Those posers and puzzles too tough for even the World's Greatest Detective to handle.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00So, amongst the world of comic book heroes and villains, few people have as much intelligence
00:05and smarts as Batman. For as long as there's been a Batman, there's been the character's
00:10world's greatest detective nickname. Time and time again we've seen Batman break down a case
00:15or a crime scene in minute detail. In terms of mankind, there isn't a human being on the earth
00:20who can outsmart Bruce Wayne. Well, most of the time at least. You see, there are actually some
00:25mysteries that even bats couldn't solve, and that's what we're here to talk about today,
00:29as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 8 mysteries that even Batman couldn't solve.
00:34Number 8. The Unsolved Riddle. The Last Riddler Story. What's got wings that do not fly,
00:40arms that have no hands, and eyes that cannot see? That right there, that's the riddle that
00:45not even Batman could solve. Taking place in the Batman Adventures number 10's aptly titled
00:51The Last Riddler Story, here we find a Riddler who's questioning his life choices. When his
00:56goons come to break him out of prison, Nygma tells them that the game is up, the run is over,
01:01and that he's done with being the Riddler. After this mob pleads with their boss,
01:05Eddie relents and decides to take one last try at getting one over on the caped crusader. If he
01:10succeeds, he's back to a life of crime. If he fails, he's hanging up the bowler hat and came for good.
01:16Surprisingly, though, the Riddler manages to actually get the better of Batman here. Sure,
01:20the Dark Knight is a little preoccupied with debuting villains Mastermind, Mr. Nice, and the
01:25Professor, but the fact of the matter is that Batman was unable to solve Nygma's riddle in this
01:30tale. For those wondering, said riddle relates to a jeweled eagle that Riddler successfully steals.
01:35While Batman couldn't solve the mystery of this riddle, he did manage to give a swift beating to
01:40Riddler after being tipped off by the Professor. Still, being locked up didn't ruin the spirits of
01:45Enigma, for he was ecstatic at Batman admitting that Riddler had outsmarted him.
01:507. The Other Holiday Killer
01:52The Long Halloween
01:53Released throughout 1996 and into 1997, The Long Halloween is a landmark benchmark story that
02:00forces the world's greatest detective to live up to that particular moniker. The thing is,
02:05is that while Batman deduces that the mysterious holiday killer of the tale is actually two people,
02:09the caped crusader doesn't seem to realise that there was actually a third person behind the
02:14murders of this tale. In The Long Halloween, Holiday strikes on each public holiday,
02:19fatally shooting a new victim each and every month. While this very much features a who's
02:24who of Batman's rogues gallery, the story also plays out in the backdrop of a raging war between
02:29two crime families. As part of the same war, District Attorney Harvey Dent winds up with acid
02:34thrown into his face in a move that sees him become the nefarious Two-Face. And while Harvey is
02:39rightfully pinned as Holiday, it's similarly worked out by Batman that Alberto Falcone,
02:44the runt of the Falcone family, is also Holiday. But what's shown in the final panels of The Long
02:50Halloween though, is that Dent's wife Gilda was another who portrayed Holiday, with her responsible
02:55for the initial few murders as part of her plan to ease the pressures on her husband so that they
03:00could start a family. Where Gilda is concerned, Batman never picked up on her being the third wheel
03:05of the Holiday Puzzle.
03:076. The Hangman – Dark Victory
03:10Following on from the events of the excellent Long Halloween, Jeff Loeb and Tim Sale returned
03:15three years later with the similarly great Dark Victory. Continuing on in the aftermath of the
03:20Holiday Killer, this time the mystery at play revolved around a cop-killing criminal known as
03:25The Hangman. It would eventually be revealed that The Hangman was actually Sofia Gigante,
03:29but Batman himself wasn't able to figure that out. Instead, it was Catwoman who did all of the
03:35heavy lifting on that front. Digging deep into the mystery of The Hangman and the Falcone family,
03:39Selina Carl discovered that Sofia was the mysterious killer. Rather than having been
03:44left paraplegic after the events of the Long Halloween, Sofia instead pretended to be
03:48wheelchair-bound throughout Dark Victory as a way of making her the last suspect for the murders
03:53seen throughout this tale. For the Caped Crusader and Jim Gordon, they were unable to solve this
03:58riddle, and the puzzle of The Hangman was only solved by Selina. Well, that and the small matter
04:03of Sofia outing herself as The Hangman at the tale's close, where she reveals her identity
04:07as she tries to kill Two-Face.
04:095. The Complexities of Hush
04:12Hush
04:13Batman Hush is one of the all-time great Batman stories. With the mysterious titular rogue debuting
04:18here, part of the fun of this Jeff Loeb and Jim Lee story was seeing who Hush really was.
04:23The eventual reveal would see Bruce Wayne's believed-dead childhood friend Tommy Elliot as the
04:28man behind this villainous bandage-wearing persona. Not just did Bruce not work out that Hush and Tommy
04:34were one and the same, even worse for The Dark Knight was the fact that Elliot had completely and
04:38utterly manipulated him for weeks and months. Adding further to Batman's embarrassment, he also
04:43didn't work out the mystery behind Tommy's motivation. With Elliot's father dying in a car crash when
04:48Tommy was just a child, it was explained how the rogue hated Bruce's father Thomas for saving the
04:53life of Tommy's mother after that crash. The future Hush was the person who had orchestrated
04:57this crash by severing brake lines, with the intention being for him to inherit his parents'
05:02millions. To pour even more salt into the wound, Batman Hush also saw Tommy concoct a plan that
05:08duped the Caped Crusader into believing the long-dead Jason Todd was back from the grave.
05:13It wasn't, it was just Hush utilising Clayface's abilities to fool Bats, although Jason would return
05:18a year or so after that story wrapped up.
05:214. The Death of the Flying Graysons – Long Shadows
05:25Following the events of Final Crisis, Bruce Wayne was dead, well, actually just sent back in time.
05:30With Gotham City in need of somebody to take over the cape and cowl, it would be Dick Grayson who
05:35would eventually take on the Batman moniker. In one of the earlier stories of this time as the
05:39Caped Crusader, Batman number 691's Long Shadows sees Dick battle Two-Face in the Batcave.
05:44Once that fight's out of the way, Grayson and Alfred decide to strip back the cave and have
05:49something of a tidy up of the place. It's here, though, that this new Batman finds a USB drive
05:54that throws the established cannon right up into the air. For the majority of the character's
05:58published lifespan, the parents of Dick Grayson were murdered as part of an organised hit. Yet,
06:03Batman number 691 suggested that there was more to the death of John and Mary Grayson.
06:07Dick inspects a USB drive found hidden in the base of the case holding Jason Todd's old Robin suit.
06:13There he finds that Bruce had previously been working on the old Flying Grayson's case,
06:17for Wayne felt that he hadn't managed to fully unearth the truth about those murders.
06:21Unfortunately for readers, much like Dick, we never got an answer to this,
06:25as the subject was bizarrely never touched upon again.
06:28Number 3. He Couldn't Save Alfred
06:30City of Bane
06:32Not a mystery in the same sense of one of the Riddler's infamous riddles, or in the same sense
06:36as a secret identity of a new rogue, but here it was more that Batman fell foul of a conundrum.
06:41And by fell foul, that shockingly meant the very real and very permanent, at least so far,
06:45death of Alfred Pennyworth.
06:47The puzzle presented to the Caped Crusader here was that if the Bat family remained in Gotham,
06:52Alfred would be murdered. So, Bruce Wayne headed off to Paris with Selina Carl,
06:56while the rest of our heroes kept out of sight. As for who had made this threat,
07:00that was the Flashpoint Timeline's Thomas Wayne, aka that world's iteration of Batman.
07:05With Bane at his side, Thomas had taken over Gotham City, handed Bruce a beating,
07:09and threatened to take the life of Alfred should any heroes refuse to leave Gotham.
07:13For our regular Batman, readers saw him pondered how he could actually win here,
07:18how he could return to Gotham, yet keep Pennyworth safe. That was the mystery,
07:22that was the puzzle, that was the poser, all the while Bruce contemplated retiring for a quiet life
07:27with Selina. It would be Alfred who forced Batman's hand here, sending him a coded message
07:32to assure Bat that he'd managed to escape and get himself out of Gotham. Of course, he hadn't,
07:37and the resurfacing of Damian Wayne's Robin in Gotham resulted in Bane snapping the neck of Alfred,
07:42which the iconic butler had intended to happen, so that it would give Batman the motivation to
07:47return and take down these rogues. 2. How the Joker Returned
07:52Batman Beyond Return of the Joker
07:54It wasn't just one Batman who couldn't solve this mystery, as not even two Bat-Men could crack the
07:59code behind the core plot of the stunning Batman Beyond Return of the Joker animated movie.
08:05Released in 2000, this picture takes place in the 2040s landscape of the Batman Beyond show,
08:10With Terry McGuinness, the present-day Batman, operating under the stewardship of Bruce Wayne,
08:15this future pairing is thrown for a loop when the long-deceased Joker returns to cause chaos.
08:20The mystery element here is just how exactly the Joker is alive and well 40 years after he took his
08:25last breath. Neither Terry nor Bruce can decipher this situation, and even more problematic is that
08:30the resurrected clown prince of crime knows all of his old rival's secrets, including that his Batman
08:35is Bruce Wayne. It would be revealed that the Joker had implemented a genetic chip in Tim Drake
08:40during Drake's younger days as Robin, with this chip turning the older Tim into a replicate of
08:45Mr. J. This scheme is shut down by Terry's Batman before Joker can fully take over Tim's body,
08:51but the only reason we find out the truth to this mystery is because the jester of genocide himself
08:55decided to let everyone in on his master plan.
08:581. The Puzzle That Is Onomatopoeia
09:01Created by Kevin Smith and Phil Hester for their 2002 run on Green Arrow, Onomatopoeia is one of
09:08the most fascinating modern villains in comics. He's also sadly a rogue that has been criminally
09:12underused since his first appearance. Despite being introduced as an Emerald Archer villain,
09:17this unique bad guy is one who has also had the odd tussle with Batman. In particular,
09:21Smith and Walt Flanagan's The Widening Gaia tale in 2009 had Onomatopoeia completely outsmart the
09:27world's greatest detective. To this day, the real identity of this criminal is a mystery that is
09:32yet to be solved. His face has never been seen, his chillingly normal family life has been seen,
09:38we've heard about his past work in the mundane world of insurance, but not even Bruce Wayne has
09:42been able to crack the mystique that surrounds this serial killer. For those not familiar with
09:46this character, he is a brutal and cold murderer who forever remains mute bar to mimic the sound of
09:51certain moments, such as mirroring the slit noise as he slits silver St. Cloud's throat. Even worse,
09:57that murder only took place because he's been invited to the Batcave by the Dark Knight.
10:02Having earned the trust of Batman as a new vigilante dubbed Baphomet, Onomatopoeia was shown
10:06the Batcave and even had Bruce unmasked in front of him, all of which climaxed in the rogue revealing
10:11his real identity and slaughtering St. Cloud.
10:14And there we go my friends, those were 8 mysteries that even Batman couldn't solve. I hope that you
10:18enjoyed that and please let me know what you thought about it down in the comment section below.
10:21As always I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter at RetroJayWithAZero or you can
10:25swing by Liv and Let's Dice where I do all of my streaming outside of work and it'd be great to
10:29see you over there. As always I've been Jules, you have been awesome. Never forget that and I'll speak
10:33to you soon. Bye.