amaotonovel Chapter 2512: Battle for the Cloak (68)
Chapter 2512: Battle for the Cloak (68)
Chapter 2512: Battle for the Cloak (Sixty-Eight)
Some people may ask, why must the riddle be drawn? Can't we use other ways that will not damage the city appearance to inform Superman? For example, send a letter or something.
In the original comics, the Riddler has many ways of sending riddles to Batman, but the premise is that it is Batman.
First of all, they have a fixed address, or at least a fixed patrol route, and proper contact information, so whether the Riddler is delivering letters, emails, or setting off fireworks, he can at least find a fixed location.
However, due to his weak body, Superman could not find a proper job and had been wandering in the dream world. In the early days, he could still go to the shelter, but later, because all the people in the shelter kept harassing him because of his appearance, he simply stopped going to the shelter.
The Riddler has no way to send a letter to a homeless man using normal means, so he can only ask someone to run errands for him, which is too troublesome. It is possible that the errand runner will arrive and Superman will be nowhere to be found. It is also possible that Superman is there, but the errand runner will take the money and not do the job.
Speaking of getting money, the Riddler wants to cry even more. He is neither a lawyer with a brilliant career resume like Harvey, nor a successful businessman like the Penguin who can get along well anywhere. He is not even as flexible in thinking as Harley Quinn. But they also need to eat in the dream world.
The Riddler's source of income in the real world is rather unclear. The comics rarely describe his personal career experience. At most, it is said that he has worked as a courier and a consultant. In the TV series, he has a stable job in the Gotham Police Department, but it doesn't seem like it can support him to commit various crimes.
In the dream world, the Riddler earns his income mainly by contributing articles to major newspapers. Superman becomes a street urchin, and the Riddler becomes a reporter, which can be said to be the opposite of Tiangang.
However, due to his mental problems, he was unable to pass any formal job interviews. Very few people asked him to write for them, and his income was very meager, barely enough for him to eat.
Therefore, he couldn't spare any extra money to do any riddles other than street graffiti, and sometimes his life was as difficult as that of Superman wandering the streets.
The situation got even worse after that because time jumped 20 years. Although Superman became very weak, he at least did not age. But the Riddler was different. He directly turned into an old man in the dream world. Due to long-term dealings with spray paint, his lung function had serious problems.
Now he has no ability to make money and can only live on the streets like Superman. Until one day, when he was dragging his weak, tired and terminally ill body to draw his riddles on the street again, Superman caught him who had fainted and sent him to the hospital.
Superman has been taking care of him.
The Riddler was actually also very confused. Even if the time that was skipped in the middle was not what they actually experienced, he had caused a lot of trouble for Superman even before this jump. Why would Superman save him?
As a result, Superman said to him, many people do not understand that society's view of people will also shape them. If people only say that you are committing a crime, you will become a criminal. But if I regard you as an artist, there will be one more artist in the world. Graffiti is your hobby that you have persisted in for decades. Your persistence itself is part of artistic creation and has aesthetic value in the sociological sense. I think an artist should be given enough respect.
The Riddler was really touched.
Although he knew it was not the time for him to be moved, come on, Batman and everyone else thought he was just a psychopath, they never praised him as an artist.
The Riddler's nose was broken by this straight ball, so for most of the rest of the time, he would pull Superman to the hospital bed and explain to him his ideas for designing riddles, and he could talk for two hours without stopping.
Finally, the Joker carried out a terrorist attack and Superman planned to make a last stand, but he understood that the bomb planted by the Joker was more important than the Joker, and only by defusing the bomb could so many lives be saved.
At that time, Superman already had a premonition that he could break through the limitations of Kryptonite, but he knew that this madman was not so easy to deal with. Even if he could fly into the sky and destroy the bomb with a laser, he must first determine the location of the bomb. Otherwise, the few seconds of delay in finding the bomb would be enough for the madman to detonate all the bombs.
At this time, the Riddler, who was so weak that he had to rely on a ventilator to breathe, still took out a piece of paper and a pen. On the map of the city, he used the locations of the TV and radio stations where the Joker appeared to guess the locations of the remaining five bombs.
"Now, who is the real master of riddles?"
The movie ends after this sentence. Although the expression on the Riddler's face is sad, angry and tired, there is also some thoughtfulness. He seems to have found a new way to prove his genius wisdom.
Everyone applauded. The Riddler stood up, took off his hat, put it on his chest, and bowed to everyone, like a big star. The atmosphere in the room became happy again.
Schiller cleared his throat and the room became quiet again. It was obviously time for the last character to appear.
"Are you the Claw Killer?" asked the Laughing Bat.
Schiller shook his head, took out the last film, and put it into the projector. All that appeared at the beginning of the film was a vast fog.
Freddy walked out of the thick fog, and as he sneaked into a house, some scenes began to flash back, but this was not a special editing technique of this film, but an illusion that really existed in the thick fog at that time.
The hallucination introduces Freddy's background story, but anyone can see that this is not the point. The point is the abilities that Freddy possesses after his resurrection, namely the claws covered with daggers and the ability to teleport to appear and disappear at will.
Freddy appeared in a bathroom.
He slowly floated up from the water and comfortably placed his arms on both sides of the bathtub, but soon, a noise was heard outside the bathtub.
"Okay, Auntie, I'll be quick. It won't take too long and won't delay dinner. Don't worry!"
Spider-Man walked in wrapped in a towel.
By this time Freddy had long disappeared, and Spider-Man didn't notice that the duck floating in the bathtub had a red light flashing from its body.
boom!
The bathtub duck exploded.
To be honest, this opening is a bit too stream-of-consciousness. The previous films showed the protagonist's life status right at the beginning. He was either studying hard, studying hard, or still studying hard.
Why does this movie start with a scene where a guy goes into someone's bathtub and blows up their bathtub toys?
Soon, Freddy commits a murder, but the victim is not a real person, but a doll.
The puppeteer appears in this story, and the first victim, a little girl, is actually played by a puppet controlled by him. After all, it is a puppet and he can make it look anything he wants. Therefore, the crime scene looks particularly tragic and naturally attracted attention from many parties.
These cases instantly made the front pages of many newspapers, and of course one newspaper also came into Bruce's hands.
But people still didn't understand what was going on. The stories of Two-Face, Harley Quinn and Penguin basically revolved around Bruce. The stories of Scarecrow and other academic experts revolved around Batman Arkham and Jason Arkham Knight. The story of the Riddler revolved around Superman.
But Schiller, or the Claw Killer he controls, doesn't seem to intend to revolve his activities around any of the main characters in the play, so what is his mission?
Everyone had no choice but to continue reading.
The Claw Killer continued to commit crimes, and more and more reports about him appeared, from newspapers to radio stations, and finally to television stations, and then to emergency headlines.
Most of the victims were children, so there was a lot of public attention and widespread discussion among the public. Everyone was cursing this pervert who killed children.
Except Bruce.
The Claw Killer was the only character Bruce could sense was not on his script at this moment.
Judging from the timeline, the first Two-Face to enter now has a hold on the American legal system. He is a big shot who is too far away from the life of the lower class in the city, and Bruce can't feel him at all.
The female police officer Ge Yin was not far away, but she was a psychology major and disguised herself very well, making Bruce think that she was a character in the dream world and he had no curiosity about her past.
The Penguin is the mastermind behind the scenes. Bruce knows that there is a very powerful gangster boss, but he doesn't know that this person is the Penguin, and he thinks that he is just a plot character.
But the Claw Killer is different. This guy uses a shell that is completely different from all the characters in the dream world. He uses his elusive teleportation ability to write the words "I'm not simple" on his face. He commits crimes crazily and is so high-profile. How could Bruce not see that he is here to mess things up?
This was certainly within the expectations of the Laughing Bat.
No normal person would think that he or she would run such a big business without encountering any resistance. Only if everything goes smoothly from beginning to end would one wonder if there is something fishy going on.
It can be said that the Claw Killer's behavior made Bruce feel relieved. The resistance that interfered with him finally came, but unfortunately, it was in such a straightforward and low-level way. He had hoped that the other party could come up with some different means.
This is what Bruce thought at the time. He felt that the Claw Killer was causing chaos in the city just to prevent his play from being completed. This logic made sense.
But Bruce didn't think that this perverted murderer could cause much trouble, nor did he think that he could force himself to act out.
At this time, Bruce was proud of his idea of designing his own identity, because he was now a pauper with a paralyzed bedridden burden. Let alone one murderer, even if there were hundreds of murderers running around the city, he couldn't do anything about it because he didn't have the ability.
So he could just let this murderer continue to commit crimes and remain completely indifferent, because that was his personality. If he really set himself up as a superhero, he would really fall into the other party's trap.
That's why he could say with a straight face "I have no ability, so no responsibility" after meeting Jason and the others. He had to show off this. If it weren't for his good character design, he would probably be busy chasing the troublemaker now, ruining the original script and unable to control the overall situation, right?
(End of this chapter)