The past five years have placed The Riddler in the spotlight like never before. From his chilling live-action debut in Matt Reeves’ The Batman (2022) to headlining comic stories like Batman: One Bad Day – The Riddler (2022), Batman: H2SH (2025), and his Absolute Batman (2024) debut, each appearance has brought major redesigns, culminating in his latest and most extreme look yet.
Mark Waid, Mark Russell, and Marcus To return for another epic installment of Batman / Superman: World’s Finest with issue #49. This installment picks up where the last one left off, with the duo finding themselves in the custody of Owlman and Ultraman after Earth-Prime Brainiac transports them to Earth-3.
Weakened and chained, the duo’s saving grace comes from an unlikely source: Earth-3’s Riddler. This version of the character features one of the most extreme redesigns in the Riddler’s 78-year history in comics.
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DC Reveals Riddler’s Brand-New Earth-3 Redesign
Comic Page Comes from Mark Waid & Mark Russell ‘s Batman / Superman: World’s Finest #49 (2026) – Art by Marcus To
Earth-3 Riddler in Batman / Superman World’s finest #49
Batman / Superman: World’s Finest #49 not only gives the Riddler a new costume but also notably gives him a massive, mutated left arm. While the costume is unique, featuring a purple and green angular bisected color scheme with a giant black question mark covering his torso and a half mask, it is the mutated arm that makes this the Riddler’s most radical redesign yet.
Reminder: On Earth-3, DC’s traditional villains are actually heroes.
Batman, unable to let any mystery go unsolved, asks the Riddler how he got his “disfigurements.” The Earth-3 hero then tells the story of how he was dropped into a vat of acid by Batman’s evil counterpart, Owlman. But instead of dying, he was sucked out of a drain pipe and deposited into the river, leaving him alive but mutated.
Batman Superman World’s Finest #49 Riddler Earth-3
This origin story may sound familiar even to the most casual Batman fans, as it shares major similarities with Earth-Prime Joker’s origin. Joker also fell into a vat of chemicals at ACE Chemicals, though it was an accident that occurred while Batman was chasing the rogue, rather than Bruce deliberately throwing him into the vat.
Unlike the Joker, however, the Riddler of Earth-3 emerges as a hero rather than a psychopathic villain, dedicating his life to preventing Owlman from hurting anyone else the way the villain hurt him. As a result, this Earth-3 take on the Riddler stands as one of the character’s most dramatic reimaginings, perhaps even outpacing The Batman’s version of the rogue as a lone-wolf terrorist.
Batman / Superman: World’s Finest #49 from DC Comics is now available!