Warning: contains major spoilers for The Joker Presents: A Puzzlebox #1!
The Riddler has been revealed as the latest person murdered in Gotham. The Joker Presents: A Puzzlebox #1 is the first issue of a new comic from DC that throws the focus onto Gotham's villainous inhabitants in a strange mystery. DC promised "a mysterious corpse" and they've delivered - Riddler can't even die without leaving behind a puzzle that requires solving.
The Joker is a familiar face to all DC fans thanks to his prominence in Gotham as one of the city's leading criminals and position as Batman's arch-nemesis. This time he is at the heart of the story surrounding Riddler's potential death. Each issue in this series features the Joker telling stories about his fellow villains, dropping clues and puzzle piece to solve the myriad of questions that pop up in the series. In this introductory issue, Joker tells a story about a party he was supposedly thrown by Gotham's large group of evildoers.
Created by Matthew Rosenberg, Jesús Merino, Ulises Arreola, and Ferran Delgado, The Joker Presents: A Puzzlebox #1 begins with Joker in an interrogation room at the Gotham City Police Department. By the end of the issue, the grand reveal of who died is shown to be Edward Nygma - the Riddler. This villain is known for his puzzles, tricks, and riddles, which mostly are designed to trap and trick Batman. This time, the Riddler could be playing a much bigger game considering how much has yet to be revealed about this murder.
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The story that Joker tells is suspicious and untrustworthy - as would be expected, but one of the most interesting things he says is that the Riddler isn't dead. If this is actually true and the body is a fake, then where IS the Riddler? Considering the villain's modus operandi, it wouldn't be farfetched for him to fake his own death in order to have a bit of fun. Putting not just Batman, but also most of Gotham's top criminals, through peculiar circumstances seems exactly like the kind of thing he would enjoy being the mastermind of. Some of the biggest names in crime are locked up at GCPD as suspects for his murder, while he could sit back and watch what happens.
Should the Riddler be behind this mystery, it would only be natural for there to be lots of clues and confusing twists. What good is a riddle if it is easy to solve? Not only are all the villains in the middle of a conundrum, but Commissioner Gordon and Detective Bullock are forced to sit through a nonsensical story from the Joker that initially doesn't seem to help them at all. If he is actually dead, there is still the question of who killed him - because even just being murdered can't be a straightforward activity for the Riddler. At this point there doesn't seem to be enough to charge anyone with this particular crime and figuring it out is challenging initself. In some ways, it doesn't matter if the Riddler has actually died or not - whether he has or hasn't, he has caused Gotham to be in a swirl of confusion trying to piece the mystery together - and that's a definite win for the supervillain.