The Penguin Appeciation Thread

[The Joker]

I'm glad you've discovered the brilliance of Meredith's Penguin. He's definitely my favorite on screen adaption of Penguin, too. Captures the Golden Age character perfectly. That's how Penguin should be. He should be elegant and aristocratic, but with a sinister ruthless side, and a sardonic sense of humor.

I love that scene where he handles Batman and Robin coming into his umbrella shop and threatening to haul him back to prison, and he just calmly and gleefully brushes off their threats telling them they have nothing on him.

 

[The Joker]

Meredith's Penguin and Romero's Joker both appear more than any other villains on the show. 10 episodes each, and one of them is a three parter where they team up together. So you'll be seeing plenty more of Penguin.

Yeah, several writers have said Penguin is quite agile, and some even showed him working out in a gym. Alan Grant really promoted that angle in The Killing Peck and Detective #610 and 611.

Do you mean other types of birds in the comics or the TV show?

 

[The Joker]

I sincerely doubt Ledger looked to the campy Joker for any inspiration in his performance.

In the TV show I don't recall Penguin using any other birds besides carrier pigeons. Though he does use little penguin robots later on as weapons.

 

[The Joker]

I think they're just both high energetic laughs. But I sincerely doubt he looked at any past Joker actors for inspiration. That was something he and Nolan were trying to actively avoid.

Actually the budget for the first two seasons of the show was pretty good. Always good costumes and production design for a 60's TV show. It's season 3 where the budget drops and a lot of the sets look really shoddy and cheap.

Love the Penguin art piece.

 

[The Joker]

Writers often do hat. Re-tool an origin for a character by blending previous ones they had.

 

[Cain]

I definitely saw a lot of Romero-isms in Ledger's performance. I also noticed some Jack too. Whether that was intentional or not is another story but I suppose considering the role we're talking about it was an unavoidable coincidence.

Definitely see some of Burgess' Penguin in DeVito's too. Which makes sense considering that Danny DeVito spoke a lot about how much he loved Meredith's Penguin during the press tour for BR.

 

[Cain]

Mike Mignola made it, he’s the creator of Hellboy if you didn’t know, and he apparently made a couple of character designs for Bruce Timm during the time of BTAS. I love his artwork.

Mike Mignola has quite a history with Batman's world.

One of the most recent contributions from him that I dug the most was his cover for Detective Comics #700 which was an homage to the cover from Batman #168.

His "The Doom that Came to Gotham" is an excellent and often forgotten little gem BTW. It's an interesting amalgamation of the standard pulpy Golden Age Batman tropes with the Lovecraftian influences that you find all over his Hellboy series.

 

[The Joker]

Definitely see some of Burgess' Penguin in DeVito's too. Which makes sense considering that Danny DeVito spoke a lot about how much he loved Meredith's Penguin during the press tour for BR.

Did he really? That's awesome. He also recently complimented Robin Lord-Taylor's Penguin on the Gotham TV show.

Wasn't Burgess supposed to play Pee Wee Herman's role as Penguin's father in BR?

 

[Penguin]

That’s interesting; I’ll try to look for that comic. Seeing that cover, do Joker’s origins always include him falling into a vat of chemicals? I’m curious as I’ve read the Killing Joke and they incorporated the chemical scarring thing into it.

That’s awesome! I think you can really see Meredith’s influence during the scene in BR where Batman and Penguin are talking to each other, and he says he can’t win. During the scene DeVito would occasionally chuckle and it sounded similar to Meredith’s squawking laughter.

Also, here’s my personal favorite Golden Age Penguin story, he’s pretty ruthless in this one.

- Detective Comics #67

 

[Cain]

That’s interesting; I’ll try to look for that comic. Seeing that cover, do Joker’s origins always include him falling into a vat of chemicals?

More or less yes.

His original origin by Bill Finger is a lab guy turned criminal who dons the red hood and dives in a vat of chemicals during an encounter with Batman.

The Killing Joke is the post-crisis version of that story this time he's a down on his luck comedian that turns to crime to support his family. During an encounter with Batman while under the red hood he falls in a vat of chemicals.

The Man Who Laughs is a post-crisis story where Batman first deduces that Red Hood and Joker are the same.

Paul Dini wrote a famous story in Batman: Black & White that pretty much retells the golden age story but with the joker being a "super sane" criminal all along.

Batman Confidential was a series that was used to fill in continuity gaps after Infinite Crisis remixed the DCU. When it told the Joker origin (Lovers and Madmen) it combined golden age with the 1989 movie (he's a gangster named Jack who's face is disfigured by Batman before his chemical dip).

In the New 52 Batman origin Zero Year the origin is once again a criminal leader of the red hood gang falling into a vat of chemicals during an encounter with the Batman.

 

[Penguin]

Ah, yeah, I remember seeing that origin with him getting the cut smile on Joker’s blog.

I guess it’s really who he was before the accident is the mystery, just the chemical bath finally snapped him to the other side.

Oh, and I finally read Penguin: Triumphant, and that’s got to be my favorite Penguin story next to the Snow and Ice story. Thanks for recommending that, Cain, it was brilliant. It’s exactly how Penguin should be in that story.

 

[The Joker]

Penguin Triumphant, where he has those fantasies in his mind that he's a slim handsome gentleman thief who is still called Penguin, and it's set in old 19th century England, and Batman is a Constable to Gordon lol.

Penguin was awesome in that story. I loved how it incorporated two people from his past, both of whom he got sweet revenge on. He basically showed Bethany Wilcox that she was just a gold digger.

 

[Cain]

Oh, and I finally read Penguin: Triumphant, and that’s got to be my favorite Penguin story next to the Snow and Ice story. Thanks for recommending that, Cain, it was brilliant. It’s exactly how Penguin should be in that story.

You're quite welcome. Glad to hear you enjoyed it

 

[Penguin]

The ending was great because Penguin knew he was the winner, and I liked the part when Batman is talking to Robin and tells him how Penguin is smarter than he is. I could believe that and it shows that in the end, Batman usually has to use his villain’s obsessions against them in order to win.

 

[The Joker]

Bumping with a couple of panels from one of my fav Penguin stories. One of Alan Grant's finest;

 

[Penguin]

Such a great story, besides Penguin Triumphant, the mini-series, and Secret Origins Special, that two-parter has to be my favorite. Goes to show that you don’t need to be a particularly intimidating villain appearance-wise, you just need the attitude.

 

[BatmanFan333]

Penguin is brilliant character.

 

[The Joker]

^ Hooray another Penguin fan. Welcome.

Have any fav Penguin stories? On screen interpretations?

 

[DOBSON10]

Penguin is my second favorite Batman villain behind The Joker. Really hope to see him show up in this DCU.

 

[Penguin]

My best friend gave me this comic recently and I found it to be really good, I love the tension and argument between him and Gordon in it.

- Showcase '94 #7

Penguin is my second favorite Batman villain behind The Joker. Really hope to see him show up in this DCU.

Penguin is my favorite villain, but Joker will always be number one, though I’d place Penguin right behind him. I would like to see them put him in one of the new movies.

 

[Cain]

Penguin is my number 3 Batvillain after Two-Face (number 1) and The Joker (#2).

I also want to see Batfleck eventually trade barbs and play mind games with The Penguin.

 

[The Joker]

My best friend gave me this comic recently and I found it to be really good, I love the tension and argument between him and Gordon in it.

- Showcase '94 #7

Wonderful issue. Penguin gets the interrogation room treatment here. He's superb in it. As is Gordon.

I love how Penguin, like Gordon, knows Batman well enough to know that AzBats is not the real Batman they all know.

 

[Penguin]

I love Two-Face as well; I think he’d be tied with Joker for me. I’d really like to see Two-Face in one of the new movies. I liked him in the Dark Knight, but I wish he had more screen time.

The argument Penguin had with Gordon made me so happy, I really like to see them interact with each other. That was another thing I liked about it too. Penguin has faced him so much that he seen through the disguise.

Most definitely, Penguin matching wits with Batman would be great to see. I would be so excited to see the Iceberg Lounge in live action; can you imagine how stylish it would look?

 

[The Joker]

That particular issue also shows it age, in terms of when it was written, because Penguin asks Gordon if he's seen the new movie Jurassic Park. And if anyone's wondering why he asked Gordon that it's because of the theory it proposes about how dinosaurs didn't die but just evolved into birds.

 

[ThePhantasm]