New revelations regarding Riddler's The Batman origin story fuel theories that Paul Dano is actually playing a big screen version of Hush. Robert Pattinson's Bruce Wayne will face a curated selection of rogues in his movie debut, but despite the presence of veteran crooks Penguin and Carmine Falcone, Riddler is clearly filling the main antagonist position. Played by Paul Dano, Riddler (real name Edward Nashton) is on a crusade to bring down Gotham's corrupt elite, one high-profile corpse at a time. Riddler takes special interest in Bruce Wayne, leaving a series of cryptic messages that Gotham's billionaire vigilante will feverishly attempt to decode.
There's little doubt Paul Dano is playing Riddler in The Batman. His green outfit is adorned with question marks, he leaves puzzling clues at crime scenes, and Pattinson refers to Riddler by name in The Batman's trailer footage. Nevertheless, DC fans have pointed out several curious parallels to Hush - a villain created by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee in 2003. Nashton's face mask is essentially a green version of Hush's famous bandages, and Dano's character is notably more direct in his violence than typical depictions of the Emerald Enigma - an approach Hush would approve of.
Fresh details about Riddler's The Batman origin story might've just cemented the movie's Hush connection. Before The Batman is a prequel tie-in novel to Matt Reeves' DC movie, and reveals Edward Nashton knew Bruce Wayne during their high-school years. This element of Riddler's origin isn't guaranteed to carry over to live-action, but would certainly explain why Nashton knows so much about the Wayne family. Dano and Pattinson's characters being childhood friends also tosses another Hush-ism onto The Batman's pile, since Hush was eventually unmasked as Thomas Elliot - young Bruce's BFF - in the villain's original comic run. So, Dano's Riddler looks like Hush, he acts somewhat like Hush, and now he shares Hush's origin story. It doesn't take Bruce Wayne's detective skills to deduce The Batman's Riddler might just be a movie version of Hush.
Adding even more weight to the theory, Riddler and Hush's DC comic history is deeply interwoven. When Thomas Elliot began a campaign of terror against Batman, Riddler served as his partner in crime, forming a deadly duo that almost brought the Dark Knight down. Though Riddler never actually was Hush (in the comics, at least), his considerable intellect allowed Elliot to finally have revenge following a long-standing grudge against the Wayne family. Paul Dano clearly does play Riddler in The Batman, but Matt Reeves could be mashing up the classic green baddie with the more modern Hush, making "Edward Nashton" a hybrid where the best qualities of both villains are rolled into one, rather than Riddler and Hush forging a two-man alliance.
The Batman's villain being a combination of Riddler and Hush could answer key questions raised by the movie's trailers. Naturally, Bruce Wayne would've attended the best, most elite high school in Gotham City, and if Edward Nashton enrolled at the same establishment, he must hail from an equally wealthy background. Since Paul Dano's The Batman villain evidently has a problem with rich people, that fortune might've since been lost. That's an eerily similar background to Hush, who unsuccessfully tried murdering his own parents to inherit the Elliot family's riches. Hush blamed Thomas Wayne for that failure, and carried his resentment forward onto Bruce - which could be exactly what we're now seeing with Riddler's messages in The Batman. Sneaking Hush into a Batman movie under the cover of Riddler would represent a hugely ambitious hush-up for Matt Reeves, and a deception worthy of Nashton himself. The more we learn about Riddler's new origin, the more that connection begins to look legit.
