History of The Penguin

[Music] what's up my comic comrads with matt reeves the batman hitting theaters tomorrow it's time to do some deep dives on some of the characters appearing in the movie and we're going to lead off with the history of the penguin who's being portrayed by colin farrell in the movie we all know the penguin has a rich history in comics and geekdom as one of batman's most notorious enemies but this latest interpretation of the character in the batman looks pretty incredible and unique i also have to say colin farrell's makeup transformation in the movie is one

of the best and most unrecognizable i've ever seen in any case it's time to break down the history of one of the most iconic villains of all time the penguin [Music] the penguin was created by writer bill finger and artist bob kane and first appeared in detective comics issue 58 in december of 1941. penguin's full name is oswald chesterfield cobblepot and whether you're a comic book fan or not you know who the penguin is he's one of those combo characters that became so popular he transcends the genre for instance i feel like it would be

hard to find someone who doesn't know that the penguin is a gotham city mobster who just so happens to think of himself as a gentleman of crime maybe i have too much faith in the general population's comic knowledge but nonetheless i feel like almost everyone knows who he is and what he's about but what most people might not know is his complex origin so let's take a look at just that the penguin's original origin was given to us in 1989's secret origin special in the story titled the killing peck in the story we see the

penguin kidnap a redheaded man named sharky due to his metal teeth he then ties him up in the basement and starts torturing him like tasing him with his umbrella and having his men force-feed sharky fish the story then takes us to the past where we see a young oswal in school being picked on by a red-headed kid do you see where this is going anyway oswald tells the boy i don't like fish my mom never makes me the boy then slams his head down in the plate of fish saying don't be a stupid bird beak

everybody knows penguins just love fish then in the present the penguin says you were the first one to ever call me penguin sharky i gotta thank you in fact i will have another fish so clearly the penguin has tracked down his childhood bully and is now getting revenge anyway we are then taken back to the past where we see a young sharky continue to pick on a young oswald saying give me that stupid thing while taking his umbrella oswald replies please sharky can i have it back my mom insists i carry it sharky says for

what to ward off the sun he says no as protection against pneumonia my dad died you see alluding that his mom wants him to carry the umbrella to protect him in the rain so he won't catch pneumonia like his father did which unfortunately killed him but sharky says i'll save it fatso and then starts beating him with the umbrella oswald then says i never did anything to you why do you keep picking on me he replies because you look like a penguin stupid essentially we learned that oswald was picked on as a kid because of

the way he looked and because of how he awkwardly carried himself penguin then says abused confused outcast i turn to the loves of my life my books and my birds my only friends back in the present the penguin says to sharky you bullied me humiliated me tortured me all through school we were then brought back into the past where the penguin is at school at a halloween party and sharky forces him to wear a tuxedo and a top hat that's too small for him with sharky saying look everybody now he really is a penguin as

he kicks him over saying slippery little devil too while all the kids laugh at him saying cobblepot is a penguin basically we see that cobblepot was picked on so much as a child that it drove him to a life of crime to get revenge on the people of gotham who picked on him yes sharky was his main bully but that wasn't the only person who picked on him so after finishing school he adopted and owned the name penguin becoming one of gotham's greatest mob bosses and villains now that's the penguin's pre-crisis origin as for his

post-crisis one it's very similar so let's quickly run through that one as well penguin's pre-crisis origin is given to us in the six issue mini-series penguin pain and prejudice we see that when he was born his mother says oswald chesterfield cobblepot you are a beautiful boy but the doctor says ma'am the baby appears to be mr cobblepot sir perhaps a word with you in private before you grab your son he says nonsense let's have a peek at the little fella and when he holds him he says the hell is this as he sees something is

wrong with his son as well as having a deformed nose he then drops his newborn son on the floor showing just how much of a stand up guy mr cobblepot is and that he's going to be a great father if you didn't catch that that was extreme sarcasm we then see a few months later oswald's mom saying who is a beautiful boy you are yes you are his father then says i don't want him sleeping in the bed with us anymore but then his mom insists saying babies need contact besides he feels safe when he's

close to his mama he likes to watch me kaopat's father then says fine then let him watch this as he starts making a move on her with her saying darling careful now as we see oswald push to the foot of the bed yeah this whole situation is kind of disturbing and weird i don't like it but that's clearly the point anyway in issue one of the five issue mini-series we see much of what we saw from penguin's original origin being picked on from children at school because of his appearance penguin even says people hate what

is ugly what is weak it is the mirror of their own worst fears a reminder of what awaits us all sickness frailty death the existential joke if i am a mayor for them so are they for me i know how to hate too i took what companionship i was offered and found beauty where i could as we see him develop a fondness to birds essentially much like his original origin cobblepot was an outcast but this time his father even rejected him as he came from a high society family who strived for greatness and all this

rejection would eventually drive penguin to a life of crime and you guys know where it goes from there with that said let's jump into penguin's story arcs and publication history [Music] the penguin being one of the most iconic and oldest batman villains has a bunch of history throughout the comics aka a lot of story arcs but we're just gonna generalize here and give you the cliff notes with that said of course we have to start with his very first appearance in detective comics issue 58 back from 1941 here we see the penguin steel art from

gotham's art museum as a way to prove himself as a credible mobster in gotham city but eventually ended up shooting the boss he was trying to join after getting into an argument with him how did he do this you ask well of course by shooting him with the gun built into his umbrella at this point he became the mob's new leader by stealing a bunch of art pieces around the city which of course got the attention of batman and robin but the penguin is crafty it would frame batman for one of his own thefts he

would then break batman out of jail to make him look even more guilty but batman and robin were able to find the evidence they needed to prove their innocence and while they were able to capture several members of penguin's mob the penguin got away that's right they didn't even defeat him in their first confrontation with him throughout the golden and silver age the penguin was a traditional villain there was nothing too crazy about him he would just steal lots of jewels art pieces and things of value although a lot of the times they were bird

related however once he entered the modern age of comic books and after the crisis on infinite earth's reboot penguin was way more of a deadly villain and an adversary for batman he became one of the most feared mob bosses in gotham selling weapons and all sorts of things on the black market anyway as for more story arcs besides his first appearance story and skipping some years we have gotham central issue 22 from the gotham central unresolved target storyline with that said the penguin played a pretty big role in the gotham central story but in issue

22 harvey bullock breaks into the penguin's iceberg lounge pointing a gun at penguin's head accusing him of having the mad hatter kill the 1996 gotham hawks championship baseball team literally saying i know it was you ozzy you got mad hatter to kill all those kids but that backfires on harvey as he's arrested for assaulting the penguin he then tells the detectives his theory about the penguin and long story short harvey eventually takes penguin hostage on a roof threatening to throw him off for what he did to those kids but he's talked out of it by

detectives driver and mcdonald so harvey settles for knocking the penguin unconscious this is just one of those stories that shows you how ruthless the penguin is where he's willing to kill an entire high school team another great penguin story takes place in batman war games essentially gotham city is driven into a huge gang war and penguin is indirectly involved because instead of literally being on the streets shooting and looting he instead sells weapons as well as certain villains like the executioner or firefly to various gangs but when batman gets wind of this he's like nah

not gonna happen so he sends tarantula to defeat penguin's bodyguard deadshot tarantula then holds the penguin at gunpoint saying you need to leave gotham now penguin tries to bribe tarantula but it doesn't work so he flees to bloodhaven where he fills in the void left by blockbuster but of course he still returns to gotham to chuck in on his iceberg lounge other great storylines include batman underground where he's hired by batman as a snitch and uses his criminal contacts to give batman an edge over the criminals of gotham city then you also have batman gates

of gotham penguin pain and prejudice which gives us his modern origin and i went over earlier in the origin segment then during the new 52 we got detective comics faces of death here the penguin opens up the iceberg casino at which point he tries to get rid of several low-end criminals to take their territories for himself but of course he stopped by the batman when his plans involve blowing up innocence the new 52 also gave us the dark knight cycle of violence where the penguin interrogates an employee who stole a painting from cobblepot's mother the

penguin also plays a small role in the death of the family story arc where towards the end of the story he dresses up as a bishop with the joker saying you're a man of the cloth bishop cobblepot who cultivates the city's true religion vice then in the doomsday clock story from dc rebirth which is a sequel to watchmen we see that penguin is one of the several villains to attend an underground meeting that's held by the riddler they're there to talk about the superman theory but with that said i think it's time we move on

to powers and abilities everyone knows that the penguin doesn't have any super human or meta human abilities so why is he one of batman's most iconic and persistent villains well the answer is simple as i often say what makes a great villain isn't necessarily his or her powers but rather their mind and the penguin is one of batman's most intelligent villains he's actually considered to be just as smart as the riddler which i feel may be shocking to some people case in point the penguin is a brilliant planner and strategist he can make almost every

single situation fall in his favor to the point where even batman has called him intelligent despite his stature and appearance he is a fantastic leader and organizer who has tons of underworld connections and kind of like catwoman with cats penguin is known to have sort of a psychic connection with birds because of this he also uses birds and penguins to help him with his various robberies and this might be shocking to some of you but despite not being a terrifying person at first glance oswald is actually an expert in judo and has been trained in

bare knuckle boxing so he can actually hold his own and have spot batman several times but i want to end this on his smarts once when bruce was talking to tim drake in the batcave he told tim that cobblepot is ruthless vindictive calculating inventive and perhaps the most brilliant man he's ever fought that says a lot he finishes up by saying he's smarter than i am tim then asks you're kidding right how come you always catch him if he's smarter than you bruce tells them i know something about obsessions tim i'm aware of my faults

and make them work for me most of the time essentially saying that penguin is not and is blinded by his own obsessions which of course is batman but now i think you know a little bit more about the penguin's skill set so let's move on to reading recommendations [Music] if you want some good penguin reading recommendations check out joker's asylum penguin batman year one penguin triumphant penguin pride and prejudice and of course his first appearance detective comics issue 58. [Music] first up for the week of march 2nd we have justice league 73 the justice league

and justice league dark team up to navigate the remade world of chaos all of the heroes must come together to save what's left of the world they have dedicated their lives to protecting but has dr fate gone bad unfortunately it looks like he has next up we have devil's reign spider-man issue one the events of devil's reign one and two have put spidey in an awful position as if that weren't enough the newly returned rose has spidey in his crosshairs and wants to prove that he's better than his dad kingpin ever was third in line

we have black panther issue four shuri's life hangs in the balance and with t'challa off planet things are not looking good but before t'challa can help his sister the truth will finally come out has the assassins ringleader finally been caught fourth on our list we have dark knights of steel issue 5. betrayals and assassinations have brought the world to the brink of war as the kingdom of storms and themselves prepare for invasion the elf family is reunited at last to mourn their father but what secrets does bruce wayne have that can prove vital to the

future of the land and last but not least we have rogue sun issue 1. yesterday new orleans greatest hero rogue son was murdered today rebellious teenager dylan siegel discovers that rogue's son was his estranged father marcus and he's inherited his father's mantle tasked with protecting our world from the forces of the supernatural and solving his father's murder dylan will be forced to come to terms with the man he spent the majority of his life hating and that's going to bring today's batman themed episode to a close but if you liked today's video we got one

right here for you and if you like our content subscribe like and comment it always helps the channel grow but other than that like i always say guys i'll see you next time when i talk about all things comics