When one reads reviews of Batman: Arkham Knight, the biggest gripe relates to the Batmobile or rather how Rocksteady seemingly decided they didn’t want you to play an Arkham game so much as Super Batman Cart. The other complaint was that the characterization of the Dark Knight was tonally wrong. It was too dark and seemed to revel in the failures of the character rather than provide the super hero story one would expect. Batman is not the type of character to discuss futility and dwell on failure, but for the first two games Rocksteady was able to skillfully bring a darker edge to the world that was interesting, and also worked well for purposes of presenting a good gaming experience on the character, a feat that before Arkham Asylum was considered impossible. For Arkham Knight, Rocksteady decided they wanted to do without the services of long time Batman writer Paul Dini. As our own Jay reported, this caused their darker version of the character to step over a line where it simply does not feel like a Batman product any more. Batman Arkham Knight: Riddler’s Gambit, a prequel novel to Arkham Knight, largely seems to make the same mistakes, delivering something that doesn’t quite feel like Batman.
Batman Arkham Knight: Riddler’s Gambit picks up a few months after the death of the Joker, and things in Gotham have been quiet as the underworld expects its supervillains to make a move to fill the open role of apex predator that Joker’s death created. The Riddler has decided that HE should be the one to fill that void since he’s smarter than anyone (his words, not mine). To send a message to Gotham’s underworld, he sets up a series of challenges design to test both Batman and Robin, even enlisting some of Batman’s enemies that have appeared in the previous games. As you would expect the riddles are challenging, and have deadly consequence for people other than Batman and his allies.
The narrative is briskly paced and written in a simple, but effective manner that will be accessible for most of the people who decide go pick it up. But two aspects of it disappointed me: The first one is that while a Batman book with the Riddler as the main antagonist would be a prime candidate to explore the detective side of Batman, the narrative focuses on a set of challenges that Batman and Robin must beat while working in parallel, with Batman mostly fighting, and Robin mostly solving puzzles (and they are puzzles, not riddles that the dynamic duo are tasked with solving). It would make for some good video gaming, but novels aren’t games, and the plot doesn’t make for very interesting reading. While I understand try to stick closer to the formula for the game series that inspired it, this would have been a great opportunity to use the medium to explore the famous detective side of Batman.
The other issue is the tone of the book. Like the much maligned Arkham Knight, Riddler’s Gambit is too dark and grim for a Batman tale. It is true that Batman is, by most superhero standards, a fairly dark character. However, in the end there always a sense that his path is righteous and that the world is better for having Bruce Wayne taking on the burden of being Batman. Riddler’s Gambit on the other hand portrays Batman as an ineffective vigilante fighting a losing a battle that arguably does more harm to the city of Gotham than good. And while that is something that is worth of exploring in some works, here it just comes out as needlessly dark and grim. It feels as though the book tries too hard to be mature and in the process loses some of what people liked about the character in the first place. This is a problem in all of the recent Arkham properties, but in the novel genre, without the benefit of gameplay, it is more acute.
I would not recommend Batman Arkham Knight: Riddler’s gambit unless you are a big of the Arkham’s series take on Batman. The book does have the same tone as the game it shares its title with, which may please some fans. If you are looking for a good mystery, or a good Batman story with a interesting take, I am afraid I cannot recommend it.
