If you were unfortunate enough to see the 2024 Joker 2 movie, then you really need to see this movie…because you probably need to detoxify yourself from that experience, if you get my drift. The movie am talking about is another notable villain of the batman franchise, The Penguin.
The Penguin made his first appearance in Detective Comics #58 in December 1941, created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger.
The Penguin miniseries on the other hand, was developed by showrunner Lauren LeFranc for HBO, based on the DC Comics character of the same name. The series produced by DC Studios in association with Warner Bros. Television, serves as a spin-off to the 2022 film The Batman, and details the extraordinary story of Oswald ‘Oz’ Cobb aka The Penguin’s rise to power in Gotham City‘s criminal underworld.
First things first, I didn’t think it was possible to build a story so compelling around the character of the Penguin, that we wouldn’t need to see batman throughout the whole series and still be glued to a narrative about his hallowed city.
Infact, I totally forgot about the night crusader until the very end of the series, when his bat signal was splashed across the night sky. So, I felt two ways about that line of reasoning, one, Kudos to the writers of the Penguin series for pulling such a hard feat because Gotham city is synonymous to Batman and Vise versa, so managing to create a story about Gotham without the dark knight any where in the narrative is genius. That brings me to the second point, how plausible is it to talk about crime, introduce a new drug to the city of Gotham and leave a trail of dead bodies on the street and even set off a bomb underneath Gotham without anyone ever making a reference to Batman; highly unlikely.
That being said The Penguin series is a well-cooked narrative, Collin Farell’s performance as Oz Cobb was stellar; from his inspirational mentorship of Victor, the boy he found on the street, to his winning the hearts of the most vicious mob factions in the city, convincing them to follow his course. If the penguin was an entrepreneur, he would be a damned good one.
Because he single-handedly built an empire, creating organic demand for a new drug called bliss, by doing a live test of the drug at a club to convince his potential investors, the triad faction. This was a genius move that most entrepreneurs wouldn’t have the balls to do.
The best thing about The Penguin series in my opinion, is batman’s absence. So, no swoop and save, no superhero one-liners, and no near discovery of secret identities. Just the story of a psychologically challenged kid with an unhealthy dose of love for his mother, brought about by the guilt of killing his brothers; and a desire to rule the criminal underworld and make his mother proud of him.
A lot to digest, right?
The 8-part mini-series completely broke my heart at the end with something so unexpected that I began questioning the sanity of the writers. So go look up The Penguin series on HBO or if you’ve seen it already, hit the comment section with what you think about it and let’s talk.
-Henri Yire
