Reflections - Detective #140

Now most know that Batman showed up first in Detective Comics and he's been there ever since (save the last few months, thank you Batwoman) and that series is a great place to find a lot of hidden treasures or references to future events and the like. #140 is important to Batfans because it's the first appearance of one of Batman's biggest foes, the Riddler.


Batman villains are notorious for having hazy origins. The Joker gets a new origin or new version of a previous one every few years. Catwoman's is even less specific and the Penguin turned to a life of crime after being born ugly. The Riddler's is pretty straightforward actually. He's in school and the teacher offers extra credit on putting a puzzle together. I don't know what kind of school offers that, but he cheats and does it. He eventually makes a living at cheating with puzzles (who knew there was cash to be made in seperating twisted nails?) and then makes the logical jump to a life of crime.

First he makes a crossword puzzle on an advertising sign which is impressive since that technology isn't even seen in Las Vegas in the present day. Ignoring that, the clues lead to crimes and there's always a twist so he gets away with it, eventually escaping the Dynamic Duo in a glass maze. In fact, the one thing the Riddler doesn't do is offer riddles. In fairness, he does ask one question, but even that was rhetorical and didn't lead to any further crimes. He's actually pretty lucky he wasn't named the CONundrum or the Puzzler or something equally revolting.

The highlight for me is seeing the Riddler actually threaten someone's life. He'd typically put across as much more of a word and puzzle man, rather than a homicidal maniac, but he didn't start that way, as you can see here.Read it again. Aside from the crazy setup (this was decades before the TV show), this man's very life is being threatened by the gag. I don't know if the Riddler is using old Wal-Mart bags to make sure the hostage doesn't talk or maybe that poor man has an awful cold and is actually going to die at the hands of his own nose. Maybe I'm just growing up in a jaded time, but I think anything would have made this situation more dire than just a gag.

So it's not a bad story, but far from great. I actually understand now why people credit Frank Gorshin with popularizing the Riddler. The character made TWO more appearances until finally making it big on TV. I'm amazed anyone saw potential in this throwaway character and even more amazed at how well he actually worked. So while the comics were the basis for the show, Batman readers owe a lot more to the idiot box than most realize, as we'll see later on...