A world-class creative team takes the Riddler from being a punchline to looking like the monster terrifying you in the dark. Unfortunately, this powerful, accomplished-in-one is bound by its own central conceit and inadvertently pulls its punch just as the final bell rings.
Tom King, a writer, sculpts this narrative with intense patience and flashbacks to sketch a young man who has hidden expectations for him. Batman, with the advantage of being willing to murder, is making some detective work before ultimately being undone by the same "superpower" of planning that he uses to achieve it. Mitch Gerads and Clayton Cowles take a lot of talking heads and flashes of visuals that are horrifying, particularly with the all-black panels.
The dilemma arises in the central conceit: if the Riddler fails to take control of his pathology and, well, his moniker-defining shtick, especially without Batman''s own force, Nygma becomes just a garden variety serial killer, like any of a number of talented, broken men who went into murder instead of therapy, a more charismatic and less physical Victor Zsasz or a less whimsical Joker. That''s not just interesting by a large margin. The
If you want to make this story out of continuity, use it as an Elseworlds, and consider it a parallel Earth where Batman and the Riddler decide not to be Batman and Riddler, go for it. At an eight-dollar cover price, that''s a long journey for a spiral of fanfiction fantasy and speculation that cannot reasonably work in a shared continuity.
The technique used in making this book is stunning. If it were categorized as an Elseworlds, or better yet, told with an analogies Watchmen style, this might be a bright star. It''s good, but clearly, a cute detour before we take back to the same circular road. RATING: HONORABLE MENTION.
The Riddler, Two-Face, the Penguin, Bane, Clayface, and Ra''s al Ghul Batman''s most famous villains are all given 64-page Prestige format specials that explain why they are the greatest villains in all of comics. In this epic psychological thriller, Tom King and Mitch Gerads are all reunited to discover why they are the most infamous villains in the universe. This is not to be missed!
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