8 Mysteries Even Batman Couldn't Solve
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
00:14down a 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
00:31these are 8 Mysteries That Even Batman Couldn't Solve.
00:348. 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? That
00:44right there, that's the riddle that not even Batman could solve.
00:47Taking place in the Batman Adventures number 10's aptly titled The Last Riddler Story,
00:52here we find a Riddler who's questioning his life choices. When his goons come to break
00:57him out of prison, Nygma tells them that the game is up, the run is over, and that he's
01:01done with being the Riddler.
01:03After this mob pleads with their boss, Eddie relents and decides to take one last strike
01:07getting one over on the Caped Crusader. If he succeeds, he's back to a life of crime.
01:12If he fails, he's hanging up the bowler hat and cane for good.
01:16Surprisingly, 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, Mr. Nice,
01:24and The Professor, but the fact of the matter is that Batman was unable to solve Nygma's
01:29riddle in this tale. For those wondering, said riddle relates to a jeweled eagle that
01:33Riddler successfully steals. While Batman couldn't solve the mystery of this riddle,
01:38he did manage to give a swift beating to Riddler after being tipped off by The Professor.
01:42Still, being locked up didn't ruin the spirits of E-Nygma, for he was ecstatic at Batman
01:47admitting that Riddler had outsmarted him.
01:50Number 7. The Other Holiday Killer – The Long Halloween
01:54Released throughout 1996 and into 1997, The Long Halloween is a landmark benchmark story
02:00that forces the world's greatest detective to live up to that particular moniker. The
02:04thing is, is that while Batman deduces that the mysterious holiday killer of the tale
02:08is actually two people, the Caped Crusader doesn't seem to realise that there was actually
02:13a third person behind the murders of this tale. In The Long Halloween, Holiday strikes
02:18on each public holiday, fatally shooting a new victim each and every month. While this
02:22very much features a who's who of Batman's rogues' gallery, the story also plays out
02:27in the backdrop of a raging war between two crime families. As part of the same war, District
02:32Attorney Harvey Dent winds up with acid thrown into his face in a move that sees him become
02:36the nefarious Two-Face. And while Harvey is rightfully pinned as Holiday, it's similarly
02:41worked out by Batman that Alberto Falcone, the runt of the Falcone family, is also Holiday.
02:48But what's shown in the final panels of The Long Halloween, though, is that Dent's
02:52wife, Gilda, was another who portrayed Holiday, with her responsible for the initial few murders
02:57as part of her plan to ease the pressures on her husband so that they could start a
03:01family. Where Gilda is concerned, Batman never picked up on her being the third wheel of
03:06the Holiday puzzle.
03:07Number 6. The Hangman – Dark Victory
03:10Following on from the events of The Excellent Long Halloween, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale returned
03:15three years later with the similarly great Dark Victory. Continuing on in the aftermath
03:20of The Holiday Killer, this time the mystery at play revolved around a cop-killing criminal
03:24known as The Hangman. It would eventually be revealed that The Hangman was actually
03:28Sofia Gigante, but Batman himself wasn't able to figure that out. Instead, it was Catwoman
03:34who did all the heavy lifting on that front. Digging deep into the mystery of The Hangman
03:38and the Falcone family, Selina Carl discovered that Sofia was the mysterious killer. Rather
03:43than having been left paraplegic after the events of The Long Halloween, Sofia instead
03:47pretended to be wheelchair-bound throughout Dark Victory as a way of making her the last
03:52suspect for the murders seen throughout this tale. For the Caped Crusader and Jim Gordon,
03:57they were unable to solve this riddle, and the puzzle of The Hangman was only solved
04:01by Selina. Well, that and the small matter of Sofia outing herself as The Hangman at
04:05the tale's close, where she reveals her identity as she tries to kill Two-Face.
04:095. The Complexities of Hush, Hush
04:13Batman Hush is one of the all-time great Batman stories. With the mysterious titular rogue
04:18debuting here, part of the fun of this Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee story was seeing who Hush
04:22really was. The eventual reveal would see Bruce Wayne's believed dead childhood friend
04:27Tommy Elliott as the man behind this villainous bandage-wearing persona. Not just did Bruce
04:32not work out that Hush and Tommy were one and the same, even worse for the Dark Knight
04:36was the fact that Elliott had completely and utterly manipulated him for weeks and months.
04:41Adding further to Batman's embarrassment, he also didn't work out the mystery behind
04:45Tommy's motivation. With Elliott's father dying in a car crash when Tommy was just a
04:49child, it was explained how the rogue hated Bruce's father, Thomas, for saving the life
04:53of 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
05:02parents' millions. To pour even more salt into the wound, Batman Hush also saw Tommy
05:07concoct a plan that duped the Caped Crusader into believing the long-dead Jason Todd was
05:12back from the grave. It wasn't, it was just Hush utilizing Clayface's abilities to fool
05:17Bats, although Jason would return a 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
05:30in time. With Gotham City in need of somebody to take over the Cape and Cal, it would be
05:34Dick Grayson who would eventually take on the Batman moniker. In one of the earlier
05:38stories of this time as the Caped Crusader, Batman number 691's Long Shadow sees Dick
05:42battle Two-Face in the Batcave. Once that fight's out of the way, Grayson and Alfred
05:47decide to strip back the cave and have something of a tidy up of the place. It's here, though,
05:51that this new Batman finds a USB drive that throws the established canon right up into
05:56the air. For the majority of the character's published lifespan, the parents of Dick Grayson
06:00were murdered as part of an organized hit. Yet, Batman number 691 suggested that there
06:05was more to the death of John and Mary Grayson. Dick inspects a USB drive found hidden in
06:10the base of the case holding Jason Todd's old Robin suit. There, he finds that Bruce
06:14had previously been working on the old Flying Grayson's case, for Wayne felt that he hadn't
06:18managed to fully unearth the truth about those murders. Unfortunately for readers,
06:23much like Dick, we never got an answer to this, as the subject was bizarrely never touched
06:27upon again.
06:283. He Couldn't Save Alfred – City of Bane
06:32Not a mystery in the same sense of one of the Riddler's infamous riddles, or in the
06:35same sense as a secret identity of a new rogue, but here it was more that Batman fell foul
06:40of a conundrum. And by fell foul, that shockingly meant the very real and very permanent – at
06:45least so far – death of Alfred Pennyworth.
06:47The puzzle presented to the Caped Crusader here was that if the Bat family remained in
06:51Gotham, Alfred would be murdered. So, Bruce Wayne headed off to Paris with Selina Kyle
06:56while the rest of our heroes kept out of sight. As for who had made this threat, that was
07:00the Flashpoint Timeline's Thomas Wayne, aka that world's iteration of Batman. With
07:05Bane at his side, Thomas had taken over Gotham City, handed Bruce a beating, and threatened
07:10to take the life of Alfred should any heroes refuse to leave Gotham.
07:14For our regular Batman, readers saw him pondered how he could actually win here, how he could
07:18return to Gotham, yet keep Pennyworth safe. That was the mystery, that was the puzzle,
07:23that was the poser, all the while Bruce contemplated retiring for a quiet life with Selina.
07:28It would be Alfred who forced Batman's hand here, sending him a coded message to assure
07:33Bat 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
07:41of Alfred, which the iconic butler had intended to happen, so that it would give Batman the
07:46motivation to return and take down these rogues.
07:502. How The Joker Returned – Batman Beyond, Return of the Joker
07:54It wasn't just one Batman who couldn't solve this mystery, as not even two Bat-men
07:59could crack the code behind the core plot of the stunning Batman Beyond, Return of the
08:03Joker animated movie. Released in 2000, this picture takes place in the 2040s landscape
08:09of the Batman Beyond show. With Terry McGinnis, the present-day Batman, operating under the
08:13stewardship of Bruce Wayne, this future pairing is thrown for a loop when the long-deceased
08:18Joker returns to cause chaos.
08:20The mystery element here is just how exactly the Joker is alive and well 40 years after
08:25he took his last breath. Neither Terry nor Bruce can decipher this situation, and even
08:29more problematic is that the resurrected clown prince of crime knows all of his old rival's
08:34secrets, including that his Batman is Bruce Wayne.
08:37It would be revealed that the Joker had implemented a genetic chip in Tim Drake during Drake's
08:41younger days as Robin, with this chip turning the older Tim into a replica of Mr. J. This
08:46scheme is shut down by Terry's Batman before Joker can fully take over Tim's body, but
08:51the only reason we find out the truth to this mystery is because the jester of genocide
08:55himself decided to let everyone in on his master plan.
08:591. The Puzzle That Is Onomatopoeia
09:02Directed by Kevin Smith and Phil Hester for their 2002 run on Green Arrow, Onomatopoeia
09:07is one of the most fascinating modern villains in comics. He's also sadly a rogue that
09:11has been criminally underused since his first appearance. Despite being introduced as an
09:16Emerald Archer villain, this unique bad guy is one who has also had the odd tussle with
09:20Batman. In particular, Smith and Walt Flanagan's The Widening Gaia tale in 2009 had Onomatopoeia
09:26completely outsmart The World's Greatest Detective.
09:29To this day, the real identity of this criminal is a mystery that is yet to be solved. His
09:33face has never been seen, his chillingly normal family life has been seen, we've heard about
09:38his past work in the mundane world of insurance, but not even Bruce Wayne has been able to
09:42crack the mystique that surrounds this serial killer.
09:45For those not familiar with this character, he's a brutal and cold murderer who forever
09:49remains mute bar to mimic the sound of certain moments, such as mirroring the slit noise
09:54as he slits Silver St. Cloud's throat. Even worse, that murder only took place because
09:59he's been invited to the Batcave by the Dark Knight. Having earned the trust of Batman
10:03as a new vigilante dubbed Baphomet, Onomatopoeia was shown the Batcave and even had Bruce unmask
10:09in front of him, all of which climaxed in the rogue revealing his real identity and
10:13slaughtering St. Cloud.
10:14And there we go my friends, those were 8 mysteries that even Batman couldn't solve. I hope that
10:18you enjoyed that and please let me know what you thought about it down in the comments
10:21section below. As always I've been Jules, you can go follow me over on Twitter at RetroJ
10:24with a zero, or you can swing by Liv and Let's Dice where I do all of my streaming outside
10:28of work and it'd be great to see you over there. As always I've been Jules, you have
10:31been awesome, never forget that and I'll speak to you soon, bye.