The Riddler Trivia
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50 free The Riddler trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Riddler has been tormenting Batman since Detective Comics #140 in October 1948, when Bill Finger and Dick Sprang introduced Edward Nigma, a carnival cheat whose surname is a pun on enigma. He is the rare villain whose gimmick is a compulsion: he cannot commit a crime without leaving a clue, which makes him both Batman's most intellectual adversary and, in some eras, his most ridiculed. This quiz runs through every major version. The comics side covers his Golden Age origin, The Long Halloween, Hush, his reformed private-detective years, the New 52's Zero Year takeover of Gotham and The War of Jokes and Riddles. The screen side covers Frank Gorshin's Emmy-nominated cackle in 1966, Jim Carrey's Box-building Nygma in Batman Forever, Cory Michael Smith's slow-burn Edward on Gotham, Paul Dano's Zodiac-inspired killer in The Batman, plus the animated series, the Arkham games, Lego, Harley Quinn and even a Nightwish song. Fifty questions, four options each, with a short explanation after every answer. Play in sets of ten or print the lot for a DC trivia night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which writer scripted the Riddler's 1948 debut, drawn by Dick Sprang?
Bill Finger
Bill Finger co-created Batman and wrote his early adventures without a byline. Only in 2015, four decades after his death, did DC agree to credit him alongside Bob Kane.
Q 02In which comic book series did the Riddler make his debut in 1948?
Detective Comics
Detective Comics, where Batman first appeared in issue 27, introduced the Riddler in issue 140 as a minor foe. It took the 1960s TV series to turn him into a star villain.
Q 03In his 1948 debut, the Riddler posted his first clue as which kind of puzzle on a giant sign?
A crossword
A crossword on a giant electric sign spelled out 'banquet', sending Batman to a charity dinner while the Riddler flooded a nearby bank. Said aloud, the clue was 'bank wet'.
Q 04In Batman Forever, the Riddler teams up with which other Gotham villain?
Two-Face
Two-Face is already terrorising Gotham when Nygma walks into his lair with a brain-draining gadget and an offer: fund it with a crime spree, and they can both get what they want.
Q 05What headwear does the Riddler commonly pair with his green suit?
bowler hat
A bowler hat and question-marked suit were created for the 1960s TV series, not the comics, which only later borrowed the look back from the screen.
Q 06Which three-word line does the Riddler commonly say before posing a puzzle?
Riddle me this
Riddle me this is far older than the villain: 'riddle' was once a verb meaning 'solve', and the phrase was in print as a plain request for an answer centuries before Batman.
Q 07In the 1978 cartoon Challenge of the Superfriends, the Riddler belongs to which team of villains?
The Legion of Doom
The Legion of Doom could not use Batman's best-known foes, which a rival studio's Batman cartoon had claimed, so the Riddler and the Scarecrow took Gotham's seats, and the rival show went without them.
Q 08In the Riddler's origin story, what prize did he win as a boy for solving a school puzzle fastest?
a book of riddles
A book of riddles was his reward for cheating: he had broken into the school at night to practise the puzzle, and the prize set him on a lifetime of rigged games.
Q 09Before turning to crime, where did the Riddler work, cheating customers with rigged puzzles?
a carnival
A carnival booth was his first racket: customers paid to try a puzzle he had fixed so that nobody could win, until the small takings bored him and he went looking for Batman.
Q 10In The Long Halloween, the Riddler works as an informant for which crime boss?
Carmine Falcone
Carmine Falcone loses patience and has him thrown out on April 1. The Holiday killer, waiting outside, fires a string of shots that leave him deliberately unharmed: an April Fool's joke.
Q 11In Batman: Hush, the Riddler used a Lazarus Pit to cure himself of what?
a brain tumor
A brain tumor, and the cure was for sale: he offered the same treatment to Thomas Elliot, whose mother had cancer too, which is how the two villains' schemes became entangled.
Q 12In Hush, the Riddler had Clayface impersonate which former Robin?
Jason Todd
Jason Todd's return from the grave was Clayface in disguise, or so readers were told. A later story, Under the Hood, revealed the real Todd was alive and had been in the fight himself.
Q 13In the Hush storyline, what does the Riddler work out during his spell in a Lazarus Pit?
Batman's secret identity
Q 21Who plays the Riddler as a masked serial killer in The Batman (2022)?
Paul Dano
Paul Dano stayed with the part after filming: he wrote a six-issue prequel comic, The Riddler: Year One, telling how his character became a killer.
Q 22Who originated the live-action Riddler on TV in 1966 and earned an Emmy nomination?
Frank Gorshin
Frank Gorshin, a nightclub impressionist, made the part such a hit that a minor comic-book villain became one of Batman's permanent enemies.
Q 23Who played the Riddler during the 1966 series' second season?
John Astin
John Astin, TV's Gomez Addams, stepped in for a single two-part story when the usual actor's agents demanded more money. The original Riddler was furious but returned for season three.
Batman's secret identity came to him in the madness that follows the Pit, yet the knowledge was useless: Batman pointed out that a riddle everyone can answer is worthless, so he would never tell.
Q 14Which villain did the Riddler at first resent as a copycat of his own criminal gimmick?
Cluemaster
Cluemaster, a failed game show host, so annoyed him that at their first meeting the Riddler rigged his rival with a bomb and sent Batman chasing riddles to defuse it, as cover for a heist. They later became partners.
Q 15After waking from his coma, the reformed Riddler took up which profession?
private detective
A private detective with a taste for publicity: his first case proved that a photo tying Bruce Wayne to a murder showed an impostor, and for a while he worked alongside Batman.
Q 16The Riddler's henchwoman Query works alongside a partner named what?
Echo
Echo and Query are the Riddler's enforcers, whom he says he recruited from an underground club called Pandora's Box. One tie-in comic renamed the pair Quiz and Query.
Q 17In DC's 2011 New 52 relaunch, the redesigned Riddler first wore his question mark as what?
A green mohawk
A green mohawk, shaved into the shape of his symbol, when he turned up as an Arkham inmate in Batman #1. The look did not last: later stories returned him to a more traditional style.
Q 18In the Batman: Arkham games, what does the Riddler scatter across each map for Batman to collect?
Trophies
Trophies, tucked into hard-to-reach corners as proof of his genius. Finish every challenge in the first game and Batman can trace the Riddler's signal and send the police to arrest him.
Q 19In a 2017 comic, which villain answers the Riddler's offer of partnership by shooting him in the stomach?
the Joker
The Joker's bullet started the War of Jokes and Riddles: the Riddler limped away, carved a question mark around the wound, and the two raised rival armies of villains to fight over Gotham.
Q 20Which joke villain is born when the Riddler poisons Charles Brown's young son in a 2017 Batman story?
Kite Man
Kite Man is what the grieving father becomes, and his civilian name is a wink at Charlie Brown, the Peanuts kid forever flying kites into trees.
Q 24In The Batman (2022), the Riddler's hatred of the Wayne family goes back to his childhood in what?
An orphanage
An orphanage founded with Wayne money left him cold and forgotten once corrupt officials siphoned off its funds, while the orphaned Bruce grew up rich across town.
Q 25In the 1966 Batman film, the Riddler and three fellow villains kidnap a world council by turning its members into what?
Dust
Dust, made with a kidnapped inventor's dehydrator. A sneeze later mixes the piles, so when Batman restores the delegates they come back speaking one another's languages.
Q 26On Fox's Gotham, Edward Nygma starts out in what job at the GCPD?
forensic scientist
A forensic scientist who cannot resist presenting his findings to the detectives as riddles, long before he turns to crime and takes the name.
Q 27Which actor played Edward Nygma on Gotham?
Cory Michael Smith
Cory Michael Smith played him for all five seasons, starting as an awkward, riddle-loving colleague with an unrequited crush. His Nygma kills more than once before he ever calls himself the Riddler.
Q 28On Gotham, Nygma has a complicated love-hate relationship with which fellow criminal?
Oswald Cobblepot
Oswald Cobblepot frees him to run his campaign for mayor, falls for him, and secretly has Nygma's girlfriend killed. Nygma shoots him at the docks; Oswald later has him frozen as a nightclub centrepiece.
Q 29Which Smallville actor voiced the Riddler in Batman: The Animated Series?
John Glover
John Glover's Riddler was written as a smooth intellectual, not a cackling trickster, so that he would not resemble the show's giggling clown.
Q 30In Batman: The Animated Series, what was Nygma's job before his boss Daniel Mockridge fired him?
video game developer
A video game developer who designed a hit for his boss's company and was sacked when he sued for royalties. Two years later he came back as the Riddler to take his revenge.