electronically and send messages through his opponent's computer networks as clues. His technical proficiency perfectly suits him for a "man in the chair" role in regards to work with hired muscle or other collaborative efforts.

Master Planner: Despite his inflated ego, the Riddler is indeed quite a genius, and is capable of coming up with bafflingly complex crimes with precision that makes the job look easy. Flooding the halls of a bank (sometimes drowning the guards) so that the air pressure will be equal to that of the opposite side of the vault and cause it to unlock may seem like a bit much to some people, but if he is given the time and the means to pull it off then chances are there's nobody (besides Batman) who will see it coming.

Genius: As some of his other abilities would suggest, the Riddler possesses a genius-level IQ and understands the intricacies of endless academic and esoteric subject matters. Math, physics, philosophy, history and pop culture are just a few of the many things that the Riddler has insatiably high knowledge levels of. 

Deductive Reasoning: The Riddler's detectives skills have famously rivaled those of Batman, and during a stint as a private investigator after his head injury he was able to earn a good living by solving cases through unorthodox but highly efficient means of deduction. He is an expert at crime scene analytics and not a detail of a room will go unnoticed when he is working things out.

Escape Artist: Eddie has been known to be an avid admirer of the late Harold Houdini, as well as other magicians such as Zatanna's father Zatara (who ironically trained Batman himself). In addition to creating traps, Eddie's inspirations and natural talents have given him an uncanny ability at escaping from them, be them as elaborate as something another villain has cooked up for him or as unfortunately simple as the maximum security wing at Arkham Asylum.

Deception: Charming, smug and intellectual, Eddie has been known to be able to coerce lesser criminals and fellow rogues alike into his bidding by way of selling them on his plans or means that are less honest. Trusting him is likely to lead to betrayal and there are few people he will ever be looking out for besides himself.


Paraphernalia: One of the Riddler's trademarks has become a brass walking stick with a question mark shaped handle that he makes use of. Typically it is just for show, but he has been known to use it as a defense weapon when necessary and at times he has incorporated various forms of tools into it, such as hacking equipment or bomb detonators. It is also assumed that he has regular access to construction tools and computers with internet access in wherever his hideouts are located at.


Subject Weaknesses:

Human: Eddie is not known for his physical strength or fighting ability and will often fold if faced with a confrontation that does not involve guns. Additionally, he is only human, and can fittingly be harmed by poison, bullets, explosives, cars, long falls, electricity, fire and Batman's fist.

Clues: The Riddler cannot stop himself from showing off how smart he is, and Batman has come to recognize this as his Achilles heel. When faced with Riddler, there will always be a carefully laid out path designed to be followed, and while his puzzling abilities are one of his greatest strengths, his opponents can also use them to determine is next move.

Batman: If puzzling is the compulsive factor of Riddler's mania, then ten out of ten times Batman will be the obsessive factor. If Batman did not exist, then the Riddler may have ceased to do so long ago. With no worthy of playing his games, there wouldn't ever have been a point in becoming the Riddler to begin with. Also, as long as Batman is alive, Riddler needs to be better than him, which is what consistently fuels his conflicts with the Dark Knight time and time again.

Insane: Like most of Batman's enemies, the Riddler is criminally insane and will usually be contained within Arkham Asylum after capture. His desire to commit crimes, violent or otherwise, alongside his obsessive compulsive nature that revolves games and clues, makes him a good fit for the Asylum's roster of colorful maniacs.

Subject History

Over the years, the Riddler has been occasionally rumored as a second rate criminal or a has-been with a gimmick, but those who have actually dealt with him before know that this could not be farther from the truth. While his bizarre modus operandi typically prevents him from killing anybody directly, a large number of his crimes have been categorized as second-degree murder by way of lethal mechanical puzzles and contraption that he has been known to construct for victims and Bat vigilantes alike. His unorthodox focus on exploits themed around puzzles, riddles and traps is also quite flexible, allowing for indulgence in lesser forms of crime, when necessary, or the role of a hired distraction if the price suits him.

Edward commonly exhibits a demented smugness, but will usually become frustrated quickly if his plan goes awry or if he becomes forced to rely on hired muscle rather than his own wits alone. He gets along with fellow inmates of Arkham on occasion, but his deluded narcissism and his insistence on turning every plan into a game make him a poor fit for team collaborations against Batman in the long run. However, oftentimes Edward will often prefer working alone anyway, feeling that other themed criminals will either cramp his style or are simply not worthy of collaborating with him in the first place. Over the years he has developed a close comradery with the Penguin, but because of obvious deviances between their criminal antics this has remained a friendship as opposed to a crime partnership.

The Riddler has come to blows with many heroes during his life of crime, including Catwoman, Green Arrow, The Question, and even several Robins, but despite all this his primary obsession has always been the Dark Knight himself. Going back to when his abusive father told him that he cheated in school and beat him in response to his academic accomplishments, the Riddler has always existed to show off his own elaborate intellectual capabilities, and since Batman has consistently escaped his traps and foiled his plans he needs to continue to challenge him until he ultimately gets the upper hand and does away with his opponent for good. This motive is fueled by the surprising intelligence that Batman possesses, which often leads to the Riddler's defeat.

Clues and puzzles that he presents can be a simple as a written letter or a cryptogram or as complex as the map coordinates of the locations that he has committed crimes at combined together and spelled out as words. When faced with Riddler, Batman must keep an open mind to every intellectual avenue that could possibly be gone down, resulting in a mentally taxing experience that not all heroes are capable of following.

Psychiatrists in Arkham Asylum have described the Riddler as an antisocial personality, a malignant narcissist and an obsessive compulsive.

???????

Edward Nygma was seen to be intellectually gifted at a very early age, and after receiving some high scores on standardized tests and exhibiting academic abilities well beyond his age level, his school administration sent a letter to his home requesting to meet with his parents and discuss moving him into classes with children of older grades. His neglectful and abusive father met this revelation with a jealous rage and, certain that his son had cheated and unable to accept his brilliance, administered a violent beating to him as a result. Nygma's descent into psychopathy followed gradually as he matured, outlined by a desire to prove the cleverness and intellect that his father chose not to acknowledge and flaunt it over everyone else around him.

Shortly after his emergence as a rogue, on April Fool's Day the Riddler was paid by Carmine Falcone to deduce the identity the Holiday Killer, a demented murderer who targeted mobsters on holidays and marked his crime scenes with festive objects. His deductive reasoning proved to be highly efficient, but Falcone was made furious by his inability to give a straight answer and asked him to leave after losing his patience. Outside of Falcone's office, Nygma was attacked by Holiday but left alive presumably in reference to the joking nature of the holiday in question. Batman later confronted Nygma about the attack and asked him who Holiday was, but Nygma either refused to answer or was too cryptic to be understood.

When a copycat killer known as the Hangman emerged, Nygma was selected as one of Two-Face's lieutenants and took part in the trial that he held regarding the murderer's identity. Batman also came to him for assistance with the clues the killer was leaving at crime scenes, but Nygma's notion that the already completed games of hangman that were being written out and left behind were meant to be played with by two people was already a consideration of the Dark Knight's.

While the Hangman mystery continued to play out, Nygma also accompanied Selina Kyle on a week long trip to Rome where it was supposed that he would assist her with locating members of the Falcone family that she believed she was related to. However, believing that Catwoman knew Batman's true identity, Nygma enlisted the aid of Scarecrow and Wonder Woman's nemesis Cheetah in an attempt to torture her psychologically and force her to reveal what she knew about the vigilante. To his dismay, she proved to know even less than he did about Batman, and when he tried to escape with a stolen ring from the Vatican that she had acquired, she replaced it with a replica that was laced with some of Scarecrow's chemical gas that she had gotten a hold of.

Shortly after this, the Riddler was hired by the Russian mafia to decode a stolen notebook that Catwoman had acquired from Commissioner Gordon's office. After initially clashing with Batgirl over the stolen notebook, Selina soon realized that a young prostitute that she was trying to protect was to be presented to the Riddler as a gift for his work, and she quickly teamed with Barbara and attempted to stop the deal. The chase led Batgirl to Arkham Asylum. The Riddler took control of the building's security system and coxed Batgirl through a series of traps and rooms with inmates who were dangerously close to being able to hurt her, including the Joker. Batgirl managed to survive the Riddler's trials, only to find that Catwoman had already found a way into the control room and knocked him unconscious just before she arrived.

Eddie's most bizarre crimes took place after he entered a pact with the demon Barbatos, a terrifying supernatural entity that had haunted Gotham since its foundation during colonial times. Needing a living sacrifice as part of his end of the bargain, Eddie lured Batman into a bloody wild goose chase, kidnapping baby's from a city hospital and holding them hostage and attacking Batman with zombie robots that he had stolen. All the bizarre antics turned out to be part of a series of steps that would prep Batman to actually be murdered on an alter. Eddie almost succeeded during their final confrontation in a Church, but the entity chose to intervene in an attempt to instead take Batman as his own vessel. In the resulting chaos, the building collapsed and Batman and Riddler managed to escape.

Prior to Bane's destruction of Arkham Asylum, Riddler challenged Batman to stop him from poisoning Gotham City's water supply and sent a note to Commissioner Gordon that invited chase. Batman arrived in time to stop him but found that Bane had injected Riddler with a large dosage of venom that man him nearly unmatchable in physical combat. After dealing out a severe (and presumably satisfying) beating to his archenemy, Riddler escaped and then sent another challenge to the police detailing his next crime. Batman confronted him again, and even though the effects of the venom drug had not worn off, managed to defeat him and protect him from Bane's men, who had turned their guns on him after his loss.

One of Riddler's most notorious death traps for Batman came in the form of an underground prison cell with tall, electrified chain linked fences that was designed to fill with water until completely submerged. Rising bumpers that floated at the surface of the water prevented the Batman from being shocked to death, but they were designed to sink and get wet if he attempted to tamper with them. When escaping Nygma's traps Batman would sometimes have to find faults in the designs of the traps and exploit them as a means of escape, an act that Nygma commonly referred to as "cheating" over the years (or using methods that he had not thought of yet).

The earthquake during the No Man's Land era left Eddie drained heavily of resources and instead of leaning on the Penguin or other supposed allies, in his pride he elected to flee the city and distance himself from the chaos instead of relying on help.

It was during this time that he discovered that he was suffering from brain cancer, and sought out the aid of Dr. Thomas Elliot's in Metropolis. Despite the surgeon's best efforts, Riddler was diagnosed as terminal and was not able to receive help. Desperate to survive and low on options, he managed to arrange a trip to one of Ra's al Ghul's hidden lazarus pits in a last ditch effort to cure himself once and for all. During the psychotic breakdown that followed the exposure to the pit's chemicals, Riddler's deductive reasoning was enhanced and he was finally able to decipher the riddle behind his hated enemy's secret identity.

Now knowing that Bruce Wayne was Batman and that his former ward, Jason Todd, was the Robin who was murdered by the Joker, Eddie returned to Dr. Elliott, who was a childhood friend of Wayne's looking for vengeance, and hatched a plan that would put the Dark Knight out of both their misery for good. Using Elliott's fortune and various means of deception, Eddie sent a gauntlet of Batman's enemies against him like pawns on a chessboard, including the Joker, Scarecrow, Harley Quinn, Killer Croc, Clayface, and Poison Ivy. They even managed to pit Superman against Batman temporarily through the use of Poison Ivy's kryptonite lipstick. Their deadliest edge over him, however, came in the form of the discovery that Jason Todd had been resurrected and was looking to get even with his old mentor. Eddie and Elliot, who was now under the guise of the masked criminal Hush, met with Jason and drew him into the plot, promising him a chance to defeat Batman as a reward for his cooperation. Batman was furious about Todd's involvement, and Riddler taunted him about the location of the young boy's body when he was questioned, fully aware the Bruce had no idea that his adopted son was really alive the whole time.

Eddie's disrespectful treatment of his fellow rogues left him with temporarily with a target on his back, and after encountering Hush again and nearly getting killed he pooled his resources together and fled the city once again. After he recovered from his injuries, he returned in prime form and was hired by a wealthy industrialist in Star City to create a series of distractions so that he could have a team of mercenaries steal priceless artifacts from the city's museum. A goose chase ensued with Green Arrow in tow, although Riddler ultimately took things farther then the industrialist had intended him to when revealed that he was in possession of an atomic bomb and willing to level the city if necessary. Ollie managed to defeat Eddie with help from his son Connor Hawke, and later interrogated him for information about the industrialist's whereabouts.

Riddler's reign of good fortune as a costumed criminal seemed to finally come to an end when he was struck in the head by the Shining Knight's mace during a massive battle between heroes and villains. Previously he had not acted on his knowledge of Batman's secret identity, and now with seemingly long term memory loss that resulted from is injuries, it is a mystery if he will ever be able to. After the board at Arkham Asylum was bribed by a rich philanthropist to certify him for release, Eddie took up a temporary gig as a private detective and shunned the murderous ways of his previous life. However, things don't seem like they are quite that simple. He has been hanging around with the Gotham City Sirens quite a bit, and also, there's something he used to know about Bruce Wayne that he feels is coming back to him...

Subject Interview

A green button down waistcoat and a set of trousers hung on the wooden knobs at the end of one of Dr. Elliott's examination rooms by a tall, white door with a silver traditional handle. The patient sat on the examination table with his patient's gown buttoned up as he awaited the arrival of his caretaker. He had curly brown hair and was thin for a man of his mid-30's. A brown belt with a golden buckle rested on the table next to him and the sheet of medical paper beneath him crinkled ever now and then when he adjusted his legs or changed positions. A clock with a cat's face on it sat near the ceiling on the opposite side of the room. The patient did not have a particular fondness for cats. For most of his adult life bats had obviously been a bigger problem, but still he couldn't stand cats for many reasons. They hissed. They scratched. They had whips. There had no useful information about the madmen in winged rodent costumes that they indulged in relentless romantic pursuits over even though something simple as his real name should come easy to them.

A thin blonde woman in a nurse's coat stepped into the room and shut the door. She had a clipboard in her hand and she seemed to be shorter than most of the women the Dr. Elliott worked with (Eddie figured that they were all hired strictly for their appearance; all blonde, skinny and pale. It was apparent that the good doctor had a type, much like another mad doctor he knew that had a thing for Alice in Wonderland). "Dr. Elliott is so sorry that he couldn't make it today..." The woman shook her head as she sat down, tapping her pen against her clipboard loudly. "You are one of his most important patients, Arthur, but he got held up at the medical conference in Central City and he ended up having to miss his flight back to Metropolis."

This did not surprise Eddie at all. In fact, if he would have been surprised to meet any sort of doctor that actually placed more value on patients then they did on profits. Granted, he himself did not have the highest regard for human life, but when it came it his only life, of course, no regard could have been higher. The fake name that he had given them was Arthur Wynne. The man who invented the crossword puzzle. Cheesy? Yes, but it was very likely that only Batman would be able to make the connection. Metropolis had its own crew of circus freaks and flying costumes to deal with, and while Riddler was a household name as a supervillain, like most of Batman's enemies, he rarely left Gotham.

"The grants that you have given us have been more than enough. They've been a big help, alongside of Dr. Elliott's connections in the medical industry, of course."

She flipped through a few pages of her charts and then handed the board over to her patient. A large photograph of a brain scan sat on the sheet of paper in front of him. Things did not look good. "You've been so cooperative with everything Arthur, and Tom really tried to stretch this out as much as he could...but this is just not curable. It has festered on for too long, this should have been caught in a much earlier stage."

The bastards at Arkham Asylum. Their piss-poor medical facilities and underpaid staff. They failed to perform medical check ups on patients regularly. If this had been caught while Eddie was incarcerated, it would have been treatable. Certainly. If he had gotten the help that was warranted for someone of his class and intellect, he would not be sitting in this chair right now. But as always, due the incompetence of the slower people in the world, he was now at a set back. Perhaps, the final set back that he would ever deal with. Riddler dropped the clipboard into his lap and folded his fingers together. He cracked his knuckles and took a moment before speaking. "Does he know how much time I have?"

No charming comment. No witty quip. He had nothing that could answer this predicament. This was truly a first. The self-proclaimed man with all the answers was now speechless. Maybe this was a comeuppance for everything that he had done? No, it couldn't have been. He simply had done nothing wrong before. Everyone that died by his hands should have been smarter. Everyone that lost something because of him was just in his way. When you were at his intellectual level, everybody else in the world served as mere chess pieces. Pawns to be sacrificed. Drones to be moved along.

??????

Eddie put on his trousers and slid his navy blue hoodie over his green waistcoat. His tie was hung loosely around his neck like a noose that was about to be tightened. He exited the medical facility and walked out into the city, underneath the beautiful blue Metropolis skyline. The city was clean. The air seemed fresh. But the smog from the city's industrial district hovered a few hundred feet above near the middle of all where all the tall buildings towered. It reminded him of Gotham. 

"Six months to a year..." He mused. "Six months to a year..."

He was a man with no time left and after the Earthquake in Gotham and the rest of his money being blown on treatments, he had absolutely nothing to cap his existence off with. As he slid his hand underneath the handle of his car door, a thin Asian woman in a cloak came out of nowhere behind him and placed her hands on her hips as she sized him up. "Having a bad day, are we Mr. Wynne?" Eddie turned to face his confronter, having no idea how she new about his fake name or what kind of day he was having. He snarled. "I can assure you, the kind of day I'm having right now is no business of yours."

The woman lifted her hands from her hips and gestured towards him. Underneath her hood, her hair was tied back in a short black bun and a dark green veil with a familiar-looking insignia on it covered up the lower portion of her head. "Ah, the lost misfits of Gotham's so-called culture of super criminals. Beaten badly by a man dressed like a bat and then sent to Arkham, where they cycle starts again." Eddie reached opened his car door and reached for his firearm. "Tell me, Eddie, would you have spent so much of your life trying to destroy one man if you were actually aware of how much time was left in?" Eddie put his hand on his firearm. "How do you know me? Who the hell are you? What--"

"How I know you is not nearly as important as how I can help you." The woman put his finger over her lips initiating for him to be silent. Help? This woman could actually help him? She moved closer to him and the insignia on her veil became clear in his memory now. "The League of Assassins. Of course!" But what interest could they have possibly had in him? "I have a helicopter waiting by the Luthor building. We need to hurry. The less questions asked, the better."

??????

The wind blew the freezing cold of the arctic mountaintops into the helicopter cabin as Nygma slid open the vehicle's door. His brown winter coat, donated by his benefactor, shook rapidly on his shoulders as he surveyed the frigid area beyond where he stood. "The helicopter pilot will remain here until you are finished. If they discover the pit is violated, then I must be far away from here. I must not be seen."

"You still haven't explained to me why you are doing this...I don't know if you are familiar with me, but I'm someone who prides myself on having all the answers about everything..."

"You need to ask less questions when someone is trying to help you, Eddie." The woman's hair blew in the wind as she pulled down the hood of her jacket. Regardless of whatever the ulterior motive had was, this was dire assistance that Eddie could not afford to turn down. She placed her hand on Eddie's shoulder as he was about to step out of the helicopter. "Once you submerge yourself in the chemicals, you will temporarily be unconscious. You do understand that you may not resurface?" "If I don't try this, I will be dead soon anyway. I'll take any chance I can get at this point."

Eddie leapt onto the cold snow outside the chopper and headed on the flat even ground beneath him towards the entrance to the cave they had landed in front of. The chopper sat behind him on a perfectly circular helipad. Obviously this place was designed for multiple visits. Since it had been presumably used before, he was unsure of how Ra's al Ghul would be able to tell that it had been bastardized by a third part. Perhaps this was something that he could deduce upon entry. The cold faded behind him as he walked into the dark abyss and he could hear the chemicals of the pit bubbling as he ventured on.

Deep in the cavern, the Lazarus pit bubbled like hot lava. Eddie took off his coat and the vest underneath it as he stepped forward and took one last look at the entrance behind him, which was clouded in the white aura of sun and snow. He dipped one toe in. It felt just like water. Knee deep in the green pool, he still felt nothing. His chest began to feel light as a feather and as he lost his balance and completely submerged in the burning stew, he realized that he felt no pain because his body was in shock. Entombed by the liquid, he rapidly lost consciousness.

A giant bat symbol began to form in his mind. He could hear the laugh of the Joker in the background. He sat behind a set of cold steel bars in the Asylum. A frantic doctor's voice was heard in the distance. She was kissing somebody's ass, no doubt one of the people who had donated money. Which fool wanted to try to pursue a lost cause this time? In the distance he could hear echoes of other voice's. Batman's, roaring in anger, was one of them. "You've gone too far this time, Nygma!" It bellowed over and over again in the distance in concert with the Joker's laugh.

"You've gone too far this time, Nygma!"

"That's funny. I was kind of feeling like I hadn't gone far enough..."

The man the doctor was talking to walked in front of his cell with the doctor in tow next to him. A pretty brunette that looked to be around the age of thirty-five or so. "I guarantee you that, despite their reputations, they will all be able to be released back in society after we are finished treating them..." She blushed. "I mean, the funds you've given us have been so helpful, and..."

The donor, wearing a brown business suit with a yellow work shirt underneath, turned to face his cell but he could not make out who it was. There was only blackness surrounding the frame of his head. The Joker's laugh went off again in the distance, but this time it was complimented by the sound of a swarm of scuttering bats. The bats came into frame and surrounded the donor. "You've gone too far this time, Nygma!" What was his name? Who was he?

A familiar voice echoed in the corridors of the hallway. The stranger seemed to be talking, but at the exact same volume he was hearing Batman's voice at and also, the words seemed to be coming for everywhere around him and not just where the man stood in front. "I appreciate all the flattery, Dr. Burton, but it's really my pleasure. My father taught me the value of helping the less fortunate in my younger years."

"You've gone too far this time, Nygma."

"Yes...of course, Mr. Wayne...let us know if there is anything you ever need, and we'll be sure to return the favor next time you have one of your fundraisers for the city's orphanages..." The bats continued to shriek and scutter and the laughter of the Joker filled the space around him one final time. He knew. It was clear. He knew who it was...it was. The bats flapped around the strangers face and a circle of fire appeared around them. The riddle was solved. The riddle that had been tearing away at him for almost his whole life had now been deciphered.

He gasped for air as he finally emerged from the pit. His hair was soaked and every cell of his body now felt saturated with power. He reached for his clothes as he climbed out of the now tainted water and scrambled them on as he moved forward. There wasn't a moment to waist. He had the answer. As he walked out of the cave, buttoning up his jacket, a smug feeling finally came over him once again. I feeling he hadn't felt since before he discovered that he had brain cancer. Eddie was cured now, but honestly, in light of his discovery, that was the last thing on his mind.

As the chopper lifted off, on the inside of the caves walls a large question mark smeared in coal with some writing underneath it could be seen in the distance. A bat symbol with a line through it was drawn over a slew of crudely written words that formed one pleasantly declarative statement.

I know who he is.

Author's Notes

Player Alias: DemonMJ

Other Characters: None yet!

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