WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Batman #92 by James Tynion IV, Guillem March, Tomeu Morey and Clayton Cowles, available now from DC.
The mysterious Designer has come to Gotham City, and he has a precise plan to take out Batman and get his revenge on Catwoman, Joker and the Penguin -- villains who all betrayed him when he first came to town years ago. In Batman #91, the Designer revealed that he had an ace in the hole: Edward Nygma, aka the Riddler, who like Selina Kyle was part of the group of villains that were first approached by the Designer. But things are different with the Riddler, as he's chosen to side with the Designer, who has now allowed him to unleash his craziest plan yet on Gotham City.
This time, Nygma is determined to prove his superior intellect, and he's of course chosen Batman as his opponent. But while the Riddler has planned yet another game for the Dark Knight, this one is different because the board is Gotham City itself.
The Riddler's new attack on Gotham is easily his most ambitious yet -- and it likely would never have come to fruition without the Designer's help. Green energy fields appear all over the city, as entire blocks are separated to form a giant grid. The people are trapped in their respective zones, and they will only able to leave if and when Batman wins the game.
As for the game itself, it's relatively simple: it's a crossword puzzle, and the city itself is the grid. The Riddler has thirty questions across, and thirty questions down. And if Batman offers a wrong answer, there are no do-overs: bombs will start exploding in the city. The Riddler explains the game should prove especially challenging for Batman, because he doesn't exactly have a cheat sheet. If his answers are correct, he has to remember what it was, and where it's located in the city if he has any hopes of using certain letters to solver other subsequent puzzles -- just like with a real crossword.
For Nygma, this is easily one of the biggest schemes he has unleashed on Gotham. Sure, in "Zero Year," the question-obsessed villain plunged the entire city into darkness for an extended period of time, but this was a time when his plan only affected the city on a large scale. Now, Gotham itself is the Riddler's game board, and that makes his crossword puzzle scheme his most formidable plot yet. Not to mention that the game itself remains extremely on-brand for the villain.
However, while this plan is massive and inspired -- even for Nygma -- it turns out it's not all that difficult for Batman to solve. Whatever question the Riddler throws the Dark Knight's way, he finds the answer. Plus, not only is he solving these questions one by one, using his superior intellect to complete the puzzle, he also fights his way through Gotham to locate the Riddler before the end of the game.
As Batman #92 comes to a close, the Riddler is defeated and his grand plan is but a latest foiled scheme. Sure, it might have been his most ambitious one yet, but this is one that he should have worked on maybe just a little bit more.