Interlude
An Extract From Riddle Me This? The Autobiography Of Edward Nygma.
And so dear reader I embarked upon a life of crime. I was called a maniac, public enemy number one, and a costumed loon, amongst other things. Then one day, I knew I had made it! It was the first time I appeared in court, the media called me a Super Villain! A criminal genius! I was over the moon.
I was still smiling when they sent me to Arkham, and put me in the category A wing along with the likes of Two-Face, Joker, Poison Ivy, and all the rest of the gang. It was funny in many ways, when we were all doing our thing at large in the city; we were mad, bad, and dangerous to know. But In Arkham, it was like we were Actors off stage resting in the green room waiting for our next scene.
This might seem a strange thing to say, but it's true. Harvey Dent AKA Two- Face is a really sweet guy when you get to know him, the same can be said for my good friend Professor Jonathan Crane AKA The Scarecrow. And many of the others, of whom I will speak of in further chapters. But if you meet them on the outside things are different, we all seek to be top dog.
For this reason I very rarely collaborated with other super-villains, but I once made the mistake of working with The Joker. This was way back before he muscled in on Rupert Thorne and took control of the mob. Back then he was the biggest, baddest, super villain of them all. A Complete psychotic Joker would kill just for the hell of it. Monetary gain came lower on the list of his priorities.
One thing I can honestly say, I have never been labelled as a killer. Frankly it's just not in my nature but what about the fancy cane with all the bullets? I hear you cry. Well that was just for show. You go into a bank and spray bullets at the ceiling with that thing believe me everyone's on the floor. Everyone cooperates! So for me killing was never really necessary.
Well at least not as far as civilians were concerned.
Vigilantes on the other hand I considered to be fair game, basically anyone crazy enough to put on a cape and tights and try and stop people like me, knew what they were getting into. And to be quite honest, I never managed to kill any of those either! As far as death-traps were concerned (and I devised a great many) I played it fair, if you could deduce the riddle then it would tell you how to escape.
And Batman and his cohorts always managed to escape, and I always knew they would! killing them wasn't the point, the best I could hope for was to delay them long enough to make my get away. So I never stuck around once I sprung one of those traps, I just got the hell out!
This is where The Joker and I differed in our outlook on crime; In Arkham Joker was the only one you could never be sure of. When he was allowed to mix with the rest of us you were always on your guard. He was always making trouble, although sometimes he could be terribly funny.
One thing we did have in common was that we both had a lot of trouble recruiting henchmen, speaking for myself, not many people wanted to work for a super villain whose stock in trade was to send clues to the cops! And as for The Joker most of his henchmen ended up dead, and so to cut a long story short we broke out of Arkham and teamed up.
It was a diamond heist as I recall, we hit the place at midnight, Joker massacred the security guards thought it was a real hoot, then of course Batman and half of The Gotham PD turned up and surrounded the place, on account of the fact that they had managed to solve the riddle I sent them.
Joker was not best pleased to learn that I had "tipped off the cops," as he put it.
But hey I'm The Riddler this is what I do! I set puzzles, you guess the clues then you guess where I'm going to strike. The Joker didn't quite see it that way and tried to kill me, and nearly succeeded too it was the first and only time I was ever really glad to see The Batman show up when he did.
Needless to say Joker and I never really saw eye to eye since.
But the best collaboration I ever had with a super villain was with Catwoman! throughout the years she was a very dear and sweet friend. And as her real identity is not a matter of public record, it is out of respect for her and her family that her confidentiality will be respected.
You know who you are, and if you ever read these pages just think of shark infested custard and smile!
Once Joker got his hands on Thorne's empire things in New-Gotham just got done his way. You couldn't operate there without giving him a share of your loot; it was one of the reasons I quit. Since that time I feel villains in New-Gotham have become more brutal. Unprofessional, and definitely not as stylish as yours truly, they seem to play by a set of rules that is completely alien to me. Of course Joker's empire is gone now, and he's been shipped upstate, but nevertheless his brutality has cast a long shadow over the city, and I think we're still in its shade.
*****
An Extract From Riddle Me This? The Autobiography Of Edward Nygma.
And so dear reader I embarked upon a life of crime. I was called a maniac, public enemy number one, and a costumed loon, amongst other things. Then one day, I knew I had made it! It was the first time I appeared in court, the media called me a Super Villain! A criminal genius! I was over the moon.
I was still smiling when they sent me to Arkham, and put me in the category A wing along with the likes of Two-Face, Joker, Poison Ivy, and all the rest of the gang. It was funny in many ways, when we were all doing our thing at large in the city; we were mad, bad, and dangerous to know. But In Arkham, it was like we were Actors off stage resting in the green room waiting for our next scene.
This might seem a strange thing to say, but it's true. Harvey Dent AKA Two- Face is a really sweet guy when you get to know him, the same can be said for my good friend Professor Jonathan Crane AKA The Scarecrow. And many of the others, of whom I will speak of in further chapters. But if you meet them on the outside things are different, we all seek to be top dog.
For this reason I very rarely collaborated with other super-villains, but I once made the mistake of working with The Joker. This was way back before he muscled in on Rupert Thorne and took control of the mob. Back then he was the biggest, baddest, super villain of them all. A Complete psychotic Joker would kill just for the hell of it. Monetary gain came lower on the list of his priorities.
One thing I can honestly say, I have never been labelled as a killer. Frankly it's just not in my nature but what about the fancy cane with all the bullets? I hear you cry. Well that was just for show. You go into a bank and spray bullets at the ceiling with that thing believe me everyone's on the floor. Everyone cooperates! So for me killing was never really necessary.
Well at least not as far as civilians were concerned.
Vigilantes on the other hand I considered to be fair game, basically anyone crazy enough to put on a cape and tights and try and stop people like me, knew what they were getting into. And to be quite honest, I never managed to kill any of those either! As far as death-traps were concerned (and I devised a great many) I played it fair, if you could deduce the riddle then it would tell you how to escape.
And Batman and his cohorts always managed to escape, and I always knew they would! killing them wasn't the point, the best I could hope for was to delay them long enough to make my get away. So I never stuck around once I sprung one of those traps, I just got the hell out!
This is where The Joker and I differed in our outlook on crime; In Arkham Joker was the only one you could never be sure of. When he was allowed to mix with the rest of us you were always on your guard. He was always making trouble, although sometimes he could be terribly funny.
One thing we did have in common was that we both had a lot of trouble recruiting henchmen, speaking for myself, not many people wanted to work for a super villain whose stock in trade was to send clues to the cops! And as for The Joker most of his henchmen ended up dead, and so to cut a long story short we broke out of Arkham and teamed up.
It was a diamond heist as I recall, we hit the place at midnight, Joker massacred the security guards thought it was a real hoot, then of course Batman and half of The Gotham PD turned up and surrounded the place, on account of the fact that they had managed to solve the riddle I sent them.
Joker was not best pleased to learn that I had "tipped off the cops," as he put it.
But hey I'm The Riddler this is what I do! I set puzzles, you guess the clues then you guess where I'm going to strike. The Joker didn't quite see it that way and tried to kill me, and nearly succeeded too it was the first and only time I was ever really glad to see The Batman show up when he did.
Needless to say Joker and I never really saw eye to eye since.
But the best collaboration I ever had with a super villain was with Catwoman! throughout the years she was a very dear and sweet friend. And as her real identity is not a matter of public record, it is out of respect for her and her family that her confidentiality will be respected.
You know who you are, and if you ever read these pages just think of shark infested custard and smile!
Once Joker got his hands on Thorne's empire things in New-Gotham just got done his way. You couldn't operate there without giving him a share of your loot; it was one of the reasons I quit. Since that time I feel villains in New-Gotham have become more brutal. Unprofessional, and definitely not as stylish as yours truly, they seem to play by a set of rules that is completely alien to me. Of course Joker's empire is gone now, and he's been shipped upstate, but nevertheless his brutality has cast a long shadow over the city, and I think we're still in its shade.
*****
