Brian Truitt

USA TODAY

Riddle us this, Batman: Who's got better threads than the Riddler?

Cory Michael Smith had certain wardrobe expectations when he finally went full supervillain on Fox’s Gotham: a dapper emerald suit and bowler hat, maybe a cane with a question mark on the handle. Though initially flabbergasted by the “glittery green” suit, it was, he admits, “a really cool day” when he finally saw himself in the Riddler’s iconic and flamboyant outfit. “Next up should be the cane, in my opinion.”

The 30-year-old Ohio native is in his third season playing Edward Nygma, but Monday’s spring premiere (8 ET/PT) culminates his character’s evolution from annoying but good-natured Gotham City police lab tech to the town’s newest menace.

“This is what he’s been in the wings for,” Smith says. “It’s his time to declare that he has accepted the role that fate has given him, and he’s going to be a villain, wreak havoc and show people that everyone has underestimated him.”

Upcoming episodes will dig into the aftermath of Nygma shooting his pal Oswald Cobblepot (aka the Penguin) in the gut and pushing him into Gotham harbor, leaving the Riddler without “the one person who could really mentor him into villainy,” Smith says. “He doesn’t really know what he’s doing.”

As he begins to torment Gotham, Nygma struggles with his identity, and executive producer John Stephens says Smith gives the character intellectual and emotional sides to his existential journey: “The affection he has for tricks and plans and puzzles, it’s his way of applying order to what he sees as a disordered universe.”

In a neo-noir show chock full of cops, crooks and crazies, Smith says, Nygma might be the most tragic figure of them all. The slow Riddler transformation has seen him go from a man wanting friends, a lover and a normal life to a guy who’s dealt with loss, death and a downward spiral. “He started to feel like the world was deciding for him that it wasn’t what he deserved or what he’s going to have,” Smith says.

Stephens says Nygma is merely embracing his true nature: "In some sense, it’s not a tragedy but instead a hero’s journey."

What this Riddler doesn’t yet have is the swagger normally seen in the bad guy who’s been a thorn in the Dark Knight’s side for 69 years of comic book history, or the confident lunacy of Frank Gorshin’s count of conundrums from the 1960s Batman TV series.

“What I’m really excited about, moving forward, is refining and finding the presentation of the Riddler: What does it mean to deliver a riddle, and how do you do it in a way that’s most intimidating? And this is why I yearn for the cane, because it’d be a wonderful little addition,” Smith says. (The accessory will come “sooner or later, I’m sure,” Stephens promises.)

“I love the idea of this guy who started out in the GCPD as slightly inept and awkward grow into this person who’s really quite elegant," Smith says. "That potentially could be one of the scariest (aspects), to be very smooth and poised.”