Most of what I know about Batman I know through broader pop culture rather than through the comic book itself.
I’m not much of a comic book reader, but I can enjoy short run self contained storylines. I just can’t follow a title over the long run.
I grew up in the 80s with the 60s Batman series and I have always thought of The Penguin as Batman’s #2 villain (of course, The Joker is #1). It is possible that I am completely off base in that assessment, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if people who grew up in the past 20 years do not think of him as being among the more significant villains- but I don’t know.
I am a little bit familiar with the Timmverse Batman, but I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever seen the Timmverse version of The Penguin.
For a #2 Villain (and again, I can accept finding out that I am TOTALLY wrong to think of him that way), The Penguin seems to be extremely bland and uninteresting outside the source material. Much as I disliked Tim Burton’s reimagining of the character, I can still kind of sympathize with the dilemma of “Gee, what the hell do we do with this character? Other than the long cigarette holder and the tuxedo, who is The Penguin???”
So, since I am admittedly unfamiliar with the source material I am looking to be educated. Who the hell is The Penguin?
Is he still a favorite villain among comic book readers? What are his most distinguishing traits and most unique threats? Great villainous accomplishments?
Have there been any writers who have come up with a specifically very cool version of the character? Has he ever gotten any treatment similar to what The Killing Joke did for The Joker?
Has there ever been a version of The Penguin that would have been compatible with the Nolanverse?
Hmmm, are those flipper hands? I thought the flipper hands were a Burton invention. I know the series is post-Burton, but I didn’t think any Burton inventions survived outside his movies.
Thanks for the clip. Definitely interesting for me to see a different interpretation of the character. Must say, though, it reinforces my notion that he should be thought of as third or fourth tier.
The original Penguin was much like most of the 40s and 50s Batman villains: a schtick that became a theme for is crimes.
Catwoman dealt with cats (or words with “cat” in them)
Two-Face dealt with the number 2*
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum committed crimes based on their identical appearance.
The Mad Hatter used hats
The Scarecrow used fear.
Calendar Man used crimes based on the calendar.
The Penguin was a double threat: umbrellas and birds. He became the number two villain (possibly third below Catwoman) because the writers could write more types of scripts using his bete noirs.
*The schizophrenia came later; Two-face was a criminal when his face was scarred, though he did flip a coin to see what happened with the money he stole – either he kept it or gave it to charity.
The Penguin has a little depth, as the scion of an old Gotham family with at least some pretensions to a good pedigree. He’s also vaguely interesting when he tries to go straight, and runs a nightclub instead of rob banks. This has led to some amusing confrontations with the Batman, who isn’t quite willing to believe that the Penguin could really reform himself…but doesn’t have any evidence yet to show otherwise.
He’s one of the few overweight villains around. He’s also either actually well-educated, or at least a pseudo-intellectual. And he’s a first class gadgeteer.
He isn’t quite as crazy as most of Batman’s foes. He can usually put together a solid, strategic plan and carry it out. That alone makes him one of the more dangerous villains in Gotham.
The Penguin is a short, fat man who likes birds and being overdressed. That’s basically it. To his credit, he’s one of the saner of the Batman villains. He’s nasty, greedy, and immoral, but he’s not irrational.
With a rather notable Napoleon Complex (he’s generally drawn as something like 4 feet tall, lately, and that makes him grouchy) and some slight Oedipal overtones (occasionally contrasted with Bruce’s relationship with Martha Wayne), in current portrayals.
He’s one of the top dogs in Gotham’s organized crime - one of Batman’s few villains (especially of the gimmicked type) to be a boss - Two Face sometimes is, but for the most part, everybody else either works alone, or has a small group of associates and minions, so if the Bat-writers want to do an organized crime story, it’s Pengie or the Falcone family for the most part.
So, are there any short run stories that are worth checking out that feature a good version of The Penguin?
Like I said, I’m not one for following a title for the long haul but I have enjoyed some one-shots and some self contained stories told in up to four parts or so.
(keep in mind, I’m not going to track down anything out of print that demands serious collector’s prices)
Also, is it still fair to esteem him as a #2 villain? Or has he dropped a few tiers by now?
This is actually something of a high point for Cobblepot - he had a mini detailing his current origin and his present methods of doing business last year, he was recently the big bad in Catwoman, he’s tied into the origin of the Birds of Prey, he’s been a key figure in a couple arcs in Detective (which went badly for him for a while, but between Batman having to take down the guy who’d crossed him, and his crooked lawyer blackmailing his judge, he turned it around)…
IMO his main defining characteristic is that unlike Batman’s other main villains, and Batman himself to an extent, he’s not nuts. Burton’s movie take on him aside he’s probably one of the most rational villains in the DC universe.
Catwoman’s totally sane, too. (Both of them end up in Arkham a lot, when writers forget that it’s supposed to be a mental hospital, and that Blackgate Prison exists. But they’re both perfectly sane, with mild obsessions that rise to the level of gimmicks, but not monomanias like most of the others.) I’d argue Killer Croc and some versions of Clayface are, as well, but they’re not as clearly functional as Ozzie or Selina.
By the way, that clip has Batman struggling blindly when the special supercool vision feature of his mask glitches out- leaving him completely blind in a fight.
The way cool sonar vision thing in Nolan’s The Dark Knight was IMHO the stupidest thing about Nolan’s whole series. I absolutely hated it and it seriously taints that movie for me. First off, as a viewer I hate watching it. Second off, his supercool special feature fucking blinds him when it glitches out!!! Not safe!
Anyway, I hated it so much I thought it was something Nolan had come up with on his own. I thought for sure it was too stupid to not actually be recognized as stupid by anyone who had the chance to watch someone else’s take on it first then fully evaluate it’s stupidity before putting it in their own new movie.
Anyway, it doesn’t seem all that different from real world vision-enhancing equipment. Night vision goggles can temporarily blind you if you’re suddenly exposed to a bright light, but that hasn’t stopped them from being a staple of special forces in the real world.
Sorry to add to the digression, but if I recall that episode of Batman the Animated Series correctly, Bruce had been blinded earlier in the story and the sonar vision was a work-around.
In SUICIDE SQUAD, the gimmick was explaining how all those supervillains who keep getting busted by Batman or the Flash keep getting back out on the streets: the authorities keep offering 'em Dirty-Dozen-esque missions the US government can’t openly undertake. The point is, yes, Captain Boomerang is great if you want quiet marksmanship with specialized weaponry, but the Penguin is the go-to guy when smuggling is the order of the day.
As others have said, aside from the flipper hands, the DCAU version of The Penguin is just a dapper mob boss. He was fit in perfectly and I was a bit sad that Nolan didn’t fit any reference to him into his movies.
Oh, and if anyone from Warners happens to be reading this board, I’ve got an awesome idea for a rebooted Batman film featuring The Penguin and The Mad Hatter.
The “supercool vision feature” in question was the only thing allowing him to see at all in that clip. Bruce Wayne was temporarily blinded at the beginning of the episode in the Penguin’s initial attack. The unit in his mask was jury-rigged from the advanced sensor tech used in the prototype chopper Penguin stole. Without it, he couldn’t have gone after the Penguin at all. Also, it was explicitly pointed out when he was testing it that he’d have to keep it charged. (In some pretty anvilicious foreshadowing.)
Normally, if he needs nightvision/infrared/whatever, he uses goggles.
As are the recent comic versions. (Well, mostly…he’s got umbrella-helicopters in Catwoman, but playing a bit to one of his gimmicks just makes him fit in the universe better.) (And the DCAU version only had flippers for the early seasons. The monstrous look showed up for a while in the comics, too, but they’ve reverted to perfectly human looks, now, thank the gods.)
He’s a completely normal (if short and not exactly going to win Sexiest Man Alive) human, intelligent (though not to the freaky levels that Joker, Riddler or Batman get), with oodles of money, slightly outdated fashion sense (a monocle? Really, Ozzie?), some unusual but not terribly out there quirks (always carries an umbrella, which is often a disguised weapon, is very into birds), and an impressive criminal organization under his control… He’d fit into a ‘realistic’ universe with fewer alterations than Scarecrow, Joker, Two-Face, Bane, or Ra’s al Ghul. (IE, the vast majority of the villains that were used in the Nolanverse trilogy.)
I think the easiest way to bring him into the Nolanverse (if the Nolanverse wasn’t over) would be to have Batman and the cops finally bring down the Falcone family, and have Cobblepot step in to fill the void. Base his outfits on the ones he currently wears, rather than the older white tie/morning dress ensemble, have his umbrellas be less flashy, both in their umbrella appearance and the hidden weaponry (stick to bullets would be the best choice)…voila, he fits in perfectly. [Edit - … Well…OK, get rid of the quacking laugh, too.]
