The Riddler may target the Caped Crusader with his riddles in Matt Reeves’ The Batman, but the end credits for the film teased that the quixotic quizmaster had a few for us, too. Now those riddles have been solved and they appear to point to things we might see in the unannounced but seemingly inevitable sequel (via IGN). Potential spoilers for The Batman follow.
A key moment in The Batman has the Riddler pointing ol’ Bats and his good friend James Gordon to a website, rataalada.com. Of course, with a story like this, a fictional website is never just a fictional website, and in fact, the page offered up a few riddles for fans to solve. Along with the riddles, though, comes a secret message that’s written in the Riddler’s question mark-filled cipher. Now, Reddit user /u/vengeance22 has decoded the message, which reads:
“You think I’m finished, but perhaps you don’t know the full truth. Every ending is a new beginning. Something is coming.”
Of course, that seems to point to a sequel for the movie that includes the Riddler as a returning character, much like the movie’s final scene does. But also of interest is the list of what initially looks like IP addresses used in a command-line traceroute. They aren’t IPs at all, but important dates and issue numbers in Batman’s 80-plus-year history.
27.50.19.39, for example, refers to Detective Comics #27, published in May 1939. The proceeding numbers refer to the introductions of Catwoman, the Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler, Carmine Falcone, and Alfred Pennyworth.
The last one refers to the release date for The Batman, but the second-to-last address, which points to corrections.arkham.gov–not a real website, due to the use of the .gov extension–refers to Batman #258, published in October 1974. In this comic, Two-Face breaks out of Arkham Asylum. As IGN notes, this is the first appearance of Arkham Asylum itself. Some fans have theorized that the second movie could include Two-Face as one of Batman’s opponents. With all of the other dates referring to first appearances, though, it seems more likely that Arkham itself is the reason for inclusion in the list.
The Batman’s final scene features the Riddler and another inmate (almost certainly the Joker), shown only in partial profile, talking about the Riddler’s defeat and the possibility of working together. Further, the HBO Max spin-off series for The Batman recently “evolved” from being a show about Gotham PD to being about Arkham Asylum itself. So while this is a tease, there’s not enough here to go off of to make any conclusions about what it could be saying. It could be alluding to the sequel or the spinoff, or just the idea that Arkham is an integral part of the Batman mythos.
Batman performed more than well enough at the box office to garner a sequel. Make sure to read our in-depth look at the film’s ending and why we want to see live-action Batman explore some of the Dark Knight’s stranger villains.
Source: Gamespot
