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Those posers and puzzles too tough for even the World's Greatest Detective to handle.
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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
00:14a case or a crime scene in minute detail. In terms of mankind, there isn't a human
00:19being on the earth who can outsmart Bruce Wayne. Well, most of the time at least.
00:24You see, there are actually some mysteries that even bats couldn't solve, and that's
00:28what we're here to talk about today. As I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these
00:32are 8 mysteries that even Batman couldn't solve.
00:358. The Unsolved Riddle – The Last Riddler Story
00:38What's got wings that do not fly, arms that have no hands, and eyes that cannot see?
00:43That right there, that's the riddle that not even Batman could solve.
00:47Taking place in the Batman Adventures number 10s aptly titled The Last Riddler Story, here
00:52we find a Riddler who's questioning his life choices. When his goons come to break him out
00:57of prison, Nygma tells them that the game is up, the run is over, and that he's done
01:01with 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.
01:10If he succeeds, he's back to a life of crime. If he fails, he's hanging up the bowler hat
01:14and came for good. Surprisingly though, the Riddler manages to actually get the better of Batman here.
01:20Sure, the Dark Knight is a little preoccupied with debuting villains Mastermind,
01:24Mr. Nice and the Professor, but the fact of the matter is that Batman was unable to solve
01:29Nygma's riddle in this tale. For those wondering, said riddle relates to a jeweled eagle that Riddler
01:34successfully steals. While Batman couldn't solve the mystery of this riddle, he did manage to give
01:39a swift beating to Riddler after being tipped off by the Professor. Still, being locked up didn't ruin
01:44the spirits of E. Nygma, for he was ecstatic at Batman admitting that Riddler had outsmarted him.
01:507. The Other Holiday Killer – The Long Halloween
01:53Released throughout 1996 and into 1997, The Long Halloween is a landmark benchmark story that forces
02:01the world's greatest detective to live up to that particular moniker. The thing is, is that while
02:05Batman deduces that the mysterious holiday killer of the tale is actually two people, the caped crusader
02:11doesn't seem to realise that there was actually a third person behind the murders of this tale.
02:15In The Long Halloween, Holiday strikes on each public holiday, fatally shooting a new victim
02:21each and every month. While this very much features a who's who of Batman's rogues gallery,
02:25the story also plays out in the backdrop of a raging war between two crime families.
02:30As part of the same war, District Attorney Harvey Dent winds up with acid thrown into his face in a
02:35move that sees him become the nefarious Two-Face. And while Harvey is rightfully pinned as Holiday,
02:40it's similarly worked out by Batman that Alberto Falcone – the runt of the Falcone family – is
02:46also Holiday. But what's shown in the final panels of The Long Halloween, though, is that Dent's wife
02:52Gilda was another who portrayed Holiday, with her responsible for the initial few murders as part of
02:58her plan to ease the pressures on her husband so that they could start a family. Where Gilda is
03:02concerned, Batman never picked up on her being the third wheel of the holiday puzzle.
03:07Number 6. 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
03:39family, Selina Carl discovered that Sofia was the mysterious killer. Rather than having
03:44been left 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 riddle,
03:59and the puzzle of The Hangman was only solved by Selina. Well, that and the small matter of Sofia
04:03outing herself as The Hangman at the tale's close, where she reveals her identity as she tries to
04:08kill 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.
04:24The eventual reveal would see Bruce Wayne's believed-dead childhood friend Tommy Elliot as the
04:28behind this villainous bandage-wearing persona. Not just did Bruce not work out that Hush and
04:34Tommy were one and the same, even worse for The Dark Knight was the fact that Elliot had completely
04:38and utterly manipulated him for weeks and months. Adding further to Batman's embarrassment,
04:43he also didn't work out the mystery behind Tommy's motivation. With Elliot's father dying in a car
04:48crash when Tommy was just a child, it was explained how the rogue hated Bruce's father Thomas for saving
04:53the life 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'
05:03millions. 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
05:19a year or so after that story wrapped up. 4. 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.
05:45Once that fight's out of the way, Grayson and Alfred decide to strip back the cave and
05:48have something of a tidy up of the place. It's here, though, that this new Batman finds a USB
05:53drive that 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.
06:22Unfortunately for readers, much like Dick, we never got an answer to this, as the subject was
06:26bizarrely 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, death
06:46of Alfred Pennyworth. The puzzle presented to the Caped Crusader here was that if the Bat family
06:51remained in Gotham, Alfred would be murdered. So, Bruce Wayne headed off to Paris with Selina
06:56Carl, while 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. With Bane at his
07:06side, Thomas had taken over Gotham City, handed Bruce a beating, and threatened to take the life
07:11of Alfred should any heroes refuse to leave Gotham. For our regular Batman, readers saw him pondered
07:16how he could actually win here, how he could return to Gotham, yet keep Pennyworth safe.
07:21That was the mystery, that was the puzzle, that was the poser, all the while Bruce contemplated
07:26retiring for a quiet life with Selina. It would be Alfred who forced Batman's hand here,
07:31sending him a coded message to assure Bat that he'd managed to escape and get himself out of Gotham.
07:36Of course, he hadn't, and the resurfacing of Damian Wayne's Robin in Gotham resulted in Bane
07:41snapping the neck of Alfred, which the iconic butler had intended to happen,
07:45so that it would give Batman the motivation to return and take down these rogues.
07:502. 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
07:59the code 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.
08:11With 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 the
08:31resurrected 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 during
08:41Drake's younger days as Robin, with this chip turning the older Tim into a replica of Mr. J.
08:46This 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
08:56decided to let everyone in on his master plan. 1. 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,
09:21Taylor Smith and Walt Flanagan's The Widening Gaia tale in 2009 had onomatopoeia completely
09:27outsmart the world's greatest detective. To this day, the real identity of this criminal is a
09:32mystery that is yet to be solved. His face has never been seen, his chillingly normal family life
09:37has been seen. We've heard about his past work in the mundane world of insurance, but not even
09:41Bruce Wayne has been able to crack the mystique that surrounds this serial killer. For those not
09:46familiar with this character, he is a brutal and cold murderer who forever remains mute bar to mimic
09:51the sound of certain moments, such as mirroring the slit noise as he slits silver St. Cloud's
09:56throat. Even worse, that murder only took place because he's been invited to the Batcave by the
10:01Dark Knight. Having earned the trust of Batman as a new vigilante dubbed Baphomet, Onomatopoeia was
10:06shown the Batcave and even had Bruce unmasked in front of him, all of which climaxed in the rogue
10:11revealing his 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
10:21below. As always, I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter at RetroJayWithAZero,
10:25or you can swing by Liv and Let's Dice where I do all of my streaming outside of work, and it'd be
10:29great to see you over there. As always, I've been Jules, you have been awesome. Never forget that,
10:33and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.
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