The Penguin, also known as Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, is one of Gotham City’s most infamous supervillains and, as a result, a Batman foe. Due to his complex past and intriguing arcs, he is also quite popular with the public.
In December 1941, artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger debuted this affluent, clever, and intellectual criminal mastermind in Detective Comics #58. He puts on the gentlemanly façade of Oswald Cobblepot. He is an angry, power-hungry criminal who is driven by rage beneath this mask.
Initially, he was known for his interest in ornithology and umbrellas with built-in electronics. He thereafter became the manager of the Iceberg Lounge, a prominent nightclub where he began to hide his unlawful funds. He basically uses it as a front to launder money. His deeds are slime, and he is unafraid of any crime, no matter how heinous. As the criminal kingpin of Gotham City, his power-hungry attitude leads him to rise to the top.
The Penguin has been a constant villain to challenge Batman since the Golden Age. He is noted for his weird personality quirks and bird-like appearance and has worked alongside the Joker and Catwoman. There is, however, a rationale for his fondness for birds. There is also a reason he is usually motivated by negative emotions like rage and vengeance.
Penguin, despite his wicked character, occasionally displays sympathy. He also has a special affection for his mum. In this video, we will discuss Penguin’s origin story, as well as some of his arcs, powers, and appearances in popular media.
The majority of villains do not turn into criminals overnight. They frequently have a past, or rather, a villain origin tale, that is tragic enough for the antagonist to sympathize with them. Of course, this does not excuse their actions, but it does provide us with a lot more information about their personalities and their motivations.
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Penguin’s Traumatizing Origin
In most origin stories, Penguin hails from an aristocratic family. And yet, his life is extremely rough from the very beginning.
Following his birth, his mother placed him in his father’s arms but his father took one look at his face and dropped him on his head. Oswald’s unfortunate facial features were to blame for that.
Oswald was loved by his mother. His father, however, held a polarizing belief towards his objectively unattractive child. In fact, he wouldn’t even let Oswald on the bed he shared with his wife and kept him near the foot of the bed, as if he were a domesticated animal. Oswald’s short stature, distinctive nose, and stout appearance were to blame.
He grew older and had brothers, but this only made things worse. Similar to their father, his brothers also looked at him with disgust. He was constantly teased and bullied by other kids as well. His nose was compared to that of a bird and they would tie his hands and legs to monkey bars, making him look like a bird hanging mid-air. When he would use the restroom, the kids at his school would bust him and say, “The penguin is laying an egg”. All of these experiences made childhood terrible for young Oswald.
Once, he had created an aviary by himself which was raided by his school bullies and his siblings. They tore down the nests and cracked every egg on the floor, while poor Oswald could do nothing but watch in horror.
The only friends Oswald had were other animals. Due to feeling secluded from a society that judged him by his appearance and tormented him, he would spend his time feeding the wild birds that visited his greenhouse. He eventually adopted ‘Penguin’ as his moniker, even though it was a term that was used to bully him. Because penguins are uncomfortable and clumsy in incompatible environments but can adapt depending on the situation, Oswald found it to be a fitting name. Penguins can also be swift and decisive when threatened, which Oswald embraced.
As a man who has been looked down upon and tormented since his birth, Penguin went on to harbor a lot of negative feelings within himself. His siblings Jason, Robert, and William died not long after. His father, Tucker Cobblepot, also passed away from pneumonia, and now Oswald was the sole heir to the Cobblepot Legacy. His mother, whom he cared for, could not take the trauma of losing three of her sons and her husband and became catatonic.
Penguin lived his life feeling like an outcast. Rage took over him and with vengeance on his mind, he sought revenge on his bullies. When he was being bothered by a group of prom queens, he set lo0se a small host of magpies on them. However, this turned out to make things worse for him as they beat him up with bats. He got home, wounded and bleeding. He then went to check on his adopted pets but one of them bit him. This enraged him further, as he considered the animals to be his best friends. He beat the pet to death in a fit of rage.
He graduated school and used his family’s fortune to set up the Iceberg Lounge, a socialite club. Being an outcast in the society from the start, he turned to a life of crime working, as an illegal boxing promoter and a criminal on the black markets of Gotham. As a criminal in Gotham, he was destined to face Batman one day and Penguin found himself on the opposite side of The Dark Knight quite a number of times.
A notable ornament carried by Penguin is his umbrella, which has its own backstory. After his father died of pneumonia, Penguin’s mother made him carry an umbrella at all times so that he could protect himself from the rain and not catch a cold bad enough to die. It eventually became his cane with which he used to walk, but it was also a sheath for his hidden blade.
However, this proves that despite growing up in the worst of circumstances, Penguin still got affection from his mother. Despite being fueled by rage and the lust for revenge, Penguin always harbored a soft corner for her.
Major Story Arcs
As Penguin is a very prominent villain who has opposed Batman, he has appeared in several arcs.
The Joker’s Asylum
The Penguin finds a prostitute named Veronica. She was caged at the black market. Having had a hard life himself, Penguin sympathized with her and took her in. Eventually, he began to fall for her. However, he ordered a series of murders during one of his rageful episodes out of jealousy. On learning about this, Veronica began to despise him. In the end, Penguin took her back to the black market and put her back in the cage he had gotten her from.
War Games
During one of Gotham’s large-scale gang wars, Penguin stays away from the frontline action. He works behind the scenes, selling weapons and supervillains such as the Electrocutioner and Firefly to the gangs. Batman sends in Tarantula to take down Penguin’s bodyguard Deadshot. Penguin is threatened to leave Gotham and he heads to Bludhaven. However, he would return to Gotham frequently to tend to his socialite club, the Iceberg Lounge.
Unresolved
In the Gotham Central story, Harvey Bullock breaks into the Iceberg Lounge and accuses Penguin of hiring the Mad Hatter for annihilating the 1996 Gotham Hawks championship team. However, Harvey is arrested instead, where he tells the detectives about Penguin’s involvement in the situation as he had allegedly lost a huge bet that involved the Hawks team.
When Harvey returns, he takes Penguin hostage and threatens to throw him off the roof. In the end, he is knocked unconscious after the detectives talk Harvey out of killing Penguin.
Infinite Crisis
The Penguin appeared in Infinite Crisis briefly during the Battle of Metropolis, which was started by the Secret Society of Super-Villains.
One Year Later
Several of Penguin’s men were killed while he was away from Gotham. Harvey Dent was framed for the murders when it was Great White who was involved in the wrongdoings. Great White wanted to weaken his competition as he wanted Gotham’s criminal syndicate, due to which the Penguin fell under his radar.
When Penguin returns, he reopens the Iceberg Lounge after claiming to have given up his stint as a criminal. He even urges the Riddler to avoid crime as he had found a more lucrative and legal venture, selling overpriced Penguin merchandise.
Gotham Underground
Batman hires Penguin to get access to his criminal contacts in Gotham. Meanwhile, Penguin is involved in a gang war with Intergang and Tobias Whale. He loses the war as well as Batman’s support, causing him to lose out on his social position.
Where is Batman/Brightest Day
Oswald has lost his mantle as Gotham’s crime boss, so he seeks out Johnny Stitches to get back Iceberg Lounge. However, his stake in Gotham’s underworld is threatened by Black Mask. Penguin joins forces with Mad Hatter and they manipulate Dick Grayson’s Batman to enforce them.
Black Mask is revealed to be Jeremiah Arkham, so Penguin enlists the aid of White Canary, Create, and Savant to destroy the Birds of Prey. Following the events, an enraged Huntress swears revenge against Penguin for being involved in a murder attempt against her teammates.
During a hectic night at Iceberg Lounge, which was closed due to renovation, he loses his cool at a waitress. He tries to hit her, but Hank Hall chimes in to stop him. Oswald is apparently roughed up as he is then seen in pajamas late at night trying to loot local convenience stores under orders from Bedbug.
Batman: Dark Knight
Batman infiltrates the Boom Room and finds a necklace that belonged to Dawn Golden, his childhood crush. However, it was a trap set up by Penguin to capture Batman. Batman overpowers Penguin’s security and interrogates Penguin, who refuses to budge. Batman is attacked by other members of the security who wielded high-tech weapons, allowing Penguin to escape. And yet, Batman catches up to him and beats him, demanding answers to his questions.
Killer Croc escapes police custody and attacks Batman, knocking him out. He awakens to being tied to a support beam, with a television in front of him. Penguin appears on screen and mocks Batman saying that Dawn Golden will not last long as the heat in her room is increasing. Turns out, Penguin harbored vengeance against her as she had mocked his appearance, like his bullies from the past.
Batman gets out of the room immediately and it explodes and searches for Dawn. He finds her in the basement and heads out after freeing her. Meanwhile, Penguin is seen interacting with a demon who is disappointed with his failures, as he failed to open the gates of Hell by sacrificing Dawn Golden.
Batman: Gates of Gotham
Dick Grayson cleans up after a bridge from the 1800s, built by the Waynes, Cobblepots, and the Elliots explodes. He then gets a tip about Penguin smuggling a hundred pounds of Semtex, which is a plastic explosive to Gotham as he had a potential buyer.
He meets Commissioner Barbara Gordon, who tells him about the Gotham Gazette’s chief editor receiving a mysterious note that stated, ‘the families will fall by the gates of Gotham’. He heads to interrogate Penguin and learns that Penguin had sold the Semtex to someone who used Oswald’s ancestor’s name as an alias and wore a strange costume.
Iceberg Lounge reopens, and Cassandra and Tim notice people fleeing from the club. Penguin seems to have discovered a bomb in his office as the perpetrator of the bridge explosion bore a grudge against the Cobblepots. Tim fails at disarming it and the Iceberg Lounge blows up, causing Penguin to find himself in utter disappointment. Seems like this man’s life is riddled with misery after misery.
Penguin: Pain and Prejudice
While leaving the Iceberg Lounge, Oswald bumps into a patron who insults him. After recognizing who he was, he apologizes profusely and Penguin lets it slide.
He asks his men to steal a Dragon Egg ruby from Barbara Chantell, a socialite from Gotham. They ambush and decapitate her to fetch the ruby which Oswald intends to give his mother as a gift for Mother’s Day. He then calls upon the man who had insulted him and claims that even though he will not harm him, he cannot say the same for his loved ones. He burns down the man’s building. They cause the man’s parents to get involved in an accident and make his girlfriend Jenny overdose on heroin. In the end, he gives the man a gun with a bullet and asks him to go outside to kill himself instead of staining the carpets with blood.
New 52
Detective Comics: Faces of Death
Penguin tries to take criminal territories and wipe out low-end criminals but his plans are foiled by Batman after he blows up innocent people and causes the death of Charlotte Rivers.
Dark Knight: Cycle of Violence
An employee steals a painting of Penguin’s mother. He interrogates him when Scarecrow walks in. Penguin turns him into a blimp to emit Super Fear Toxin 451-A all over Gotham.
Death of the Family
Penguin goes to a church to meet some criminals but they are found dead in a praying position. He then comes across Joker who refers to crime as religion and asks Penguin to join hands with him.
When Batman goes to catch Joker, he finds Penguin with Two-Face and Riddler, dressed up in period medieval costume. Their hostages were dressed like the Justice League and Joker asks Batman to sit on an electric chair, otherwise, the hostages would be killed. However, Joker betrays the others and traps Penguin and the others behind bars after completing his plan.
How Dangerous Is The Penguin?
Penguin is easily one of Batman’s most intelligent villains, equaling the likes of the Riddler. He rose up to the top in Gotham’s underworld as a superb, criminal mastermind. His excellence with planning allows him to turn any situation in his favor. He also has a love for ornithology and carries technology-fitted umbrellas, the latter being prevalent from his very character design.
Powers and Abilities
Penguin does not possess any superpowers so, his abilities rely upon his high-end intelligence.
Genius Level Intellect:
Ever since his childhood, Penguin was not blessed in the physical department, be it his appearance or his athleticism. As a result, he had to rely on a sharp intellect for the longest time. However, his brain always takes a sinister route, even if the decision needed to be made takes place in a very mundane scenario.
Business Management:
Oswald excels at business management, something that can be noted from the way he carries out his criminal operations. In fact, all of his operations were likely to be a raging success but Batman foiling his plans obviously does not work out in his favor. He has gone against the law and cooperated with the law to make money, with Iceberg Lounge being a legitimate nightclub while drugs were illegitimately sold there under the table.
Leadership:
Penguin is often seen around his henchmen. In fact, he travels with them for every criminal mission or even for mundane activities like going to the zoo. He has bodyguards, servants, chefs, villains, and several gang members under his control and he is only able to amass such a crowd due to his leadership qualities.
Avian Trainer:
Considering his close relationship with birds since a very young age, Penguin has great knowledge about them and excels at being an avian trainer, which benefits him in his criminal as well as personal endeavors. He has a special kinship with the African penguin.
Hand to Hand Combat (Advanced):
Penguin has spent quite some time learning martial arts to overpower the people who have insulted his appearance. He is a master at boxing and judo.
Cold Tolerance:
Penguins can tolerate freezing temperatures a lot longer than the average person. He has good resistance to hypothermia and frostbite. However, he does not have a superhuman tolerance for sub-freezing temperatures like Mr. Freeze and his ability is just on the far end of the regular human’s cold tolerance.
Tactical Analysis:
As a crime lord, Penguin has great tactical analysis which aids him against his opponents.
Weaknesses
Obsession:
Despite having several plus points, Penguin’s major weakness lies in his obsession with committing crimes with bird motifs and avian themes, which was predominant during the early stages of his career. This also made it easier to figure whether he is involved in a crime or not, putting him at a disadvantage.
It is understandable that he did it to gain a name and prominence in society considering how he spent his life as a social outcast. Instead of being an object of ridicule, he could now be a threat.
Paraphernalia
Weapons – Trick Umbrellas:
The Penguin is characterized by his usage of trick umbrellas. He uses an assortment of this weapon, often as a hidden blade. Some of his umbrellas have flight abilities due to motorization, which helps him with his escapades in narrow situations.
Now, if we talk about the threat he poses, Penguin has a decent arsenal of feats up his sleeve that makes him quite the menace for The Dark Knight. Let’s explore some of those moments:
Murdered the Waynes
This is not canon in DC’s mainstream universe where Thomas and Martha Wayne were killed by muggers. However, in Batman: Earth One comic series, the writers of DC have explored an alternate scenario where Oswald Cobblepot is responsible for ordering a hit to murder the Waynes. So, even without pulling the trigger, he is as responsible as Joe Chill for creating Batman since he is the puppeteer pulling the strings behind the scenes.
By doing this, Penguin was able to amass a lot of political power in Gotham, now that the Waynes were dead.
Manipulated Someone To The Point Of Suicide
Penguin has used his malicious intellect to manipulate the life of one of his chefs, causing him to commit suicide. The chef had once laughed at his direction, not at him, just at his direction. Penguin, traumatized by being laughed at since birth, took it personally and made the chef’s life as miserable as he could. In the end, the chef could not handle the pressure and ended up killing himself.
Penguin’s trauma is understandable but his subsequent actions are way out of pocket. All that money and he still does not go for therapy.
Got Romantically Involved With A Real Penguin
Penguin and Bane were involved in a mutual plan to take down Batman and reign over Gotham. However, after Bane betrays Penguin by killing his beloved Penny, Penguin switches sides and tries to join hands with Batman. He also reveals how Bane was secretly running his shenanigans from Arkham Asylum.
When Penguin talks about his love for Penny, people believe that it might be a woman he has fallen for. However, while revealing some details about her, he mentions Penny having feathers and a beak which causes the audience to think that he is romantically interested in a real penguin named Penny. As gross as this may sound, this has never been confirmed officially.
Tried To Kill Jim Gordon’s Wife
Jean Paul Valley’s Batman took the spotlight during Batman comics’ Knightfall era. Penguin played a rather small role during this time but he used the little attention to cement his position as a super manipulative villain that plagues Gotham.
He turns himself in after getting Commissioner Gordon’s wife kidnapped. He then taunts Gordon and rubs salt on the wound by pointing out his incapability in finding his wife. Batman shows up after finding her, so all is good, but Penguin had managed to get under Gordon’s skin by that time.
Abandoned His Son Ethan
As someone who has had a horrible relationship with his father, you would expect Penguin to not repeat it and try to be a decent father. But that does not happen when Penguin is shown to have a son in his mid-20s named Ethan, in one of Batgirl’s storylines.
We learn that Ethan tries his best to keep his distance from Penguin, not because his father is a criminal but because Penguin had abandoned him immediately after his birth. Ethan only got his father’s financial support.
Ethan reveals his evil plans to Penguin, hoping to bond with his criminal father, but his advances are rejected until Penguin sees Ethan’s potential and decides to use it for his own benefit. Daddy issues.
Colin Farrell’s Casting As The Penguin In Matt Reeves’ The Batman (2022)
Matt Reeves’ The Batman starring Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne or Batman, Zoe (pronounced: Zo-ey-) Kravitz as Selina Kyle or Catwoman, and Paul Dano as The Riddler is one of 2022’s most highly anticipated releases.
Penguin will also be making an appearance in the movie, albeit not in a very prominent role, but it still has fans from all across the world excited. The character will be portrayed by Colin Farrell. Initially, this decision raised a lot of eyebrows and of course, it would be hard for anyone to walk the same path as the likes of Burgess Meredith and Danny DeVito, who have both played Penguin in the past and knocked it out of the park.
Recently, new images from The Batman have been circulating on the internet, where we get to see Colin decked up in his Penguin attire. The get-up is quite accurate to the comics, which makes us more excited to see what’s about to come.
Trailers and exclusive clips from the movie have also been released before and yet, we are still under the rock when it comes to where the plot could go. So, it is hard to say how Penguin will tie up with the plot. With The Riddler being one of the more prominent characters in the movie, it is likely that Farrell’s Penguin will be tied to The Riddler in terms of storyline.
Farrell has confirmed that the Penguin does not hog much of the screen time, with only nine minutes under his wing in a movie that is longer than two hours. To maintain continuity in the verse, the Penguin might appear quite late into the movie as an introductory character which will be expanded in future Batman films.
DC went through a rough patch with its cinematic universes, especially with the DCEU. With Colin Farrell’s Penguin looking comic accurate and Robert Pattinson’s Batman being promising, Matt Reeves’ The Batman has a likelihood to make it big.
Creative And Terrifying Versions Of Penguin In Various Forms Of Media: Explored
Since Penguin is a very popular villain, he has appeared in several forms of media beyond the comics; be it films, television, animated series, or video games.
Films
Burgess Meredith played Penguin in the 1966 live-action movie Batman directed by Leslie H. Martinson. Here, Penguin appeared alongside other notorious Batman villains such as Joker, Catwoman, and The Riddler.
Penguin and the other villains try to outsmart The Dark Knight in the movie but ultimately, fail. Meredith’s performance went on to garner praise from the critics as well as the audience. This brings us to…
1992’s Batman Returns. Directed by Tim Burton, we get to see Danny DeVito step into the role of the Penguin and pull it off with nothing but sheer excellence. He also has a very different origin story. He was born with a deformed body that gave him hands like flippers. He gets abandoned by his rich parents and thrown into the sewers. The penguins of the zoo take up the responsibility of raising him. Wonder how he learned English.
Television
The 1960s had a Batman live-action television series where Burgess Meredith played Penguin. In 2014, Robin Lord Taylor took over this role when he appeared in the FOX television series Gotham, a story set in a timeline that follows Gotham right after the murders of Thomas and Martha Wayne.
Taylor has a prominent role with Oswald Cobblepot, who has just begun his journey and is set to be the Penguin in the future. His left leg takes a hit following a revenge assault, from where he gets his trademark waddle limp. Anytime anyone compared his walk to that of a penguin, great anger took over Taylor’s Penguin.
Animation
He also appears in the 1980s animated series, Super-Friends, where he is played by Frank Weller. Paul Williams voices him in the iconic Batman: The Animated Series and the New Batman Adventures. Tom Kenny voices him in The Batman and Stephen Root voices him in Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
Video Games
Penguin also makes his appearance in several video games such as Batman Arkham Asylum and Batman Arkham City. Presently, fans are excited to see him in the upcoming live-action Batman movie by Matt Reeves. What did you think of Penguin? Did you enjoy this video? If yes, then don’t forget to like and comment on this video. Till then, goodbye. And have a nice one!