10 Smartest DC Characters

Edward Nigma has been a massive pain in Batman's Bat-Butt ever since he first showed up in Detective Comics #140. A man with an ego only matched by his brilliance, he has spent decades trying to prove that he is the Caped Crusader's intellectual superior in every single way.

His riddles and traps are designed to either confound or kill the Dark Knight, but he is nothing if not fair. He always leaves an answer in his clues to stop whatever horrible death device Batman finds himself caught in.

Truly believing that he is the smartest person in the world, he even goes as far as to start his own detective agency that always seems to show up at the same crime scene's that Bats does, as if he's so obsessed with proving himself the better of the two that he'll even walk the line of the righteous, as long as it helps him prove his point.

But once a criminal, always a criminal. It doesn't take long before the Riddler has transformed back into his wicked, wicked ways and that, undoubtedly, is how he will stay. At least, until he wins this battle of wits.