The Riddler, Killmonger, and the trap of villains who are right

polygon.com:

Batman’s enemies have traditionally come with baroque, colorful motivations meant to contrast with what a grim and driven character he is. Take the Riddler, whose raison d’etre has always been that he’s got a monstrous ego, a need for attention, and an irresistible compulsion to prove he’s smarter than a guy who dresses up like a bat and gets hit in the head 28 times a night.

But Matt Reeves’ new Batman reboot The Batman opts to tweak the Riddler’s signature motivations to bring them in line with the new breed of superhero seriousness. If you’ve been watching superhero films and TV over the past five years, it might seem familiar.

As the current age of superhero cinema evolves through its second decade, it seems to be experimenting with sympathetic villains, and using them to drive stories that are more complicated than someone who wants power at any cost battling someone who stands between them and the innocent. But there’s a difference between a supervillain who wants revenge after being personally wronged, and a supervillain who adopts a progressive cause. Because unless it’s handled very skillfully, you can’t make a supervillain advocate for positive societal change without trivializing that advocacy. And it’s very difficult to make a hero oppose those kinds of changes without making them into the tone police of the shitty status quo.

[Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for The Batman.]

In The Batman, the Riddler doesn’t want power, personal revenge, or to best Batman. He wants to expose a ring of corruption that has been squandering funds set aside for Gotham’s most vulnerable. Avid watchers of superhero cinema might be reminded of Karli Morgenthau, head Flag Smasher in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier —