The Batman: Haunting Dark Knight-Inspired Riddler Poster by BossLogic

The Batman trailer has given DC fans the first real taste of the style, tone, and overall vision that director Matt Reeves is going with. As is tradition with any new Batman movie series, those new stylistic approaches to Batman have inspired a new wave of fan art representation. Well, few are better in the business of fan-art than BossLogic; his latest work takes Paul Dano‘s freaky performance as The Batman‘s Riddler and marries it to the iconic artwork of Heath Ledger’s Joker from The Dark Knight – and even throws in some marketing for The Batman, to boot!

The “? 0 ? 1” date for The Batman has carried some deeper double-meanings in its presentation. On the one hand, it’s a reference to the type of coded clues that we see Riddler baiting Batman with; it’s also the teaser for the year when The Batman is set to be released (2021). However, with the delays in production on The Batman due to the coronavirus pandemic, that unique teaser date could also (possibly) be an inside-joke that there is still some uncertainty about the movie actually making that release date.

As for the image: BossLogic does a pretty flawless recreation of Heath Ledger’s haunting “Why So Serious?” Joker poster from The Dark Knight. With Ledger’s full Joker face obscured by frosted glass, the term “Why So Serious?” was seen written out in blood across the pane, ending in a bloody Joker smile drawn to match Ledger’s own lips. One look and fans instantly knew that Christopher Nolan’s version of Joker was not going to be like any other they’d seen on screen before.

The same is now true for Paul Dano’s Riddler. The opening scene of The Batman’s trailer revealed a version of Riddler that is much more of a nightmarish serial killer. He leaves his victim’s face mummified in duct tape, with clues in the form of riddles and encrypted code left for The Batman (Robert Pattinson) to follow. Dano ironically (or maybe not) got his big break actually playing a brilliant serial killer: he was the young version of the brutal killer in Taking Lives, a film which began with a sequence of Dano’s character committing a grisly murder. That’s all to say: It’s going to be very exciting to see Dano bring that same menacing intensity to this version of Riddler.

The Batman is slated for release on October 4, 2021.