How Long Riddler’s Plan Had Been In Works Revealed By The Batman Director

Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for The Batman In Matt Reeves’ The Batman, several of Gotham City’s most dangerous players have come out to play—including The Penguin (Colin Farrell), Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), and Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz)—but only one of them wants to play a truly deadly game. The Riddler (Paul Dano) poses a dangerous threat not just to the criminal elite in Gotham City, but to Batman’s secret identity, as he enacts his complex plan to uncover the truth about Thomas Wayne’s Gotham Renewal Corporation. Before The Riddler was The Riddler, he was a simple accountant by the name of Edward Nashton who had grown up an orphan just like Bruce Wayne. Only he wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth or a gilded mansion protecting him from the cruel reality of the world. The film doesn’t delve very deep into his backstory, but it makes clear that something happened while he was working as a forensic accountant that triggered his desire t