SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Tom King and Mikel Janin's Batman #31, in stores now.


As “The War of Jokes and Riddles” heads towards its massive climax, The Riddler seems to hold all the cards, while The Joker is left with no-one on his side and a desperate plan to still come out the victor. Batman’s plan to end the war between his two most deadly rivals revolves entirely around the lovable loser known as Kite Man.

RELATED: Batman: Tom King Explains the Strange Importance of Kite Man

In this week’s issue (by Tom King, Mikel Janin, June Chung and Clayton Cowles) we learn that The Dark Knight was one step ahead of his enemies the entire time as he prepares to bring The War of Jokes and Riddles to a permanent end -- but he couldn't have done it without the kite-themed supervillain that everyone's talking about.

Riddle Me This...

The last issue of Batman revealed that while it seemed like Kite Man was the last man standing on Team Joker, he’d actually been working as a spy for The Riddler the whole time. In a heartbreaking issue, we learned that even though The Riddler was responsible for the death of Kite Man’s son, he’s too much of a loser to say no to the man he should hate the most in the world and instead is working with The Riddler and Batman to bring down The Joker for good.

This week’s issue of Batman finds The Joker locked in his penthouse without any henchmen or supervillain back-up, and an army of supervillains led by Batman and The Riddler ready to break in and bring him down. The only problem is The Joker has riddled (no pun intended) the building with traps, bombs and explosives which will stop any attempt to get in from either the ground or the roof. However, thanks to the daring wall-crawling exploits of Catwoman, Batman is able to ascertain that The Joker doesn’t have booby traps on the windows, which means they can get to The Joker if only they can think of a way to get to the seventy-third floor.

Kite-Man-Batman

This is where Kite Man comes in.

The great thing about superhero comics is that when someone is good at something, it usually means they’re the best in the world at it, and good ol’ Charlie Brown (yes, that is Kite Man’s real name) is the best in the world when it comes to kites. Thanks to his genius kite-based know-how, Kite Man is able to rig up special kites for Batman, The Riddler, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, The Scarecrow, Clayface, Mr. Zsasz and even Killer Croc, allowing the supervillain army to crash the building and ruin The Joker’s plans.

But that's just the tip of the story's iceberg.

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Riddle Me That

While The Riddler might gloat that The Joker always comes in second place to his genius, he’d again failed to account for Batman’s plans within plans; in particular, the possibility that The Caped Crusader has his own man on the inside of The Riddler’s operation. With the push of a button, the kites that brought Team Riddler into the building deploy as jet-propelled inverse parachutes, effectively sucking the villains right out of the building they just came in through. With his numbers advantage thoroughly neutralised, The Riddler realised that he’s at as much of a chance of losing the war as The Joker is, all thanks to — of all people — Kite Man.

Kite-Man-Riddler

It’s surprising to think that of all things, the cornerstone of the legacy of Tom King’s run on Batman might be the rehabilitation of Kite Man, but it’s definitely going to be up there as one of the most memorable throughlines of his run. The character, introduced by Batman co-creator Bill Finger along with legendary artist Dick Sprang, has been a punchline for nearly sixty years, but Tom King and his collaborators on this volume of Batman have done an outstanding job of injecting pathos into the silliest of characters. It shouldn’t be surprising, considering the work King has done on titles like The Vision and Omega Men, but it firmly proves that there is no such thing as a bad character, just a character that hasn’t found their niche yet.

Who’s Afraid of the Big Black Bat?

With the playing field narrowed down to just The Joker and The Riddler, Batman isn’t out of the woods yet. The two villains have proved themselves time and time again to be the most resourceful and deadly out of all of Batman’s foes, and don’t forget that this whole war started over who has the right to be the one to kill Batman. Now, faced with the chance at their greatest enemy with only each other standing in the way, The Joker and The Riddler are going to do everything they can to be the one who gets to kill Batman, regardless of who gets in the way.

Batman-Catwoman

However, we know that Batman’s going to be okay because the entire "War of Jokes and Riddles" has been a flashback story told by Bruce Wayne to Selina Kyle following his rooftop proposal. Bruce has insisted that Selina hear this story before she answer yes or no, because it supposedly ends with a decision or an act committed by Batman that no one else knows; something Batman is ashamed of, that he says truly defines who he is and will decide whether he is worthy of Catwoman’s love, if she is able to forgive him for what he did.

RELATED: Artist Clay Mann Talks Batman, Kite Man & Easter Eggs

There’s been no indication as to what that might be, but it’s likely to be a huge bombshell when it drops in the final issue of “The War of Jokes and Riddles.” It could be something as simple as Batman had the chance to let Joker and Riddler kill each other, thus saving countless lives in the intervening years between then and now, but knowing Batman and knowing Tom King, there’s likely something more shocking and surprising at the heart of this story. In that room alone with just The Joker and The Riddler, Batman did something that haunts him right up until this very day. Whatever it is, it's going to shape the future of the Batman books for years to come.