WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Before the Batman: An Original Movie Novel, on sale now.
The Batman presents audiences with a bold, new vision of the Dark Knight’s world as he combats the Riddler while the serial killer cuts a bloody path across Gotham City. Secrets between Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth will come to light over the course of the film, as Bruce embarks on his second year protecting his city as Batman. Bruce’s long road toward training himself to become the Caped Crusader and first year as Batman is chronicled in the official tie-in prequel Before The Batman: An Original Movie Novel. And in addition to teasing Bruce’s shared history with the Riddler from an early age, the book also reveals the fiery fate of Wayne Manor in this cinematic universe.
Instead of residing in their ancestral home, Thomas and Martha moved into Wayne Tower in the heart of Gotham with their young son Bruce while they donated to Wayne Manor to the city. The house became an orphanage for Gotham’s unprivileged youth, with one of the boys growing up in the shelter being Edward Nashton, the once and future Riddler. Despite being provided a home, Nashton grew to deeply resent Wayne Manor and the wealthy family that it was named after. The novel describes Nashton particularly being incensed by a portrait of the Wayne family left in the orphanage, with an image of a young Bruce he perceived as smirking at him, with Nashton observing that Bruce “didn’t even appreciate being rich.”
Years later, as a teenager, Nashton returned to the orphanage and decided to burn it to the ground. Pulling a fire alarm to empty the building of its current occupants, Nashton pours gasoline around the temporarily abandoned orphanage and burns it to the ground. This ambitious act of arson only serves to inspire Nashton to become a puzzle-themed supervillain because, while returning to visit the scene of the crime, he realizes that he is “vaguely unsatisfied” with what he has done since he has received no credit. Nashton decides that he should leave riddles for authorities at the scenes of future crimes to satisfy his hunger for notoriety.
The idea of stately Wayne Manor serving as an orphanage is introduced at the end of The Dark Knight Rises, with Bruce leaving it to the city for such a purpose after faking his death. Previously in filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s trilogy, Wayne Manor was completely burned to the ground by Ra’s al Ghul at the end of Batman Begins and in the process of being rebuilt over the course of The Dark Knight. The DC Extended Universe’s Wayne Manor was similarly in ruins, with Bruce vowing to restore it as a headquarters for the Justice League.
Before The Batman implies that Wayne Manor will be conspicuously absent in the film or at least rebuilt from the original structure that Nashton burned down as a teenager. Regardless of where Bruce and Alfred are living in The Batman, the Riddler already has a one-sided grudge against the billionaire playboy, one that stretches back to when he was a boy living in the Wayne family ancestral home. And now that Nashton has left a charred mark on the Wayne family, he’s ready to extend this vendetta to include Bruce himself in The Batman.
To see the extent of Riddler’s vendetta against the Waynes, The Batman opens in theaters March 4.
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