Near the end of The Batman's stellar box office numbers, marking it as the studio's highest-grossing film since 2020. Yet despite The Batman's rave reviews, this latest Batman installment does make one mistake with its villains.
Throughout The Batman, Paul Dano's Riddler is shown to be a methodical, calculating foe who meticulously plans out every detail of his plot. He has everything down to a science except for the one thing that ruins his fun - human nature. He fails at understanding Batman's character on a catastrophic level that spoils the whole thing for him - leading to his incarceration alongside another classic Batman villain.
It's no secret that the cackling criminal in the neighboring cell that the Riddler decides to follow is none other than this universe's interpretation of Riddler is shown to do in The Batman - meaning their styles simply wouldn't mesh. Then again, Joker may be counting on that.
Why The Joker & Riddler Are Already Doomed In The Batman 2
The Joker is notorious for his skill in manipulation. As one of Gotham's premier gang bosses in most continuities, many of the people who've ed his gangs over the years are those he's manipulated. Most notably, there's Harley Quinn - a character who started out working at Arkham and wound up charmed by the Grinning Gangster. If Riddler is shown to be anything throughout The Batman, it's unstable, at least enough to the point that Joker wouldn't have difficulty wrapping the scheming serial killer around his finger reasonably quickly. The question then becomes to what end he aims to use Riddler. A problem might emerge, however, if Riddler notices. He's at least more intelligent than most of the people Joker snares, and this would almost certainly lead to some bad blood between the pair and could make their team-up an immediate disaster.
Despite what the 60s-era Batman narratives portray, the Joker and Riddler don't tend to play nice, historically. Most Batman rogues - particularly those with their own gangs - are at one another's throats almost as much as they're at Batman's. Most recently, there was The War of Jokes and Riddles - a storyline written by Tom King that took place from Batman vol. 3 #25 to Batman vol. 3 #32 - that depicts a gang war between the Riddler and the Joker two years into Batman's vigilante career. Interestingly enough, The Batman takes place in that same time frame, meaning its entirely possible Matt Reeves' Batman film universe intends to set up that storyline.
Whatever the plan is for any follow-ups to The Batman, it seems likely to involve the Joker and the Riddler. While the film teased a possible friendship between the pair, that seems unlikely to end well given their canonical history. If anything, it could end rather horribly on of Joker and Riddler's clashing styles, Joker's propensity for manipulation, and their documented history of contempt for one another.
