Riddles of Batman

By: Tre Brock (author, Zablocki Bros. LLC) on July 12th, 2013 01:17 PM.

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From Frank Gorshin to Arkham Asylum, The Riddler's puns have been a staple of the Batman enterprise since the original comics, offering a combination of sadistic destruction and childish humor. He has an obsession with riddles and word games, and he delights in telling Batman and the police of his misdeeds in the form of complex riddles.

In the Batman Forever movie, The Riddler (played by Jim Carrey) found the other Batman villains and essentially becomes the brains of the operation, but he complicates things when he starts to give Batman riddles to their plans. From this movie the following riddles are important to the movie and help Batman fight the villains of the movie (answers are at the bottom of the entry):

1. If you look at the numbers on my face, you won't find thirteen any place.
2. Tear one off and scratch my head; what was once red is black instead.
3. The eight of us go forth, not back, to protect our king from a foe's attack.
4. We're five little items of an everyday sort; you'll find us all in 'a tennis court'.

Another popular portrayal of The Riddler is in the 1960's television series Batman played by Frank Gorshin. In every episode he was featured in he supplied riddles to Batman that eventually led him to his own defeat. This behavior is somewhat annoying after a while but also understood because of his extremely excessive tendency to give the riddles putting him in a manic state. Some of the more popular riddles from the show are:

5. What people are always in a hurry?
6. Why is an orange like a bell?
7. When is the time of a clock like the whistle of a train?
8. How much dirt is in a hole 3 acres square and 200 feet deep?
9. What was Joan of Arc made of?

Finally, the most narcissistic of all of the portrayals of The Riddler is in the comics when he goes to the Arkham Asylum where he originally was to be treated for his insanity. The most shocking of all of The Riddler riddles is:

10. What is it that walks on four legs then two legs and finally three legs?

Answers:

1. A clock.
2. A match.
3. Chess pawns.
4. Vowels.
5. Russians.
6. You have to ring them both.
7. When it's two to two.
8. None, it's a hole.
9. She was maid of Orleans
10. The answer to all three is a baby. True, it crawls on all fours, but cut off its legs and it can only wiggle on two limbs. Give it a crutch, it can hobble around on three.