How normal as a villain do you like the penguin?
Do you prefer him to be kind of a deformed crazy guy like the tim burton version or have some other psychotic ticks to make him stand out amongst the batman rogues as "Not just a mobster", or do you like him to be virtually indistinguishable from a normal functioning and thinking human except "he's a little short"?
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Normal human with a few noticeable traits that don't quite reach deformed by themselves but combine to make him stand out in a slightly off-putting way. Short, rotund, and giant nose are must, syndactyly I can take or leave, and I think a limp is a fine addition to animated and live action portrayals.
I like The Penguin when he is -- and behaves as -- a monster.
I like when he eats fish raw, he snalrs and bite, he fights with gimmick umbrellas and trained birds, etc. His "public persona" may be the odd and overcompensating rich Cobblepot, and his mobster behavior is only for the criminal world (almost like a secret identity).
I also like when he is extremely greedy and nasty.
Human but with an innately cruel and spiteful nature that he hides under a genteel aristocratic exterior. I prefer it when he's a more realistic gangster.
By which I mean its entirely within character for him to order his goons to chainsaw off the heads of his rivals, but he doesn't do that kind of stuff himself, just drowns it out with classical music while he enjoys a salmon steak in the next room.
so basically being a "mobster" is the criminal equivilent for him of pretending to be a aristocrat?
I think he works best when he’s ugly (big nose, fat, a thumb and conjoined fingers, maybe a waddle) but he still acts normal and classy for the most part.
Physical appearance aside, he should be a highly intelligent sociopath who can be gracious one minute and murderous the next.
I prefer Penguin leaning towards his classic thief/criminal-mastermind role, with organized crime as a secondary. He is brilliant, he plans perfect crimes, but he wants to be the gentleman thief. he wants to wear his suit and tophat, gallivant around with his trick umbrellas, and hold an air of magnanimity and class; give his adversary a "good show old sport" or "better luck next time." But he is held back by a cruel streak a mile wide, and when pushed shows him to be just a mobster with a fancy gun and a big ego.
I like when he’s hideous, but dresses like and acts like upper society, yet clearly can’t shake the violent animal inside.
Human, with a pointed nose. Making Cobblepot a deformed sewer mutant in Burton's Batman was fucking stupid, like he originally wrote a script focusing on Killer Croc but changed it last minute. Oswald is a parody of old money, not a edgy monster man.
I like when he's actually an amazing martial artist and lethal threat despite being short and fat, like in The Batman. How often do you see short and fat people fight so skillfully?
Wasn't he the main villain of 60's comic Batman for a while? I mean, there´s gotta be a reason why he's so iconic.
Sammo Hung for Penguin, or Benny the Jet in a fat suit.
I'm fine with him being either "normal" and monstrous as long as it fits the character.
I don't like his TNBA redesign because of how bland it makes him, and conversely I don't like when they try too hard to make him serious and scary like Arkham's stupid bottle-eye, or when the actual comics exaggerate the Returns design (I love Returns and it's version of Penguin, but that doesn't mean it should be what he looks or acts like in-canon, it's a gothic horror reinterpretation meant to be separate), but it's really not hard to design Penguin.
I do take a big fat issue with him being skinny but I give Gotham a pass because it's supposed to be him in his early years, it fits their version of Oswald more so than a fat design would, and he's far and away the most interesting and well-acted character in the show (really the only reason I bothered to watch past the first season).
Really, the one and only thing that ticks me off is this
>have some other psychotic ticks to make him stand out amongst the batman rogues as "Not just a mobster"
and specifically the idea that he has to be some psychotic fuck in order to "stand out" and "not be just a mobster", as if that's what makes Batman villains interesting or what makes Penguin interesting and iconic.
I hate it when comics make him be some over-the-top revenge porn character because they can't fathom a way to make him effective or threatening a villain without it. I hate that this and owning a lounge are what define him now in the comics, instead of his personality.
I didn't mind Returns when it came out and that vision works in Burton's hands but I'd rather he be a calculated, somewhat pudgy, non deformed dude with a slight squawk in a old timey, aristocrat get-up. The trick umbrellas and the affinity for penguins can stay.
I like it better when there's more of a contrast between the way he looks, and the way he acts. Penguin is a criminal and a gentleman, and how much of either he is depends on the adaptation and that's where you can highlight the contrast.
For example, 66 Penguin looks "normal", just a funny-looking guy in a suit and hat. Him playing the role with a rough, rude, hoarse voice, with all the mannerisms of a gangster while dressing his speech in flurid puns and words, works, because it highlights the contrast between the criminal and the gentleman. The Arkham games do it too where he looks normal (minus the stupid bottle), but he's 100% rotten in speech and character and revels in it at every turn.
On the other hand, the TAS version looks like the DeVito Penguin minus the Nosferatu-isms, with webbed hands and slimy hair and excessive mannerisms. But he's played by Paul Williams with great finesse and calm cruelty, which again creates a contrast (something lost when they redesigned him in TNBA to just be a guy with a funny nose).
There has to be a contrast.
No. God I hated that. Felt like every mook on that show knew martial arts. Too much Jackie Chan bleeding in. He can be a threat without throwing roundhouses.
this
He so desperately WANTS to be 'classy', even as a crime figure and does a good job most of the time but his venality always trumps it in the end.
I'm actually ok with that, it shows how driven he is and he loves to beat up Chads any chance he gets.
You say this as you post an image with Burton inspiration. He has flipper hands!
Yeah, I'm sure his master was a mutated kung fu penguin that taught him down in the sewers.
I think the best Penguin is a happy medium. He's not a freak by any standards, but he's small and ugly. Award looking, the kind of kid who would undoubtedly be picked on in school and never be able to do anything about it. He may be more polished and confident now, but it just takes the right teasing comment or embarrassing moment to bring out the real psychopath he is.
Moviecasual pls go back to Yas Forums
As others have mentioned, I like the idea that Penguin wants to be genteel, classy, and upper-class, but his innate cruelty and desire to hurt his enemies keeps dragging him down into the gutter. In theory, Penguin is the one best positioned to replace the organized criminals in Gotham--the Falcones, the Maronis, and such. Because he's a 'classy' gangster, like they were. But he's also a freak, deep down, and he can't run from that forever.
There's a reason the Joker gets along with Penguin the best of all the Rogues. They're both monsters. Penguin just has fancier clothes.
I was being facetious you dope
I thought this series did a good job of making him the crime boss, the angry posh poser & vengeful bastard.
>Penguin just has fancier clothes.
Excuse me??
>There's a reason the Joker gets along with Penguin the best of all the Rogues.
Man I really, really miss Joker and Penguin's weird pseudo-friendship/rivalry. It led to some pretty fun stories and moments in several mediums.
Unfortunately Joker is too big and edgy now to have that kind of dynamic with anyone, especially Penguin.
I got this as a kid and I couldn't for the life of me understand why it looked nothing like the movie. But I've come to dig a more simpler, less exaggerated look to Oswald but still I think he should look a bit weird or a little off to stand out.
>I couldn't for the life of me understand why it looked nothing like the movie.
If I recall it's because they kept Penguin's design, along with a lot of other details about the film, secret for most of the shooting until someone leaked a picture of Danny Devito in make-up, but toys had long began production by that point.
>I've come to dig a more simpler, less exaggerated look to Oswald
I prefer his clothes to be over-the-top fancy and detailed but his appearence to be more or less normal. My favorite thing about the Returns design is the big ass fur coat they went with instead of the usual suit or tailcoat, and I'm glad it's become almost a mainstay of his design ever since.
I really don't think there's anything wrong whatsoever with Returns Penguin's design in the context of the movie he's in, or his character for that matter (minus some scenes where he's written inconsistently), it's only really a problem when they appropriate elements of it in misguided attempts to make him look threatening.
A shame Beware the Batman never got a second season. I liked the design they had teased for him, assuming the wanted poster is accurate.
Penguin should be played by Paul Heyman.
>but toys had long began production by that point.
Kenner in the 90's was notoriously cheap, that Penguin figure was just the Superpowers version from several years before recolored
Batman Returns is honestly my favourite Batman movie and I loved Danny Penguin, though I will admit it probably should stay as a "non-canon" depiction
I prefer him as one of Batman's more normal villains. His whole rogues gallery can't be nothing but insane freaks, we need a few to break the formula a bit.
So was their ever an explanation for this or was it just them doing a version of Penguin they always envisioned and wanted to do and the details why didn't matter. I swear its like Penguin and others shed all their scary onto Scarecrow.
Same.
I don't think it's the best Batman movie but it's easily my favorite Batman movie, if that makes sense. The fact that it's such a radical reinterpretation of Batman only really adds to it. It's like an Elseworlds film, some deranged thought experiment backed up by a gargantuan budget and complete creative freedom. It's the kind of thing that rarely happens.
Given how many people accepted and embraced Joker as a different reinterpretation of the character, I wonder if Returns would have gotten a better reception had it been released now than at the time (but then again, Tim Burton hasn't done anything good in decades and movies don't use these kinds of over-the-top practical effects anymore, so maybe it's for the best it came out when it did)
No, there wasn't.
My headcanon is just that, once he opened the Lounge and realized being legitimate was much more suitable to him than crime, he got plastic surgery and also put a lot of effort into losing weight and correcting his posture.
>was it just them doing a version of Penguin they always envisioned
Well they did originally envision a much more normal Penguin.
But even then their original design still had personality and was still a good middleground between the Returns design and his canon one.
>I swear its like Penguin and others shed all their scary onto Scarecrow.
I wish I could say that getting such crappy redesigns for all the villains was a good trade-off for their phenomenal Scarecrow design, but Scarecrow only had like one episode and some appearences in the Batgirl hallucination one. They really should have used him more.
>rappy redesigns for all the villains
Hey man, Killer Croc's redesign was also an improvement. He looked like a fucking Elder Scrolls troll in the original.
Thanks. That's some great background into all that.
At least I could buy the original Croc as "a big dude with a rare skin disease"
I remember The Batman was also originally gonna have a more normal Penguin but also went with the more gross version in the end. Unfortunately I cannot find the concept because the site I initially saw it on is dead last time I checked.
It's still around. The pictures are just all ant-sized now, though.
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Yeah, that's it! It's a shame they never got to use Scarecrow too, that's a cool design.
I don't agree.
It's not the worst redesign, or even really a bad design for Croc. But the problem with it, and virtually all of the TNBA designs really, is that the angular, cartoony approach robbed the characters of much of their previous physical traits and substance. Of their flesh, so to speak. They stopped being saggy, lumpy people with imperfections in a stylized cartoon world and became angular, static, stylized cartoons in a stylized cartoon world, and I think this affected the episodes for the worse.
Croc's colorless flesh, his craggy bumps and horns simulating scales and showcasing the extent of his condition and the state he's in, the slit in his mouth that carves his grin, he lost all of those and became a Ninja Turtle goon. He gained black claws which he didn't need (since he's supposed to be a wrestling, physical grunt), and the only thing he had resembling scales where those scribbles they drew on his upper body.
I don't think TAS did a great job with Killer Croc all around (the show is to blame for spreading some of the worst misconceptions about the character), and I don't mind at all a Croc who is more overtly reptilian (case in point, I love The Batman's version of Croc, even if he absolutely is a Ninja Turtle villain), but I don't think Croc gained anything from the redesign, and ended up losing the imperfections that made his design work for the better.
>like he originally wrote a script focusing on Killer Croc
Ah yes, the smart politician mastermind Killer Croc whos dream is to be the mayor of Gotham and later unleash a biblical tragedy on the firstborns. Are you stupid? Other than hurrdurrr sewers and ugly there is nothing in common between them.
>some dust enters your eye
>accidentally look towards Penguin
>Kill the family, the neighbors, frame his friends, rape the dog blablablabla
Yeah it was funny the first time. Was it during the Joker's tales? Cant remember. But they abused that stupid scene so many times I roll my eyes when it happens again and again and again. STOP IT.
Kinda liked Bendis short story of future Penguin.
Yeah I really don't get why this criticism is parroted so often (the very idea of Burton knowing about Killer Croc in the first place is unlikely since he plainly said he mostly knew Batman from the show and the comics he was given as a reference to make '89).
"Born and raised in the sewers" is as classic a backstory for tragic monsters as it gets, and it's the kind of Frankenstein/Phantom of the Opera imagery that the movie is obviously and repeteadly trying to evoke with every frame. Killer Croc didn't invent it (hell, Croc wasn't raised in the sewer either).
I actually really like his Arkham design, though i would give him the personality of the BTAS version
What is that and why have you cursed the existence of eyeballs with it's presence
OH NO ITS JONAH HILL
DC Super Hero Girls is doing an episode with Oswald as the school mobster.
I was personally hoping Penguin was an established adult villain and his son was the one Babs dealt with, but oh well.
That’s why I like Black Mask, because instead of a loon he’s actually really focused, so it makes sense he would run most of Gotham’s crime.
To be fair the ages are all sorts of fucked in that show, why is Batman easily in his mid-20's while Superman is 18-19 and Wonder Woman is in high school?
And that's the design they are going with?
It really doesn't look like the show's art style
Not necessarily king fu shit, but I think the idea of Penguin being capable in a fight despite his demeanor is a good idea, just not with goofy backflips.
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Classic one.
Personally, I don't think penguin needs to look deformed or more exaggerated than the rest of the people in the artstyle. He gets enough across as a fat old man with a big nose and fancy clothing.
As for personality, I like him polite, civilized and dangerous, kind of like a bond villain. Not to say he doesn't act like an asshole, he just does it politely, think of the classic cad archetype like in school for scoundrels.
Part of the issue is that DC has tacked so many things onto Oswald's background that at this point pretty much anything you do is going to feel incongruous with something else.
Something I feel that is an overlooked opportunity is to add a metafictional component to Penguin. It's still canon that he started out as a classic supervillain then transitioned to his current status quo. One could easily be able to spin it as him not needing to be violent and brutal in his earlier career, when you've got a flock of trained birds to distract a roomful of people while you abscond with the Jeweled Hawk of Monaco you don't really need to be violent except as a show of force towards anyone trying to play hero, only needing to be serious when someone like Batman shows up. But after transitioning to organized crime he's now the boss and as such he's got to make examples out of people, both remind his contemporaries that he's not a pushover and to keep everyone looking for a score afraid of him. Can't just set the back of someone's pants on fire with a flamethrower umbrella and call it day, you've got to douse a guy in gasoline and light him up while making his friends watch to keep your rep. It'd be the opposite of most modern incarnations of Penguin - instead of a crude, brutal man draping himself in a veneer of class, you've got a civil, refined man who cloaks himself in brutality and barbarity. Rather wearing a sadistic smile at what he's done he gives a weary sigh at what he had to do, but that's the way the game is played and he's very good at it.