Any idea why Riddler (and Poison Ivy) had few appearances in 90s Batman comics?

[RasAld]

After reading through 1990s Batman and Detective comics, I noticed Riddler only appears just before Knightfall when injected by Bane with Venom (Batman 490), during Knightfall when holding the tv game show hostage (Detective 662) and then going after cluemaster in knight out (Detective 704-707). That's only 3 appearances during all of the 90s. Poison Ivy also only appears in the beginning of Knightfall (Batman 495), (Detective 694) and Contagion. I thought it was interesting

[exile001]

Dennis O'Neil wasn't a fan of Riddler*. Lol.

Seriously, though, I think this was a transitional period for Batman. A lot of villains were reimagined for the better in Batman TAS, Poison Ivy** being one, but this wasn't exactly capitalised on by the comics.

A lot of the decade was Grant, Moench and Dixon on the main books (O'Neil editing) and they all seemed to flit between using established villains and creating new ones.

Villains were used sparingly to avoid burn out and I wonder how many actually helped shift issues. Compared to today, even Joker rarely appears in the main books.

*Most writers still can't writer a decent Riddler, let alone an intelligent, competent one.

**Poison Ivy had great appearances in LotDK and Secret Origins but in the main Batman books she really wasn't very interesting. None of the 90's writers could do her well. Rucka was a godsend.

[Frontier]

Dennis O'Neil wasn't a fan of Riddler*. Lol.

Seriously, though, I think this was a transitional period for Batman. A lot of villains were reimagined for the better in Batman TAS, Poison Ivy** being one, but this wasn't exactly capitalised on by the comics.

A lot of the decade was Grant, Moench and Dixon on the main books (O'Neil editing) and they all seemed to flit between using established villains and creating new ones.

Villains were used sparingly to avoid burn out and I wonder how many actually helped shift issues. Compared to today, even Joker rarely appears in the main books.

*Most writers still can't writer a decent Riddler, let alone an interlligent, competent one.

**Poison Ivy had great appearances in LotDK and Secret Origins but in the main Batman books she really wasn't very interesting. None of the 90's writers could do her well. Rucka was a godsend.

Riddler is like the hardest Bat-Villain to write.

[Confuzzled]

Ivy was on Suicide Squad in the early 90s, and then appeared in a Green Arrow TPB. She then returned to the Batbooks in Shadow of the Bat Annual #3, then had stories in Legends of the Dark Knight #42-43, Shadow of the Bat #56-58, Detective Comics #589 and #694, appearances in Knightfall, a Batman: Poison Ivy one-shot coinciding with the release of Batman and Robin, before ending the decade with Contagion, Catwoman's Cataclysm arc and of course, No Man's Land and Harley's debut series.

And that's not considering the DCAU spin-off comics and Haunted Knight/The Long Halloween/Dark Victory. The 90s were when they really started to use her much more frequently than in previous decades.

[Coco Loco]

Ivy was a pretty minor character until B:TAS and B&R. Even in Suicide Squad she wasn’t really one of the central characters.

Riddler was treated as a joke through the late 80’s, but Dark Knight Dark City put him back on the map. Jim Carrey didn’t hurt either.