The Penguin

43 years ago - Oswald Cobblepot is born, his mother exiled to Gotham from England by a local crime lord for his father's theft.

29 years ago - 14-year-old Oswald becomes a low-level runner for Tony Zucco, a capo to the Maroni family.

24 years ago - 19-year-old Oswald is paid by Carmine Falcone to kill Sal Maroni's father Luigi. He is sent back to England where he kills the man gunning for his family and takes over his gun-running operation.

18 years ago - 25-year-old Oswald returns to Gotham. His operations are investigated by private investigator Slam Bradley as he investigates missing dock worklers while Cobblepot quietly takes over all of Gothams docks. Bradley is unable to prove anything and has to let the case go.

14 years ago - 29-years-ago Oswald takes over Tony Zucco's territory when they are brought down by Batman & Robin. He attones for the death of Sal Maroni's father Luigi, allying himself with the Maronis as they end the truce with Carmine Falcone.

12 years ago - 31-year-old Oswald secretly agrees to a non-aggression pact with Carmine Falcone.

11 years ago - 32-year-old Oswald hires Julian Gregory Day & Jonathan Crane to kill Alberto Falcone, son of Carmine Falcone, in the middle of Roman Sionis's bid to take over Sal Maroni's organization. He quickly moves to take over Falcone's territory, establishing himself as the main rival to Black Mask.

10 years ago - 33-year-old Oswald, one of the only criminals in Gotham that can stand up to him, hires the Joker to sew chaos with Roman Sionis's organization, driving him to accept a truce with Oswald, allowing him to appear to 'go legitimate' with the Iceburg Lounge while Black Mask appears to run all of Gotham. He discovers Solomon Grundy in Gotham's undercity, and traps Batman there, forcing them to fight.

9 years ago - 34-year-old Oswald plays a game of poker against Victor Zsasz, taking him for everything he has. His men supply the stolen joker venom that is fused to reporter Jack Ryder by Felix Faust, inadvertently creating the Creeper.

5 years ago - 38-year-old Oswald props up failed mayor Rupert Thorne as a figurehead of Roman Sionis's organization after he is killed by Selina Kyle to continue to appear legitimate.

4 years ago - 39-year-old Oswald breaks up his organixation under a variety of underbosses after Jean Paul Valley kills Rupert Thorne, now the sole head of organized crime in Gotham. Arnold Wesker takes over a portion ofThorne's territory after his death, paying up to Cobblepot becoming a rival & underling.

3 years ago - 40-year-old Oswald allies with Lex Luthor to act as a source of vital resources during No Man's Land, amassing a fortune.

2 years ago - 41-year-old Oswald 's territory is threatened by Tobias Whale, leading to open warfare between gangs in the streets of Gotham. He plans to use an Zeplin loaded with Joker Venom as a weapon, but the command codes are stolen by Stephanie Brown.

1 year ago - 42-year-old Oswald's thugs try to expand their territory into the East End, but when they beat up Karon, Holly Robinson goes on a mission to push them out. His underbosses begin to report being shaken down by the Red Hood.

For a very long time if you were to name Batman villains, the second name that would pop up in your mind after the Joker would be the Penguin. In a rogues gallery of colorful thieves, he had a different silhouette and a clever gimick with his umbrellas, and it worked well within the framework of the classic cartoonish Batman.

The world of Batman was slowly, deliberately changed into something more deliberately dark and serious, and slowly each of those classic villains was reimagined. The Penguin became more dangerous, but his overall modus operandi didn't change that much. It took some innovations made outside the comics, most notably in the Animated Series, to find a very particular role in the world of Gotham that he just so happened to fill better than anyone.

The Penguin's Comic History

The Penguin first appeared in 1941. He was a rolly-polly master thief, a sort of visual gag that was not uncommon in that era; Alfred actually had a similar look in his first appearance. Much like the rest of Batman's rogue's gallery he was a fairly harmless character that specialized in theft rather than mayhem. This was the verison of the character that was gleefully depicted by Burgess Meredith in the 60's era Batman series.

He was the main antagonist in the 1992 Tim Burton movie Batman Returns where he was reimagined as a sort of mutated sewer monster leading an army of rocket-pack sporting Penguins. It was a weird idea, to be sure, but it did advance that character away from his classic cartoony appearance. In the same year Batman: the Animated Series invented the idea of the Iceburg Lounge, the Penguin's nightclub where he operated under a veil of legitimacy. This was a very clever way to take a pretty healthy dose of the original Penguin and carve a place for it in the modern world of Batman; he was one of the few Batman villains that wasn't insane at all, he was a brutally cunning crime boss that was able to operate under Batman's nose, occasionally agreeing to deal with the Dark Knight if it meant keeping him away from his businesses.

This version of the character persisted, and now almost every version of the Penguin you see is depicted as being above street level crime, sometimes even running for Mayor of Gotham.

Our Peguin Story

The Penguin is a character that really only needs you to USE him for him to come across as an incredibly compelling character. If you let him sit on the sidelines, he's just a funny looking holdover from Batman's goofier years. (Full disclosure, there's a certain nostalgic appeal to that classic Burgess Meredith Penguin.)

Every modern version of the character, however, has depicted a brutal and ruthless crimeboss that is just as at home leading his organization from his mobster-classic nightclub as he is interacting with the psychopaths of Gotham. You could never imagine Carmine Falcone getting into a turf war with the Joker, but the Penguin absolutely could.

We built his story by really focusing on the development of organized crime in Gotham. By making him start as a low level runner working his way up the organization we get to make him part of the building blocks of the city, a role that fits him perfectly. We've also deliberately sent him away to England for a time, allowing him to both be a Gotham native AND an outsider that came in with his own brand of criminality. He's continually a part of all the operations of Gotham, maneuvering in the background as different figureheads take over territory while he is content to sit in the background and profit off of everything.

The Penguin's Costume

Narratively speaking, there are really three versions of the Penguin. They don't vary THAT much and have been largely allowed to co-exist, but to craft the visual for our Penguin we should at least acknowledge them. First, there's the idea that Oswald is the child of a wealthy Gotham family that has fallen from grace; that once upon a time the Cobblepots would be named in the same breath as the Waynes. The second is the more monsterous version of the Penguin that was depicted in the Tim Burton movie as played by Danny Devito. This version doesn't really appear in most comic depictions, but the fingerprints of that design are still on the character.

The most popular version of the character (the one we see in the Fox series Gotham) is a character that started off in a unassuming imagrant family and slowly worked his way up the organized crime ladder of Gotham until he stood on top of it all. There are also versions of this character that suggest that he is actually a recent transplant from England (you'll sometimes see the character speak with a heavy cockney accent) who is bringing a particularly brutal Guy Ritchie-esque english mobster vibe to the character. This is the version you see in the Arkham Knight games, and I happen to be a fan of that version (sans the broken bottle monacle... because... why?) This is the style of Penguin that seems the most narratively engaging, so we're using that.

The Penguin's Future

As we leave the Penguin's timeline, we're in the middle of seeing his hold on Gotham's organized crime shaken for the very first time. He's thrived by keeping himself largely out of the spotlight and appearing, at least officially, to be a legitimate businessman, but when Red Hood first begins taking over criminal territory in Gotham he presents a challenge Oswald is unprepaired for; a competitor that actually uses lethal versions of Batman's tactics.

The Penguin is actually an ideal foil for Red Hood, because he's a character that has essentially thrived under Batman's watch. His ability to hide all his criminal behavior has kept him from having to answer for his crimes, but Jean-Paul would be attacking him from the one place where he is actually vulnerable, an angle Batman would never take; by taking over his organization.

For a character designed to primarily be a sight gag, the Penguin has become an incredibly prolific foil to the Batman family without ever really having to evolve that much. It goes to show that all you really have to do to make a character formidable is to take them seriously.

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