Loren
08-05-2006, 11:04 PM
Trust me on this, there's a good reason I'm posting this on the DC Animation Forum.
Minor spoilers follow.
As y'all may be aware, BTAS creator Paul Dini started his run on Detective Comics last month. He's telling single-issue stories, and the first one was excellent. The second one, #822, re-introduces the Riddler in a way that is of particular interest to BTAS fans.
Back during Infinite Crisis, the Riddler apparently got smacked in the face with a mace. One year later, we discover that he subsequently lapsed into a coma, and now that he's awoken, he's reformed. He got released from Arkham, and is working as a private investigator. He ends up working side-by-side with Batman in trying to solve a murder.
Now these plot developments might strike some of y'all as familiar, as Dini's treatment of the Riddler in this issue picks up on a loose thread left by Ty Templeton in the last Batman Adventures series.
As you may recall, in the last BA series, Ty made the move of having the Riddler go straight. I don't think he got to the point of setting up a private firm, but in more than one story, Batman used him as a hired private investigator. I think he appeared in 3 BA issues in all (#2, 11, and 12). Here (http://www.worldsfinestonline.com/WF/batman/tnba/guides/ba/12a.jpg) is an unused cover that shows how he dressed at the time.
And where did Ty leave Nigma at the end of #12? In a coma.
His plan (http://forums.toonzone.net/showpost.php?p=1238338&postcount=40) was to tell a story in the next arc where Eddie would wake up with amnesia, thus forcing him to ask the "ultimate riddle": Who am I? But the series got cancelled (in favor of "The Batman Strikes!"), and the story never got told.
So it seems that Dini decided to play out the Riddler's BTAS character arc in the mainstream DCU. And as someone who has long thought that Ty Templeton writes the definitive Riddler, I love it.
However, on an art note, I gotta say that I don't like the purple sunglasses Eddie got in 'Tec. I assume Don Kramer was trying to avoid putting Eddie in a domino mask, but he really just should have left his face exposed, as he did at the end, and as Eddie was drawn in BA (as in the cover linked above).
Anyhow, I thought this might be of interest to BTAS fans. If nothing else, it's certainly a novel way of getting around the Bat-embargo.
Loren
Minor spoilers follow.
As y'all may be aware, BTAS creator Paul Dini started his run on Detective Comics last month. He's telling single-issue stories, and the first one was excellent. The second one, #822, re-introduces the Riddler in a way that is of particular interest to BTAS fans.
Back during Infinite Crisis, the Riddler apparently got smacked in the face with a mace. One year later, we discover that he subsequently lapsed into a coma, and now that he's awoken, he's reformed. He got released from Arkham, and is working as a private investigator. He ends up working side-by-side with Batman in trying to solve a murder.
Now these plot developments might strike some of y'all as familiar, as Dini's treatment of the Riddler in this issue picks up on a loose thread left by Ty Templeton in the last Batman Adventures series.
As you may recall, in the last BA series, Ty made the move of having the Riddler go straight. I don't think he got to the point of setting up a private firm, but in more than one story, Batman used him as a hired private investigator. I think he appeared in 3 BA issues in all (#2, 11, and 12). Here (http://www.worldsfinestonline.com/WF/batman/tnba/guides/ba/12a.jpg) is an unused cover that shows how he dressed at the time.
And where did Ty leave Nigma at the end of #12? In a coma.
His plan (http://forums.toonzone.net/showpost.php?p=1238338&postcount=40) was to tell a story in the next arc where Eddie would wake up with amnesia, thus forcing him to ask the "ultimate riddle": Who am I? But the series got cancelled (in favor of "The Batman Strikes!"), and the story never got told.
So it seems that Dini decided to play out the Riddler's BTAS character arc in the mainstream DCU. And as someone who has long thought that Ty Templeton writes the definitive Riddler, I love it.
However, on an art note, I gotta say that I don't like the purple sunglasses Eddie got in 'Tec. I assume Don Kramer was trying to avoid putting Eddie in a domino mask, but he really just should have left his face exposed, as he did at the end, and as Eddie was drawn in BA (as in the cover linked above).
Anyhow, I thought this might be of interest to BTAS fans. If nothing else, it's certainly a novel way of getting around the Bat-embargo.
Loren