365 Days of KirbyTech, Day 23: The Riddler's Winter Machine

Since we're smack-dab in the middle of snow-bull building season here in New York, let's check in on Gotham City, where it's snow-bat building weather. I'm not too good at those—the wings always fall off. You might expect to find more RobinsonTech or KaneTech in Gotham, but here's a sign that Jack has visited the Town That Law Forgot, as Batman encounters a winter machine so chilling it completely bleaches all the color out of the comic book!

Panel from "Winter's End" in Batman: Black and White (2013 limited series) #2 (December 2013), script by Jeff Lemire, pencils and inks by Alex Niño, letters by Dezi Sienty
(Click picture to giant-rolling-snowball-size)

"Wait a minute," (you're saying), "The Riddler?" Well, yes! He got it from Mr. Freeze (one way or another). Man, that's a cold thing to do.


i don't like to contradict the Dark Knight Detective, but his line of detection and supposition all seems a little...frosty. Distracting the police and Batman from his crime scene is not only unusual for the Riddler, it downright breaks his modus operandi. Riddler doesn't distract, he confounds...by leaving a riddle that, if solved properly, will point Batman to the scene of the crime. I'd like to imagine that Batman found this question written in the snow no not that way: "What do you get when you cross a snowball and a wolf?"*

And, I'm assuming that when Batman says "the design had Edward Nigma's thumbprints all over it," I hope he was speaking figuratively and not literally. Because if there were thumbprints on that lovely winter-wielding widget, batman better suspect he's cold on the trail. Why? Because The Riddler always wears gloves.

Well, weather whether it was The Riddler or Mr. Freeze or The Penguin or Batman's newest foe, Princess Permafrost, that winter-making machine was pretty cool. Until Batman blew it up.



*Frostbite!