Riddler's Revenge - Recap

The Riddler has captured a businessman, Chuck Gorman, and is holding him prisoner on his own freighter. The Riddler poses a Riddler to Gorman who can’t answer it, so the Riddler prepares to use the remote on his rod to activate the explosives and sink the freighter… and Gorman. Batman arrives on his own and fights the Riddler’s thugs, while Gorman manages to slip away. The Riddler starts to go after him but Batman intercepts him. The Riddler gets away, saying that he has a personal grudge with Gorman, and Gorman manages to escape with the villain’s rod.

Batman catches up to the Riddler and while they struggle, Gorman activates the explosives. As the freighter starts to sink in flames, Batman grabs the Riddler and gets both of them into a metal cargo crate, which is then blown overboard. The impact knocks out Batman, triggering his Batwave distress beacon. Dick Grayson is in cooking class and gets the signal, but can’t get away from the teacher. He finally eats some of his classmate Harris’ (bad) cooking to get ill enough to leave.

When Batman wakes up, a furious Riddler attacks him for interfering and Batman holds him off. The crate sinks to the bottom, and the Riddler rattles off a series of riddles. Finally he reveals that both Gorman and Batman were involved in his first crime. He tells of how he was a young boy, Edward, with an abusive father. Edward started with a small-time career in robbery but ended up going to the university and mastering brain-altering processes. He fell in love with his lab partner, Julie, and Chuck Gorman found out about their work and offered them a job. Edward wanted to develop his projects on his own and gave a demonstration of their brain enhancer to the University’s president. Gorman ended up as an investor and when the device was tested, it burned out the president’s mind. Edward was blamed and Julie left him, and he figured Gorman was responsible for the sabotage so he could steal Edward’s device.

While Robin pilots the Batboat trying to find his mentor, the Riddler reveals that he broke into Gorman’s house and tried to kill the man with a giant puzzle-maze. Batman heard of the situation and investigated, managing to save Gorman just in time. Batman managed to solve the riddle-puzzles and prevent a bomb from exploding, but Edward escaped. Devoting himself to a life of crime, Edward took on the identity of the Riddler, but let Gorman go on about his life and become richer so he’d have more to lose when Edward brought him down.

A crack forms in the side of the crate and Batman realizes wreckage from the freighter is pinning them down. The two have to work together to shift the crate from the inside and the Riddler reluctantly agrees. As they throw their weight back and forth, Batman notes that perhaps it wasn’t Gorman who sabotaged the brain enhancer and the Riddler realizes who was responsible. They get free and the crate floats to the surface… where the Riddler’s henchmen are waiting. They prepare to kill Batman but Robin arrives and helps take out the thugs, while the Riddler escape.

Julie is working in her laboratory when the Riddler arrives and forces her to admit she sabotaged the brain enhancer so she could take the work for herself. He prepares to kill her but Batman and Robin arrive. They save Julie and knock out the Riddler, and leave them both for the police.


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