The Batman: Paul Dano's Riddler Won't be Edward Nygma

Word has just come out that Paul Dano will be playing the Riddler in Matt Reeves' The Batman, and a lot of people are already curious about how his character will be treated. Some are suspecting that Reeves is going to try and make a grounded version of the character, and he's revealed that this Riddler's name won't be Edward Nygma.

His tweet confirms that the alter ego of Dano's Riddler is actually Edward Nashton:

If you do some digging, you'll know that Edward Nashton was the original name of the Riddler before he changed it to "Nygma/Nigma" for the wordplay—you see E. Nygma is a homophone for "Enigma" which means mystery. It would awfully be coincidental for someone named "E. Nygma" to have an unhealthy penchant for riddles.

Interesting thing about homophones though, did you know that some consider the Coleman Reese character from The Dark Knight as a version of the Riddler? "Mr. Reese" is a homophone for "mysteries" which is a synonym for "enigma" i.e., E. Nymga.

If anything, Edward Nygma has become the common alter ego for the Riddler in most versions of the character, and I think it's cool that we're actually working with his "real" name. Though the Riddler is kind of a silly attention-seeking child in most iterations, I'm hoping Reeves' version of the character is something more terrifying. I mean, with the right treatment, Riddler is basically Jigsaw from SAW.

Catch Dano's Riddler in The Batman which is set to come out June 25, 2021.

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