DC Announces The Batman Prequel Comic Riddler: Year One, Written By Paul Dano

Although the sequel to Matt Reeves' "The Batman" is likely still a ways away, it turns out we won't have to wait too long for more content from the new, uber-dark take on Gotham City. DC Comics has just announced a new Riddler comic book via Twitter, and it's written by none other than our Riddler himself — Paul Dano!

The news came via a Tweet from DC Comics on Friday that includes a shadowy first look at the new comic.

A new Riddler comic book hits stores this October with RIDDLER: YEAR ONE. Written by Paul Dano, unmask your first look here and see #TheBatman only in theaters now. – @DCComics

The accompanying picture shows a pair of glasses resting upside-down over a series of scattered papers. "Riddler: Year One" is scrawled in scratchy capital letters through one eye-hole, while other scribbles in the background include the phrase "question everything" and a red question mark. The paperwork seems to be made mostly of ledgers, probably from the Renewal project that we know radicalized The Riddler in the new take on "The Batman."

It's somewhat surprising to hear that Dano himself is penning the new comic, but the actor has written before — he was a screenwriter on the 2018 film "Wildlife" along with his partner, Zoe Kazan. There's also likely no one who knows this version of the character better than Dano himself, seeing as the actor embodied him over a long shoot. Though Dano doesn't at all seem like the insufferable Method actor type, he did tell Entertainment Weekly he sometimes ended up a little bit stuck in the Riddler headspace:

"There were some nights around that I probably didn't sleep as well as I would've wanted to just because it was a little hard to come down from this character. It takes a lot of energy to get there. And so you almost have to sustain it once you're there because going up and down is kind of hard."

Hopefully, Dano will channel some of that leftover Riddler energy into this project.

This comic book seems like a natural extension of "The Batman" in several key ways. For one, Reeves has already discussed some cut scenes including Barry Keoghan's mysterious prisoner, and a Riddler origin story could ostensibly restore some of that on the page. For another, we've already had a glimpse into the villain's twisted mind with an interactive website that dropped alongside the film. The site recently released a cache of materials, including a few pages from The Riddler's increasingly illegible and frightening journal.

Of course, the "Year One" title also turns this project into a tall order, since it calls to mind Frank Miller's seminal 1987 comic "Batman: Year One." DC Comics has not announced a release date for "Joker: Year One," but it's set to hit shelves sometime in October, 2022.